Interview Q&A Flashcards
Personal Narrative:
1) “Tell me about yourself.”
2) “Why did you apply for this job?”
3) “What attracts you to our firm?”
- How may I address you?
- Good afternoon, Mr/Ms [family name]!
- Name, Year 4 NUS Pharmacy undergraduate, currently working on FYP
- FYP working title (Understanding the MOA of alpha-mangostin, curcumin & lycopene in the in vitro protection against cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity)
- Keen to start my career as a clinical pharmacist
- Why?: Enable our society to live better lives through optimisation of medication dosing schedules for improved quality of life.
STAR Framework:
- Motivation: Experience in receiving Tx for lymphoma in late 2018 and late 2019
- Care & concern received during road to recovery in both initial Tx period & relapse greatly influenced my perspective in providing patient-centric care
- Medical team I/C imparted their knowledge & know-how whenever I am lucid,
-Medical team made aware of my education background as a Pharmacy undergraduate interested in knowing more of what they do and why they do.
- Blessing in disguise & reshaped my perspective when I resumed my studies
- Used to pursue grades and accolades prior to my lymphoma experience; now taking every opportunity as a learning experience to prepare me for my career in the future as a clinical pharmacist
Hypothetical & Situational:
1) “What would you do if you had to work with an uncooperative teammate?”
Behavioural:
1) “Tell me about a time when you displayed collaboration / initiative / creativity / ambition / innovation / a pioneering spirit / responsibility*.”
2) “Tell me about a big event you organised, how did you do it?”
C-STAR Framework:
C: 1st have a chat with the teammate to understand his/her difficulties that may underpin her lack of cooperation.
S:
- A/V IC for the School of Christian Leadership 2022, a ten-day stay-in retreat organised by the Office for Young People, the youth arm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore
T:
- Lack of communication betw/ team members and me in coordinating which part of the day were they responsible for in coordinating the communications and flow of information between session speakers and worship leaders and retrieving relevant information to be presented to the school.
- As many of my team members were also responsible for taking care of the welfare of the participants, it was physically taxing on them to juggle between their roles as facilitators and handling the audio & visual communications.
A:
- Thus, as soon as a window of opportunity arise, I coordinated a meeting with my team members and the staff member in charge of our team and facilitated a discussion on how they were coping with their multiple roles and how we can help them alleviate their difficulties.
R:
- Modified our current plan and manpower allocation to provide the team members more rest time and enable them to juggle the co-responsibilities better, in the presence of the staff member for accountability.
Hypothetical & Situational:
1) “What would you do if you had to work with an uncooperative teammate?”
Behavioural:
1) “What was your biggest setback and how did you recover from it?”
2) “How have you managed difficult teammates?”
C-STAR Framework:
C: 1st have a chat with the teammate to understand his/her difficulties that may underpin her lack of cooperation.
S: During one of my semesters, my assigned group within my class were tasked to prepare a group presentation to critically evaluate a research article on whether patients who are receiving ACE inhibitors for hypertension should continue taking their medication during the time recuperating from COVID-19.
T: I had a classmate who was unresponsive to our messages in our group chat.
A: Thus, I raised with the group that there is a possibility that he may be facing personal difficulties that are difficult for him to share and proposed to have a chat with him individually first.
R:
- Indeed, he did share his difficulties with me and moderated another discussion with the group to discuss how best to allocate our responsibilities in preparing for the oral presentation considering his difficulties and not penalise him for the circumstances he did not have control over.
- We eventually managed to perform within our expectations for the presentation without many issues henceforth.
Behavioural:
1) What are your strengths?
Industry Awareness:
1) “What skills do you think are needed to be successful in this role?”
I believe that there are three skills that will be vital to perform well as a clinical pharmacist.
1st: Adaptable to changes
- Spontaneity is going to be part and parcel of the job
- Likely instances in which sudden changes to the current medication plan may be introduced
- While I cannot change the circumstances that I am placed in, what I can change is my internal disposition in facing these challenges
- Choose to allow these changes to be a learning experience for me to grow and expand my knowledge base in handling cases in the future
2nd: Being motivated
- If unsure, will endeavour to identify my knowledge gaps in the subject
- Source for answers from either my peers, colleagues, seniors, or credible sources via the Internet.
