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Rotten Interview Skills?


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This is my first year applying to PA school, and this forum has been great! However, I would say the entire process has been a bit discouraging. I applied to 6 schools, am under review at 3, have interviewed at 2 and been rejected from both of those interviews. The first time I tried not to take it personally, and hoped it was more to do with the fact that they received 2000 applicants and at the time of my interview I still had 4 prerequisites to complete which was even mentioned by one of my interviewers.  The second interview seemed to go well...or so I thought. The questions were straight forward-"why PA, where do you see yourself in 5 years, why our school". I answered honestly, wasn't nervous, and "was myself" but still received another rejection email. Neither school has offered feedback even though I have asked.  

 

As far as prep work, before my first interview I typed out hundreds of behavioral, traditional, ethical questions and answers. I read both of Andrew Rodican's books. I paid for a mock interview with a pa coach that told me I did great and felt there were no issues. I always research the faculty and the school and have several questions to ask at the end of my interviews. I always engage in conversations with other applicants, and get along very well with others. 

 

As for faults, I feel like I do not remember to use the STAR method enough, and I do not feel comfortable answering the "why should we pick you over another candidate" simply because I feel like I am just an average candidate in a sea of so many others and don't want to seem arrogant. How did some of you answer the "why should we pick you" question?  Other than that I am at a loss at what I am doing wrong. I am wondering are my answers just that off base???

 

I received another interview invite today and hope to hear from another school very soon. I am worried I am going to mess it up. I definitely do not want to keep making the same mistakes during this cycle...and I believe I must be making some mistake in my interview.  My application is competitive, and obviously I have what it takes to get an interview but something goes awry. What am I missing here? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

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Great work getting the interviews! This definitely does mean you are a competitive applicant and even though it's just n=2, what is holding you back is most certainly your interview skills. I really doubt the prereqs were the issue because they gave you an interview knowing you had classes to finish. What's the point of doing an interview if the prereqs were an issue to begin with, they knew that prior to the interview. That just seems to waste the time of both parties. For your second interview, maybe you didnt provide good answers to the questions. What were your questions and answers precisely? You can PM me if you don't feel comfortable posting Q&A here. Like actually type out every word you said just like during the interview. The little things sometime make the biggest difference. 

 

Prep work seems great. Um i don't even know what STAR method is lol. I didn't really get asked the "why should we accept you over another candidate question" but i think my answer is pretty basic. 

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First of all, all I know about you is what I read in your post.

 

My feeling is that (a) you sound a bit over-rehearsed (read all the books, typed the answers to hundreds of questions, etc), (b) you got some competitive, brush-back questions ("why the heck should we pick you over the other guys"), and (c ) you have to be "comfortable" -- at least sometimes -- to answer a question.

 

OK, clearly an interview can be a stressful situation, but it is an experience that -- whether you like it or not -- will be repeated over and over during your working life, and most of the time you won't get a chance to prepare at all. In any event, I submit that over-rehearsing is a killer: it makes you pause to think how the manufactured person you designed in your write-ups "should" respond. Thinking about questions and answers is fine, but do it too much and you can appear inauthentic, which is a killer. The only way I know to be likable and authentic is to be yourself.

 

Next, I think it's OK to not want to run down the other guys when you are asked a competitive question. Talk about your traits and let the interviewers decide where you fit. After all, you don't know the other guys and the interviewers do, and it's their decision. Take a lesson from the presidential candidates (but only SOME lessons!): sometimes you answer the question that you wanted to answer. Gently turn their question to where you'd like it.

 

Finally, to borrow a tennis phrase, none of these interviews is "match point" in your life. You will have other chances at other times. Thinking that a performance is make-or-break just gets you to tighten up and not be yourself. Relax!!! BE yourself and be likable. Just be the a bit less shy and slightly more formal version.

 

If they don't pick you, they don't. At least it will be the best "you" that they didn't select and not some artificial applicant that you had let yourself become.

 

The game isn't over! Good luck!

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Thank you both!  MyNameWasUsed, I will pm you some of my answers...maybe that will shed some light. LOL.  

 

I resigned from an upper level healthcare position of 11 years, and didn't really feel like I had a problem with interviews and public speaking. Maybe I am appearing too rehearsed though.  I have spent retirement money to pay for prerequisites and feel like I have so much pressure to succeed this cycle.  Even better, I have some family members emailing me jobs suggesting I give up and go back to work since I have already been rejected twice. As an older, non-traditional applicant I feel like I don't have time to waste on multiple cycles.  I would rather work on whatever I am doing wrong now, and prevent any further mishaps if possible. Thank you again!

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Mock interviews are really helpful. None of your answers should be memorized. Just be yourself. It's normal to be nervous, but try telling yourself it's excitement instead. Have a positive attitude going in. Making a mistake here and there won't hurt you. They expect genuine answers that aren't always the best over scripted perfect answers. Give yourself time to think when you get those behavioral questions. They don't expect you to answer immediately. Give them some reasoning behind why you made the choice and that's all there is too it. There's never a right answer and they know it. Give them a reason why they should pick you if the opportunity presents itself, it's okay to show off a little. Good luck on your upcoming interviews!

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I had a (somewhat) similar experience to you. After one school rejected me I replayed the day over in my head a 1000 times and to this day I am mystified as to why I got the boot. I have written my best advice in the interview tips, but one thing I will repeat here is that I think the bar is probably much higher for older candidates.

 

The level of maturity and thoughtfulness in your post definitely gives me the impression that you have the right stuff for interviews. Normally I would guess that there's probably something wrong with you that can't be seen in your online posts, but the fact that an objective third party coach said you did great suggests that maybe you are good and just had a bad run. The people that conduct interviews for PA school are, by and large, not professional interviewers and have little in the way of special training or qualification to do interviews. When they have to weed out the field, I can imagine the reasoning gets quite arbitrary.

