ST INTERVIEW SKILLS BACKGROUND Background
ST interviews are structured interviews centred based on a multiple-stations format
‘Structured’ means that the interviews are no longer an assessment tool whereby candidates were asked a few questions and were recruited on the subjective judgement of the interviewers. Instead, each question is targeting one or several skills and candidates are marked according to a strict schedule defined in advance by the interviewers. Previously, SHO and SpR interviews also had a marking schedule but the criteria were not so clearly defined.
The move to a structured interview process has several consequences:
- There is more emphasis on questions asking for scenarios or examples of situations where youdemonstrated various skills. In some specialties, there is also a greater emphasis on clinical scenarios.
- The interview process has become more of a “tick the boxes” exercise where you are expected to demonstrate the specific skills that are on the marking sheet. This requires a greater understanding of the interview process and of what the interviewers may be looking for.
- There is a greater emphasis on the content of the answers, though obviously the delivery of the answer also matters a lot
Stations
The process is based on a series of stations, the length and nature of which varies according to the deanery and specialty that you are being interviewed for. Typically, an interview consists of 3 or 4 stations, each 10 minutes long.
The stations will usually deal with different topics such as:
- Station 1: Clinical scenarios
- Station 2: Research, audit and teaching
- Station 3: Motivation and general questions
- Station 4: Risk management & difficult work situations. Usually, each station will deal with a different topic; however there have been numerous exceptions.
For example, some candidates (e.g. Anaesthesia in London) have had mostly clinical scenarios in all stations. Others (such as some specialties in Scotland) have only had one big station with a wide range of questions i.e. essentially an old style interview. In addition to stations based on a questions and answers format, some specialties have introduced role-play in many deaneries (e.g. O&G) and even group discussions (e.g. Psychiatry).