- Ensure accountability on my part as a healthcare professional, and above all, to not cause harm to the patients that I am responsible for.
- Designation in which I am attached should not be the focus, but the attitude I approach my responsibilities is what matters most
- To treat patients holistically with patient-centric care, and not just the disease.
3rd: Humility
- Especially in the first few years post-graduation as a newly-minted pharmacist.
- As clinical practice guidelines will renew themselves to keep up-to-date with new evidence-based therapeutic options, I too believe that it is my due diligence to recognise that there will be moments in which I may not be able to provide an informed answer to other healthcare professionals’ enquiries related to pharmacotherapy
- Thus the need to keep abreast with the evolving pharmacy landscape and healthcare at large.
- Even in situations where I made mistakes, I believe honesty is the best policy and will strive to admit my mistakes at the first opportunity before harm reaches the patient.
Conclusion:
Hence, I believe that by being adaptable to changes, motivated to serve patient-centred care to my patients and having the humility to admit my gaps, so as to work towards bridging them, these three skills will help me to perform well to the best of my ability as a clinical pharmacist.
Personal Narrative:
1) “What are your aspirations for the next few years?”
Industry Awareness:
1) “Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?”
1st:
- Explore as many learning opportunities as possible in various fields of discipline within my job scope as a pharmacist
- Expand my knowledge base as wide as possible
- Before synthesising these experiences and refining my know-how in dealing with patient cases in the future.
2nd:
- Work towards specialising as an oncology pharmacist in the next 5 years
- Open myself up to opportunities to further develop myself as a newly-minted pharmacist, before specialisation.
- Aware that being an oncology speciality pharmacist will require me to be knowledgeable and competent in fielding enquiries outside of oncology as well since many of our patients have comorbidities and are complex by nature.
- Need for me to be well-versed in other fields of pharmacotherapy besides oncology, such as cardiology, endocrinology and urology pharmacotherapies as well.
3rd:
- I alone cannot experience every possible opportunity available to expand my knowledge base to cover as many fields as possible.
- Thus, to expand my network to meet up with other clinicians, pharmacists, nurses and allied healthcare professionals through non-work-related activities
- To ask for help and assistance when the need arises.
- Each of us only has finite time and resources to keep up to date with the changes in pharmacotherapy clinical guidelines in the ever-changing healthcare landscape.
- Thus, I believe that through networking, I can tap onto each other’s knowledge bases for help, while being available as a resource to be tapped on as well.
Behavioural:
1) What was one failure you encountered? How did you overcome it?
2) Name one weakness you have or had. How did you overcome it?
C-STAR Framework:
C: Require more time than usual to complete tasks which are new to me.
S: During my first PPSD assessment on medication dispensing and counselling, failed to complete task in time with given period of 10 min.
T: To be more familiar with the approach and framework by adopting a more systematic approach, with the help and advice from peers and professors
A: Prepare ahead of time and practice with peers; prepare flashcards and use spaced repetition & active recall with make-believe cases to practise on over the past 2 years
R: To be honest, I may be slower in producing results as compared to my peers at times but despite that, I know I am improving. In the most recent skill-based assessment last academic semester on patient presentation, I was able to present under 10 min.
Personal Narrative:
1) “What motivates you?”
2) “What work environment gets the best out of you?”
- A nurturing environment that allows growth
- Mentorship plays a vital role in allowing newly-minted pharmacists such as myself to learn the ropes in a titrated manner, while having the safe space to fail and learn
- Opportunities to push my limits, but not overstretching to exhaustion, and gain exposure to as many fields as possible with new eyes and perspective as a freshly-minted pharmacist
Personal Narrative:
1) “What do you do in your free time?”
- Involved in the Catholic youth scene and actively serving under the Office for Young People as a service team member for the university communities through retreats over the summer and winter holidays, and in their ministries during the academic semester
- Run public Dungeons & Dragons sessions as a dungeon master in my spare time, which a tabletop role-playing game that allows players to relieve their stress and fatigue from their work by stepping in the shoes of adventurers in a fantasy-based world; can sometimes be a cathartic experience depending on the adventure module ran, and a learning experience for themselves to discover parts of themselves they never knew it existed
- Rock climbing pre-COVID; means to puzzle solve while keeping active.
