Summer brings time for relaxation, getting together with friends, and enjoying a break from school work. However, in pharmacy school, summer is a time when many of you may be embarking on either IPPEs or APPEs, or participating in an internship, pharmacy-related work, or research. As you read the article title again, you might be questioning the timing of the topic.
There are many wonderful articles that will discuss explicit ways to ace your interview or provide you with example questions. One underlying similarity to these tips and tricks is that you must have experiences to talk about in an interview. What you do this summer can have lasting impacts on your interview.
The crucial steps
To begin, actively engage with your experiences through IPPEs, APPEs, research projects, pharmacy-related jobs, or internships and take advantage of the opportunities to explore and learn. These experiences will provide you opportunities to practice communication skills, work with other people on projects, provide patient care at various levels, work with other health professionals, build your clinical knowledge base, and also will develop your individual personal and professional skills, which will help you become a great pharmacist. These skills and experiences are what you will discuss during upcoming interviews.
While you are participating in these various experiences, there are some additional considerations to help ensure you get the interview and have answers to the situation-based questions you could be asked. These two things are both crucial steps.
1. Update your CV. The CV is a critical piece of any application. To ensure it accurately reflects your experiences and skills, update it often. When you are on your various summer or experiential training experiences, update your CV to highlight the different projects, rotations, presentations, etc., in which you participate. I recommend you update your CV as you go, instead of waiting for preset times to update it. This method ensures you don’t forget to include something. If you don’t have a CV, it’s time to start one.
2. Document and reflect upon your experiences. This is a step that is often forgotten. Many interviews will ask you situation-based questions and the answers to these questions could come from the experiences you have this summer from any of the pharmacy-related experiences you have (such as internships, IPPE, or APPEs). To help ensure you have good answers to the questions you are asked, I highly recommend keeping a journal that you can refer back to during your future interview preparation.
In the journal, document using the STAR method (Situation, Tasks, Action, and Results). Write out the situation, i.e., what happened (who, what, when, where, and how), then the task (what you were responsible for and include challenges you faced), then the action (exactly what you did including the traits and personal qualities you used to accomplish the task), then the result (include what you did to contribute to the final product/result). Lastly, include how you grew from this experience or what you will continue to do based on the results of this experience.
This step is particularly critical because you will forget some of these formative experiences or you may not remember what you particularly did. To really ace an interview, reflect now. This will help you grow as a pharmacist and it will also help you provide concise, thoughtful answers to questions you may encounter during an interview. Don’t forget the reflection!
“Phun” in the sun
A final consideration from your summer experience is to build relationships with fellow pharmacists. These relationships can assist you throughout your professional life. The people you build relationships with now could become long-term mentors that continue to provide opportunities for professional development, and they could also serve as a letter of recommendation writer for you, which could help you secure an interview.
Have a fantastic summer! Enjoy the experiences you are about to have. As always, I remain excited for each of you and am happy to answer any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at mille355@purdue.edu.
Monica L. Miller, PharmD, MS, is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy, an Internal Medicine Clinical Specialist at the Eskenazi Health’s Department of Pharmacy Services, and the author of Getting Started in a Pharmacy Residency, available for purchase at a special APhA member price on www.pharmacist.com.