Tech Tips for Interview Season
Written by Clarissa E. Jordan, MD
Having gone through the process two years ago, I’m really passionate about helping others in the match and wanted to share what I learned in the hopes that it might be useful. First a couple of disclaimers: these are my personal opinions and experiences regarding the match and may not be representative of all participants. The views expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.
The residency interview season and match process is stressful and overwhelming at times, but I believe you can use technology to make things easier for yourself by keeping things organized, efficient, and frictionless. Here’s a couple of tips I learned when I went through the process:
Invitation season
Even just the process of getting interviews can be competitive! If you have a smartwatch, turn on those notifications. If you’re on a busy rotation, explain to your upper levels and attendings that you may need to step out of the room periodically to accept interview offers. If you’re worried about missing an invitation, consider sharing your email and calendar with a significant other/parent/good friend who can answer emails for you.
Another thing you can do for yourself to save time and respond to invitations quickly is to make email templates. This is especially important if someone else is going to be answering emails for you! I wrote a basic skeleton for each email type (accept, decline), used the Epic wildcard symbol (***) for adding in program-specific information, and saved it in my drafts folder for ease of access.
For example:
Dear *** (coordinator),
My name is ***, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to interview with the *** Pathology department. My preferred dates are ***. Thank you for...
Before you send, make sure you fill in all the wild cards and personalize the email for the program too!
During Interviews
The most high-yield tip I have for interview season is to make a Google Form to keep track of your thoughts and impressions. Essentially, make a survey for yourself with topics and questions you think are important, and fill it out after each interview.
In my opinion, making yourself a survey is a good idea because:
- It gives you a list of questions you actually care about, for the inevitable “What questions do you have for me?”
- Asking yourself the same/similar questions of each program brings a little standardization to a super subjective process
- Looking at it before interviews helps you ensure you don’t forget to ask about topics that are important to you
- The survey format is a relatively painless way to gather your thoughts after a tiring day of open houses and/or interviews
The results of your surveys will go into a spreadsheet organized by program. This provides you a consolidated place to review your program impressions and compare them as you're making your rank order list.
What should you include in your survey? That depends on you, and luckily, you can customize it to your heart’s content! I asked myself a wide variety of questions, like
- Would residents choose this program again?
- Is the city dog-friendly?
- How is progress assessed? Are there regular opportunities for feedback?
- What does work-life balance look like in this program?
- What fellowships are available?
- What’s the conference/didactic schedule?
- How’s research support?
Make sure to fill out your survey right after your interview — you’d be surprised how much you forget! I promise it will be very useful to you as you’re compiling your rank list.
Good luck in the match!
