Not all PA school interviews are the same, and walking in without knowing which format you're getting is a mistake you can easily avoid.

In this webinar I break down the three you'll run into. Traditional interviews are a conversation, usually one-on-one or with a small panel. Behavioral interviews want specific stories from your past. And then there's the MMI, which everybody dreads - a series of short timed stations, often with scenarios that have nothing to do with medicine.

The MMI isn't as scary as its reputation. It's testing whether you can think on your feet and explain your reasoning. You don't have to have the right answer. You have to have a reason for your answer.

Across all three formats, the same thing wins: knowing your own experiences well enough to pull the right one out on demand, and practicing out loud before the day of.

What I cover:

• Traditional interviews and what panels are listening for
• Behavioral questions and how to structure your stories
• What actually happens at an MMI station
• Why there's often no right answer, just better reasoning
• Using mock interviews to find your weak spots
• Being able to explain why PA, clearly and quickly

Resources:

PA School Interview Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/physician-assistant-school-interview-guide

Interview course: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pa-school-interview-course

Mock interview: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/mock-interview

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Welcome to episode 47 of the Pre Pa Club podcast and the last of our webinar series where we're talking about different types of interviews.

There's a lot.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey, guys, my name is Savannah.

I am the host of the Prepa Club Podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me on episode 40.

So we made it this far.

And if you aren't already subscribed to the podcast, if you want to get episodes downloaded straight to your phone, you can subscribe on itunes.

They also upload each week to the PA platform, so make sure you don't miss that.

And if you've enjoyed the podcast, go ahead, give us a review on itunes.

It helps more people find it, but I'm really excited for what we have coming up for the next few weeks.

If you're just tuning in, then I should inform you that I am very pregnant.

If you've been following me on Instagram, you have probably seen that.

But in the next few weeks, I. I will be having a baby girl and going on maternity leave.

But I don't want to leave you guys hanging because you guys need information.

And luckily, I have some really cool stuff for you.

So we'll jump into that and I'll explain in just a second.

But first of all, I want to thank our sponsor for the podcast, mypa.

All right, so for the next few weeks, as I am preparing for this baby, I am going to share some content with you that I've actually created.

Over the last year, I did some.

Webinars on YouTube, and they're still there.

The links will be in the descriptions for each of these, but.

And if you've listened to other ones, you can probably jump ahead a little bit.

But I've done different topics ranging from pre PA stuff, talking about PA school, talking about being a dermatology pa, and there's some really good Q and A's at the end and just great information.

So I wanted to integrate that into the podcast.

So for these next few weeks, you're going to hear those webinars and.

And if you'd rather watch them on YouTube, you can do that.

Like I said, it's in the description.

But they're a little bit long.

They're longer than normal episodes.

They're about an hour.

I say that, but a lot of my interviews are an hour or two.

But anyway, I try to keep it at 30 minutes.

I know that doesn't really happen.

If y' all need me to do.

Better, let me know.

But if you need to break it up, just know they are a little bit longer.

And yeah.

So I just wanted to share these with you and I felt like it was a good time to introduce them since I'm going to be a little preoccupied.

But I hope you enjoy and we'll just jump right in and then I'll still hopefully be around on social media and reachable by email and those types of things.

So if you need me, I'm there.

And I hope that y' all get a lot out of these webinar episodes and then we'll be back with interviews and all kinds of stuff.

Really actually fun stuff this summer.

So I'm excited, but let's jump in.

I hope everyone's doing well and that you are all excited to hear about PA school interview types tonight.

I didn't really know how to name that, but PA schools use different formats and there are different reasons why.

So that's what we're going to dive into tonight to make sure that if you have a PA school inter coming up, you know what to expect from it.

And so with that being said, it is definitely interview season.

There are tons of interviews going out.

Interview invites, if you haven't gotten one yet, don't panic.

There's still time.

Every year I'm amazed doing mock interviews, how many interview invites go out in February?

That's a really popular year for or year month for interviews.

So yeah, so we're going to talk about all different interview types.

And if you'll notice, there's actually someone else in the chat tonight from the PA platform, Sam.

She's in New York and she's our new pre PA coach with the PA platform.

It's not just me anymore.

We have somebody else helping out with mock interviews and giving advice and answering your questions.

So if you have any questions, put them in the chat.

I'll address them on the video.

But I'm sure Sam can point you in the direction of some resources as well if there's anything that you want covered.

