The residency interview is a critical stage in the process of residency selection. All the months of paperwork preparation finally rewards you with the chance to find out how the programs on your list actually compare with one another.
Goals of the Interview
The key objective for your interview can be summarized with three goals:
- Assess how compatible you are with the program and how well the program meets your stated goals.
- Convey your sense of compatibility with the program to those faculty members, residents and staff who interview you. This goes beyond making a good impression. In a sense, you are “trying the program on” or demonstrating to the faculty and residents of the program that you would be a welcome addition to their ranks. Indeed, you may want to think of your interview as an exercise in role-playing with you in the role of a recently matched resident in that program. Role-playing is not the same as acting. In your eagerness to charm and impress your interviewers, avoid insincerity. Your interviewers want to find out who you really are. It doesn’t serve anyone’s purpose for you to give a false impression.
- Assess the program’s relative strengths and weaknesses so that you will be able to structure a justifiable rank order list. Be careful not to let your attention to the third goal obscure the need to attend to the first two. The residency candidate who prepares, in advance, to address all three goals will increase the chance of having a successful match. The goals of the programs during the interview process are similar to those of the residency candidate. They seek to confirm and expand upon the information that you provided in your application. They are also trying to determine how compatible you would be with the residents and faculty in the program. Just as you are trying to put your best foot forward, the representatives of the residency program want to show their program in the best possible light. However, it is ultimately not in the best interest of the program to paint a misleading picture. Like you, your interviewers are attempting to shape their rank order list of their candidates for the Match.
In short, the residency interview is a delicate and complicated interaction, which adds substance to the selection process for both the candidates and programs.
