Skip to main content

Job Interviewing Techniques in Medicine and Beyond


It would seem self-evident that an applicant for a job should be scrupulously honest.  First, it is the right thing to do.  Secondly, in our digital era, one’s academic record can be accessed back to kindergarten.  Yet, many applicants will embellish their credentials or claim a skill level that may exceed reality.  Thirty years ago, I was applying for my first job in New Jersey after completing my 2 year gastroenterology (GI) fellowship.  I was not competent to perform ERCP, a complex scope examination that GI practices desperately still want to add to their practices' skill sets.  Yet, I was advised by a practicing GI physician to simply claim that I could do the procedure.  Otherwise, he said, they would simply pass me by.  I queried the practitioner on my proposed course of action after being hired if I were summoned to perform an ERCP.  Decades later, I do not recall his response.   I can imagine what my new employer’s response might have been upon discovering that I had misrepresented my skills.. 



Should Applicants or Employers Take a Polygraph?


How honest should an interviewer be with a job applicant?   On the day that I wrote this, I read of a technique where an interviewer who is meeting a job applicant at a restaurant, secretly arranges for the applicant’s meal to be messed up in some way.  The justification is to see how the applicant reacts in real time to an unforeseen and unfavorable event.   It reminds me of my initial interview at NYU School of Medicine, when the interviewer, among other slippery questions, asked me “what is the death rate?”   The correct answer, which I luckily knew, is 100%.  Perhaps, this demonstration of my nimble intellect explains why they accepted me. 

I do not support subterfuge in a job interview to gauge applicants’ behaviors.   It’s certainly fair game to present hypotheticals, but outright trickery should be out of bounds.  And, if an interviewer is overtly dishonest, can this person be trusted after the hire?  If we sanction employer legerdemain, then should we not permit the applicant to play tricks on the interviewer to gauge his or her behavior and the company’s culture? 

I’ve always played it straight.  It’s all I know.  As for the position in New Jersey referenced above,  I didn't get the job.  And, so my life in Cleveland began.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When Should Doctors Retire?

I am asked with some regularity whether I am aiming to retire in the near term.  Years ago, I never received such inquiries.  Why now?   Might it be because my coiffure and goatee – although finely-manicured – has long entered the gray area?  Could it be because many other even younger physicians have given up their stethoscopes for lives of leisure? (Hopefully, my inquiring patients are not suspecting me of professional performance lapses!) Interestingly, a nurse in my office recently approached me and asked me sotto voce that she heard I was retiring.    “Interesting,” I remarked.   Since I was unaware of this retirement news, I asked her when would be my last day at work.   I have no idea where this erroneous rumor originated from.   I requested that my nurse-friend contact her flawed intel source and set him or her straight.   Retirement might seem tempting to me as I have so many other interests.   Indeed, reading and studying, two longstanding personal pleasures, could be ext

The VIP Syndrome Threatens Doctors' Health

Over the years, I have treated various medical professionals from physicians to nurses to veterinarians to optometrists and to occasional medical residents in training. Are these folks different from other patients?  Are there specific challenges treating folks who have a deep knowledge of the medical profession?   Are their unique risks to be wary of when the patient is a medical professional? First, it’s still a running joke in the profession that if a medical student develops an ordinary symptom, then he worries that he has a horrible disease.  This is because the student’s experience in the hospital and the required reading are predominantly devoted to serious illnesses.  So, if the student develops some constipation, for example, he may fear that he has a bowel blockage, similar to one of his patients on the ward.. More experienced medical professionals may also bring above average anxiety to the office visit.  Physicians, after all, are members of the human species.  A pulmon

Should Doctors Wear White Coats?

Many professions can be easily identified by their uniforms or state of dress. Consider how easy it is for us to identify a policeman, a judge, a baseball player, a housekeeper, a chef, or a soldier.  There must be a reason why so many professions require a uniform.  Presumably, it is to create team spirit among colleagues and to communicate a message to the clientele.  It certainly doesn’t enhance professional performance.  For instance, do we think if a judge ditches the robe and is wearing jeans and a T-shirt, that he or she cannot issue sage rulings?  If members of a baseball team showed up dressed in comfortable street clothes, would they commit more errors or achieve fewer hits?  The medical profession for most of its existence has had its own uniform.   Male doctors donned a shirt and tie and all doctors wore the iconic white coat.   The stated reason was that this created an aura of professionalism that inspired confidence in patients and their families.   Indeed, even today