And as always, you can just post questions as you have them in the chat and then I'll come back to those afterwards when we're done with the presentation.

But I'm going to break down the different types of interviews that schools can have.

But as a little disclaimer going into the interview, be ready for anything.

Schools do what they want, basically, and sometimes they'll throw crazy stuff at you.

Whether it's a pop quiz on anatomy or med terms or one of my interviews.

They had us draw questions out of a fishbowl and answer in front of the whole entire group, in front of all the faculty, all the other applicants applying.

Some of them were serious questions, some of them were funny questions.

It was completely random, but it felt like a Miss America contest.

Just be ready for anything.

So I'm going to go over the basics, the things that are the types of interviews and the components that most interviews have to some degree.

And then we can talk from there and go over your questions.

So I'm going to get the presentation going and jump into that and then we'll get started.

Thanks for joining me.

So, types of interviews.

And for the most part schools do stick to these basic types, but they can mix it up too.

So you may go to one type of interview and encounter aspects from all of these different types.

So that's why it's good to be prepared for anything, even if you're expecting one thing.

So the things we're going to go over, a traditional interview, behavioral style interviews, situational and ethical style interviews, multiple mini interviews, also known as mmi, my least favorite group interviews and the essay portion.

People have specifically asked to go over the essay portion, which is important.

I mean it's something that a lot of interviews are incorporating.

Now let's talk about traditional.

So traditional interviews are my favorite, but these can be set up in a few different ways.

You can have a one on one interview.

So you in a room with one person, whether it's a faculty member, the director of the program, an alumni, a student, a doctor that precepts students for the program.

It could be really anyone.

You can have a two on one.

So kind of like this picture I guess is showing two people interviewing you.

Two on ones are interesting because sometimes the interviewers in this situation can take on kind of a bad cop, good cop approach because you have two people in there.

I had this type of interview, it's a little bit intimidating, but not as intimidating as a panel.

And I have heard of panels up to five or six people interviewing you.

So this just means it's just you as the applicant and anywhere from three to who knows how many people actually asking you questions and evaluating you.

Now the benefits to something like a panel or a two on one is that you have more people to possibly impress.

So if you're just in a one on one, if you and that person necessarily get along or jive, it could mean that you have less of A chance of getting in.

But if you're in a two on one or a panel and you're able to impress more of the interviewers, that does increase your chances.

So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a little bit more intimidating.

Typically in a traditional style interview, it's just going to be a question and answer.

It's going to be tell me about yourself.

Why do you want to be a pa?

Why did you apply here?

Just kind of asking you questions.

They may build on the questions they've asked you, but for the most part it's going to be that type of flow.

You may get into more of a conversational type interview.

And that's kind of the goal and what everyone would love to happen.

So if you're able to get in the flow of just kind of talking about life and your interests, I think that's great.

But at the end of the day, most of the time you're going to, they're going to have a set list of questions that they're asking you.

They may be taking notes, they may not.

But you are going to be expected to just answer to whatever is thrown at you.

So why do schools use the traditional interview?

I think it's to me the best way to actually get to know you because it allows you to address the most important topics which are why do you want to go there and why you want to be a page.

Also learn something about your characteristics, your personality, your interests, your hobbies, and to really give you an opportunity to speak to those things instead of having to maybe show your character by doing weird scenarios.

So that's a little bit about traditional interviews.

Okay, behavioral interviews.

So this can be set up like a traditional with one on one panel, all that, but with behavioral questions.

These are me more open ended questions.

And the reason they phrase questions this way is to get stories and examples out of you.

So to explain that further, in a traditional interview, you may be asked, how do you handle stress?

In a behavioral interview, that same question is going to be phrased, tell me about a time you were in a stressful situation.

If you can develop the skill of flipping these questions back and forth, it will help you to do better in both a behavioral and a traditional interview.

Because even in a traditional interview it's important to use your stories and your examples.

If you watch my June webinar, which there's a link in the description, I talked about how to prepare for interviews and one of the tips that I always give is the more that you can use specific Examples and stories, the more memorable that you will be to your interviewer.

So if you're in a traditional interview and let's say you're asked, tell me about, or you're asked, how do you study?

If you can, in your mind, rephrase that to tell me about a time that you had to study to do well, you're going to respond with an actual story and your answer is going to be way more interesting than if you just talk about using flashcards and taking notes.

So this is a really great skill to practice and to have.

