Interview Day (Part 1)

I know this is a while down the track for most of you but it can’t hurt to know what interview day is like for those coming to Monash or Adelaide. 2012, when I was just finishing up with VCE® Exam, is when I had my medical interviews. My first one was at Adelaide and then my second one at Monash. After Monash I didn’t attend any more interviews in UWS or UNSW because I had received offers for the first two places I interviewed for. However, while interview structure may change there are a lot of fundamentals that stay the same; we can talk about this in another blog though. I did the Adelaide interview first even though Monash was my first preference because I wanted experience. I highly recommend this to anyone who has the opportunity to do so, try to get a “practice” interview in before the one that you want.
 

Adelaide
Adelaide University is beautiful. That’s the first thing I noticed. Honestly on the day of my interview its sprawling campus and greenery amazed me, which consequently meant that I was lost and running late.  This is where I learnt my first big important lesson for interviews, get there early, there is no time that is too early. I’m from Melbourne so I took the flight up the evening before and stayed in a hotel near the campus, of course university campuses are nothing like school campuses and can stretch for kilometres. This is where lesson two came in, always do a dry run before your interview, finding the place, parking etc. It can relieve a lot of stress on the day.

So with all those shenanigans out of the way I walked into the interview building got my name tag and registered my details. There was a LOT of paperwork and identifying documents to bring in so prepare and be aware, this is the case for all interviews. Once this process was complete I was sequestered in a room with some other candidates, there was food and some current students there to just talk to us and calm us down for the process. Adelaide University has a two-part interview; one half is similar to an MMI and the other part just full of interview questions directed at you.  Eventually my name was called and I was put in front of a door with a stem, handed a pencil some paper and was told at two minutes I was to walk through the door and start talking. Essentially that’s what I did, I went in as confident as possible, whether I knew what I was saying or I didn’t I just kept talking. For the second part of the interview, the personal questions, I took a slightly different approach I wanted to listen and take my time to answer questions; no one wants answers to seem rehearsed, even if they have been!

Thinking back now for the life of me I don’t remember what the questions were that I was asked. What I can remember is a distinct feeling of thinking there is no right answer to any of these questions. This was probably my biggest take away from my “practice” interview. Its one thing to be told there is no right answers in an interview but it’s a whole other thing to realise how true it is. The examiners were not concerned with my opinions but how I expressed my self, my manners, my posture, my thought structure and my open-mindedness. I didn’t have to get the “right” answer to questions to show them I could do those things.

Going into this interview I had done no preparation, in fact I didn’t even know much about the university itself. I would strongly advise you to not do it this way. Do a preparation course, practice and research! It is really important, even if it may be a “practice” interview, to build enough confidence to know you are going to do well. If I had a chance to redo this interview I can confidently say I would have definitely prepared and joined some kind of interview training to get me through it.

Next time I’ll go through what my Monash interview was like and what lessons to take away. It definitely had an interesting structure and one that I think is worth knowing something about this far in advance, its nothing like anything you will do outside of the medical field.