 

Did you leak any "bad" information? One online acquaintance I had said she was rejected by a school and they told her that everyone in the interview loved her, but they would not accept her because she took her prereqs at a community college. I believed that for a while, but in retrospect, I think it was something else: she is a single mother and she probably mentioned this in the interview. An adcom would never admit to rejecting someone for that reason, but they are going to weigh any variable that would make a student more likely to burn out in grad school or beyond.

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I had a (somewhat) similar experience to you. After one school rejected me I replayed the day over in my head a 1000 times and to this day I am mystified as to why I got the boot. I have written my best advice in the interview tips, but one thing I will repeat here is that I think the bar is probably much higher for older candidates.

 

The level of maturity and thoughtfulness in your post definitely gives me the impression that you have the right stuff for interviews. Normally I would guess that there's probably something wrong with you that can't be seen in your online posts, but the fact that an objective third party coach said you did great suggests that maybe you are good and just had a bad run. The people that conduct interviews for PA school are, by and large, not professional interviewers and have little in the way of special training or qualification to do interviews. When they have to weed out the field, I can imagine the reasoning gets quite arbitrary.

 

Did you leak any "bad" information? One online acquaintance I had said she was rejected by a school and they told her that everyone in the interview loved her, but they would not accept her because she took her prereqs at a community college. I believed that for a while, but in retrospect, I think it was something else: she is a single mother and she probably mentioned this in the interview. An adcom would never admit to rejecting someone for that reason, but they are going to weigh any variable that would make a student more likely to burn out in grad school or beyond.

I definitely agree with the bar being set higher for older applicants.  I was even told in one interview that they simply don't accept older applicants that won't fit in socially with the "younger applicant pool".  Crazy to me.  As older applicant, I am not applying because this is a popular profession on Forbes. I am applying because I have worked with PA's for over a decade, and I know without a shadow of a doubt this is what I want to do to contribute to my community. I have learned so much working several years as part of the healthcare team, and I had hoped that would be to my benefit. Doesn't always seem to be the case. It seems some programs are more interested in newly minted undergrads with minimal experience. While I do wish I had applied earlier in life, that's not the case. Thankfully, I have seen other programs that specifically encourage non-traditional applicants, which I didn't notice until after I had submitted my CASPA. Nice to see those are out there at least. 

 

I do have a child as you mentioned above, and have mentioned her in my narrative actually.  My first interviewer asked me how I felt I would juggle her and PA school.  So I agree with you on that point also.  Guess you never know what they may hold against you or see as a red flag. 

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 I was even told in one interview that they simply don't accept older applicants that won't fit in socially with the "younger applicant pool".  

 

Is this legal? If someone said that in a job interview, I expect that they'd have problems.

 

Even if it is, it reflects a sufficiently narrow-minded point of view to disqualify them as a good option for anyone. It's certainly not anywhere I'd want to attend. 

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Is this legal? If someone said that in a job interview, I expect that they'd have problems.

 

Even if it is, it reflects a sufficiently narrow-minded point of view to disqualify them as a good option for anyone. It's certainly not anywhere I'd want to attend. 

He said they ask older applicants how they feel they will fit in with the younger applicants in the class since they will be the majority. If they respond in anyway that they are only there to learn and become a PA they get rejected. Seems harsh. I do agree that its important to make connections with your classmates, form study groups, share notes, etc with classmates though.

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My thoughts exactly. He said they ask older applicants how they feel they will fit in with the younger applicants in the class since they will be the majority. If they respond in anyway that they are only there to learn and become a PA they get rejected. Seems harsh. I do agree that its important to make connections with your classmates, form study groups, share notes, etc with classmates though.

Consider this: it's not just a question of how you'll fit it with your classmates; it's how you'll fit in with your future COLLEAGUES. Now that so many fresh out of undergrad applicants, with little to no patient care experience, are entering programs, the similarly-threaded question applies to them (e.g., 'you're quite young now and will be quite young when you graduate; how do you anticipate fitting in with classmates with much more extensive HC experience?' Or, 'you'll be a clinician; what are you going to do when a veteran nurse questions your orders for a patient?'). I think I was asked a similar 'older applicant' question, but I didn't overthink it -- I answered honestly. In returning to school for pre-reqs, I had mostly classmates and lab partners that were younger than my children. They had fresher knowledge and techniques than I in some areas. I learned (or maybe re-learned) some ways to easily structure and solve chemistry problems from a couple of fresh from high school students. On the flip side, when their significant other drama interfered with school time, they received some sage guidance (I hope it was -- regardless, it did tend to get them back to the task at hand).

 

Back to the original question, it is possible that you are too rehearsed and/or too polished or assured in your conduct in the interview; perhaps some of the demeanor that you've acquired from a position in "upper level healthcare" is an issue. I had one program where I interviewed that obliquely indicated that I wasn't humble enough or something similar.

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when answering the "why should we pick you?" question, i would focus on the answering the question "what can you do for your future classmates". do you have any strengths and traits that might be beneficial for your future classmates? mention them. thats how i answered this interview question. (I got into one program)

 

another thing that I did was, I taped myself doing mock interviews with my friends and peers. You of course have to ask them first if it is okay to be taped, but that helped me analyze my body language and my communication skills (it's not overdoing it if it helps a bigger purpose -> getting that acceptance letter) if you dont have people doing mock interviews, tape yourself on your laptop while questioning and answering yourself.

 

good luck!

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