Behavioral questions can get people kind of tripped up because sometimes you'll prepare for a specific question.

So tell me about a time you had to resolve a conflict and you have a conflict in mind, or tell me about a difficult patient and you've thought about that one difficult patient.

But for this type of question, you need to have kind of an arsenal of stories that you can pull from to incorporate and almost manipulate to fit the questions that you're asked.

You can never bet on being asked a specific question, but a lot of the same topics will be covered.

So let's say you had a patient who was really rude on the phone and just very demanding, and they called 10 times in the day trying to get a refill of their medication, but you couldn't get the doctor to tell you what to do.

That could also be a stressful situation for you.

It's all about how you phrase it.

So when you're working on preparing for a behavioral interview, you really need to think about some scenarios that you can use to incorporate into your answers to answer the questions, because that's what they're looking for.

And they want specific examples, not general ones.

They don't want to hear about how you have difficult patients every day and you just found it's best to communicate with them.

You do want to have a lesson that comes from that story and you want to be able to relate that back to why that will help you be a better PA student or a better pain.

But you also need to have a specific one story or one example to answer these questions.

A little similar, a little different is a situational or an ethical interview.

And a lot of interviews incorporate these types of questions.

But this is a scenario based question.

And this can be the same setup like traditional panel and one on one, two on one, all that.

But you're going to have questions that are more or less this is going on, what are you going to do about it?

What would your response be?

And they ask these questions to See how you would actually respond in a certain situation.

And that's going to tell them something about your care and your reasoning.

So this is something like you find out a classmate has a copy of an old exam, what do you do?

Or you see someone stealing medication at the hospital, what do you do?

So with these questions, there's not necessarily a right answer, but there is a wrong answer, which is to do the wrong thing ethically and to make a decision that would be considered unethical.

So typically that's going to be doing nothing.

If you know something unethical is going on, you should do something about it.

And so with these types of questions, it does help to practice and to think through your response.

And you want to be honest about what you would do, but you also have to think about right and wrong, what is the right thing to do?

And there may be different ways of going about that.

Maybe you can talk to the person involved, offer to go with them to talk to a supervisor.

Maybe you would just go straight to the supervisor.

That's up to you what you would do about it.

But doing nothing is not really an option.

So there's a ton out there.

I mean, this can be controversial, health issues, there are so many different scenarios that can be posed to you.

But in these situations, you just want to choose the right thing.

Okay, mmi, this is my least favorite type of interview.

Some people really like this type.

Maybe it's not that bad, but I just feel like sometimes it doesn't give you the best chance to really address the most important things.

But anyway, so an MMI is typically different stations with different prompts.

So they're time stations.

So you'll have anywhere from one to two minutes to prepare.

You'll be given a prompt outside the room, handed to you, it's up on the wall, something like that.

And then you'll go into the room and you'll have anywhere from five to seven, usually minutes to respond.

These stations can be completely random.

It's difficult to prepare for these.

So when we're doing mock interviews, we tend to just do really random things and ask the kind of traditional MMI style questions.

Schools use this type of interview and medical schools have been using it for a long time.

Not all of them, but they use this to try to actually see different parts of your personality and different characteristics you may have, like your communication skills, whether you're able to display empathy, whether you're able to make ethical decisions, and if you're able to make decisions at all.

So one thing I think is important to differentiate when you're getting ready for your interviews is a very traditional MMI versus what I call a quote, mmi.

Because a lot of programs now are saying they do mmi, but what they really do is they just do stations and ask you traditional questions, which in my mind is not an mmi.

Because if you Google it, they're going to do things like have you go in and try to tell another student how to make a paper airplane, or they're going to have a graph and want you to analyze it.

Or you're going to walk into a room with an angry patient and have to calm them down.

I mean, you're going to be put in these funky scenarios.

You may have a couple with traditional questions, but for the most part, MMI is pretty weird and random.

So there's a differentiation there and it just depends on how the schools go about it.

But in a traditional mmi, you walk in the room and you're either acting on a scenario or responding to the prompt that you were given.

And the interviewer will not respond to you.

They won't give you any feedback with their face, they won't speak to you.

If you try to ask follow up questions, they're not going to address you.

So it's a little, it can be a little awkward.

And sometimes you just have to sit there until your time is up.

Sometimes when you're done, you can get up and leave the room.

You do want to use that full time as much as possible.

I mean, you don't want to ramble or talk about anything irrelevant.

But in an mmi, if you have six minutes, you want to make sure that you are using that time wisely because that's all the time you're going to get.

And you also want to make sure that you're responding to every part of the prompt.

Anything that you're asked about to discuss or go over, make sure you're touching on every single part.

Because that's something they're looking for when they're assessing you in these situations.

All right, group interviews, okay, so this can be different ways, and so we'll talk about each way.

But the main function of a group interview or activity is to see how you function as part of a team and how you communicate with others.

You can have group activities, which is basically you and some applicants put into a group.

Either you discuss an ethical scenario, you discuss a health problem, you debate something.

Something common is something where there's no right answer.

So you have five people and there's one lifeboat who gets to go on it.

You have one donated heart and three people who need it, who gets it.

And of course, they're all great people.

So it's something where they're just trying to see how you interact, and they want to see that you are able to contribute thoughts and encourage others and know their names and interact with them professionally and in a kind manner.

You don't want to be too dominating.

In this scenario, it's fine to take a leadership role, but you don't want to do so in a way that shuts everybody else out, and you don't want to take up all the time.

And so it really is just about that teamwork.

I mean, teamwork is such an important part of PA school and being a pa, and so you need to be able to show that even in a scenario where you maybe don't really know the people around you.

I mean, you all have a joint effort here with being nervous and trying to get into PA school.

So it can be kind of fun.

I always thought group activities were fun.

The other type of interview is a group panel interview.

So this is basically traditional or behavioral or situational, where you have one, two, however many people interviewing you, and then there's like, two or three applicants that they're asking questions of.

This can be set up in many different ways.

They may ask you all the same question and just go down the line.

They may ask you all different questions.

So unless you kind of have some insight, it can be hard to know exactly what you're walking into there.

But in this situation as well, it's weird if you act like no one else is there.

So you want to try to know their names, you want to agree with what they're saying, disagree with what the others are saying, build off of what they're saying and their answers, and just again, show that interaction and support that you would show your classmates in the future as a PA student.

Okay, let's talk about essays.

And this was something that was requested that we cover.

And so with essays, let's talk about the why first essays.

I would not put a ton of weight on your essay at your interview.

This should not really make or break your interview.

It's definitely not going to make it, but it could break it if you just do a terrible job.

But for the essay, the whole point is to make sure that you can get a thought out on paper and that what you're writing matches up with your personal statement.

This is very important, not so much the quality, because you should have put a lot more time into your personal statement than the 20 or 30 minutes you'll have for this essay.

But, but let's say that maybe English isn't your first language.

If there's a huge discrepancy in that from your personal statement and your essay at the interview, that's going to be very apparent.

And so you want to make sure that they're consistent.

So that being said, like if that is an issue for you, make sure that your personal statement is in line with your ability to get words on paper because you don't want it to look like maybe somebody else wrote your essay or that it's a completely coming from a completely different person.

So these types of activities, they can be an ethical question, a traditional question, just why you want to be a PA or they may have you read an article or read about a health issue going on and respond to it.

Just write out your response.

Usually it's not more than a page.

This might be on a computer, it might be handwritten.

But with this, again, like they're not expecting the quality of your personal statement.

So for mine, I did kind of a fifth grade essay.

I wrote out an introduction.

This is what I'm going to talk about.

I had three body paragraphs talking about those things I introduced and then a conclusion.

It was very straightforward, it was very to the point.

Again, this is for a science based program, it's not for a literature program.

So they, they aren't really expecting you to do this kind of piece of art.

So yeah, that's my two cents on essays.

Okay, we're going to jump to questions, but if you don't already have this contact info, my website, my email, and then on Instagram, you can always send me questions on there too.

And I believe all this is in the description as well.

Okay, I'm back.

All right, we can jump into questions.

That was a little bit of a shorter presentation than normal, but I feel like all that stuff is pretty to the point and it's just something that you kind of need to have an overview of going into your interview and be ready for and just know it ahead of time when you're preparing.

So you, if you have questions, put them in the chat and we'll start going over them.

Let's see, I have an interview at a school that has a big emphasis on volunteer work.

I don't really have many hours.

Any tips on how to navigate a question about it.

So if you don't have, if you feel like you don't have something, you don't have a Ton of hours, you don't have the best grades.

It's not a good idea to bring it up like that.

So you want to avoid saying, I know I don't really have a lot of hours, but the ones I do have are really great.

Instead of doing that, just if you're at a point where you got an interview invite, they want you to be there.

They like what they saw in your application.

And so at that point you don't have to bring up anything.

Like, I think it's great to bring up like bad grades and talk about them in a positive way.

But if you feel like there's something that just makes your application weak as far as, like not having it, don't worry about that at that point.

Just talk about what you do have and say, through this volunteer experience, I've learned this.

It's all about what you've learned and what you've taken away from it and why that experience was meaningful to you.

So just focus on the good things instead of focusing on what you feel like you don't have.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense.

Okay.

What was your answer for why do you want to be a pa?

Why this program?

I've actually written about this on my website a good bit.

So I'm sure.

And I think I did a video on it too.

So I'm sure you could go watch those too if I don't answer completely.

But for me, I think as far as why I want to be a pa, I just didn't really want to go to school for that much longer.

I didn't feel like becoming a doctor was something I had to do.

I just didn't really need.

I didn't need that, I guess, control or all of that.

I love the teamwork aspect.

I spent a lot of time debating what I wanted to do, shadowing.

And at the end of the day, like, I love the role of a PA and I love that they go to work, they go home, and that's it.

There is a lot of flexibility there as far as the type of job you can get.

I don't really like the answer of having a great work life balance or having more time with your family, because I feel like that's a decision that you make personally, like regardless of if you're a PA or a doctor.

So that wasn't my answer.

And as far as why I wanted to go to my program, it made sense.

It was where I was from.

It was least are the least expensive because it was a state school, but they had great facilities because they had state funding.

So we had a full cadaver lab.

We had a full surgical suite to learn in.

I had gone to a tour and just really liked it.

I had heard great things.

Some of the pas I shouted had gone to my program.

And so it was really a no brainer that it was my first choice and I let them know it was my first choice.

So I have no shame in doing that.

Have an interview in one and a half weeks.

I am nervous for it.

Although this won't be my first interview.

How do you get over nerves?

So it's normal to be nervous.

Just know that.

And there's a really great TED Talk.

I think if you type in TED Talk, fake it till you make it.

I think that's what I think it's under that basically they talk about faking it and they talk about this power posture or something.

But to be honest, like you have to psych yourself up and you have to come from a place of knowing and having confidence that you have.

You've had multiple interviews.

Obviously you're doing something right.

Like they just want to get to know you and so you've got to go in and suck it up and act like you're not nervous for 20 to 30 minutes for the interview and just really be able to show them who you are.

And I mean in my interview I was nervous.

I felt like my whole body was shaking and I had my hands like clasped really tightly in my lap but.

And I was like sweating but at the end of it I knew that going in that I just had to go in and be confident and that's what would pay off.

And it did.

So you really have to I would say working with people doing marketing recess.

One of the biggest issues mistakes I see is just that people let people don't look confident and they don't seem confident and so that that comes off as being unsure of your answers.

So even if you're not sure and even if you don't feel confident and you're super nervous, like you've just got to pretend you're not.

I know that that may not make sense but try works MMI type maybe more info.

We just talked about that.

I don't know if you missed that part but you may want to go back and watch that or if you have specific questions, let me know.

The interview I'm going on this weekend has an informal get together at a bar the night before with current students.

Any tips for navigating that?

Sort of number one, don't get drunk, that should be a given.

But just so you know, being at a bar, that's not good.

But second of all, use that time to ask questions.

Now.

Just know that even if they say they aren't asking, aren't going to share what you say or they're not like, it doesn't matter.

Every single part of your weekend is part of the interview.

So that may not be true.

I know sometimes my program would say that, but then they would, like, come to us afterwards and be like, what did that person say?

Was anybody weird?

So just know that it is part of the interview, even if it's technically not, and that if you put off a weird vibe, it will get back to the program.

So I think that's a. I think it's worth going.

I would definitely try to go if you can and ask the questions that you really want to know.

But don't ask anything sketchy, like.

Yeah, don't ask anything sketchy.

But if you have questions about their classes or their rotations or where people live or what they do for fun, like, make sure you ask those things.

Those are important because you want to have a good quality of life and be happy at the program that you end up at.

So that's a great opportunity to do so.

And hopefully it'll make you feel more comfortable, too.

As far as nerves and just kind of having some familiar faces the next day going into the interview, I think the students typically are very welcoming and excited to meet new applicants, so that should be a cool thing.