Consultant Interview Programme
Course + Preparation Programme + SupportIntroducing the Programme & Course
From years of experience in coaching for consultant interviews, it was abundantly clear that if you wanted to stack the odds in your favour, it was so much more than a course that was necessary. In fact, we find ourselves coaching many individuals who have been on a course and then still struggled. So, we developed a solution that knocks the average course out of the water, for a lower cost than the average course!
Our approach combines the all important learning with all of the additional components missing from a typical course. Jump down and you’ll see just why it works so well.
“Super-comprehensive, whole programme approach to preparation”
Understanding the Programme
How the Programme Works
We take you through a whole development programme, including a course, designed to take you from readiness ground zero right through to super-prepared and capable, in stages, tailored to the stage of your journey, whether your starting point is pre-application or already short-listed. We call this our 8P PROCESS, which is explained below.
Why it REALLY works!
We’ve been using this process on our face-to-face coachees with an approximate 80% success rate (at the very next job interview), and hence building it into non-coaching programme. The secret is the combination and the strategy. We REALLY understand consultant interviews and so when candidates follow the right strategy… bingo!
- The learning has strategy built in at EVERY stage
- The preparation guidance means you spend time on the right things
- It deals with the whole process, not just the interview (makes a big difference)
- Removes much of the guess-work
- Constantly updated, so you are too!
- Real, human support, advice or guidance (yes, even though it’s not coaching!)
What you get:
Comprehensive video-based e-learning course
Additional courses on Presentations, Consultant Interviews Skills and the NHS
Supplemental instruction on everything from pre-interview visits to individual questions
Specific guidance on interview and preparation strategy
Access to extensive preparation resources to save you days of time (scarce commodity!)
Direct support & advice
Access for a full year!
£175.00
Our 8P Process
Structured approach, tailored to you, your stage and specialty, to ensure you are optimally ready.
PLAN
Comprehensive and structured approach to ensure you are optimally ready by interview, tailored for timing.
Learn more about PLAN
PROGRAMME
Extensive & comprehensive course and additional learning to help you every step of the way.
Learn more about PROGRAMME
PORTAL
Saving you countless hours by short-cutting the preparation process, whilst providing focused additional learning.
Learn more about PORTAL
PURSUIT
APPLICATION GUIDANCE & STRATEGY
To ensure you approach applications optimally to get short-listed for the jobs you really want.
Learn more about PURSUIT
PRE-INTERVIEW
Ensuring you gain the most from this critical component, whilst giving the right impression too.
Learn more about PRE-INTERVIEW
PRESENTATIONS
Helping you optimise and excel at this common component of modern consultant interviews.
Learn more about PRESENTATIONS
PREPARATION
Helping even the most nervous of candidates to be exceptional in the room, with robust answers of the right substance.
Learn more about PREPARATION
PERSONAL
Access to personal support to address questions & provide crucial guidance for both course and coaching members.
Learn more about PERSONAL SUPPORT & GUIDANCE
Course Content Specifically
By content, most are referring to learning, as opposed to resources, and so that’s what we’ll cover here. However, because we take a programme approach, it’s important to understand that you gain access to a constantly evolving body of learning, not JUST a course. For instance:
- We add videos of model answers
- Topics that warrant more depth for some tend to get expanded upon
“Consultant Interviews Skills Course has supplemental full courses on Presentation Skills too!”
Consultant Interviews Skills Course
This is a very comprehensive, 145-slide, video-captured course, organised into intelligent sections and covering the full end-to-end interview process. It has strategy & behaviour built throughout and is very practical.
- Course delivered by Dr Sara Watkin (25+ years as consultant & 10+ years as clinical service lead)
- Individual sections available throughout the 8P Process
- Supplemental learning and Cheat Sheets available for most sections
- Examine Full Details below to see what’s covered
Full details
Main Sections
- Consultant Applications (strategy and practical guidance)
- Pre-interview Visits (utilising them to stack the deck in your favour)
- Understanding Psychology (and how this plays out at interview)
- Interview Preparation (strategy & practical approach)
- Answer Techniques (for different types of question)
- Actual Questions (examining answers to common questions)
- Presentations (practical guidance & optimising delivery)
Components Covered
- Taking the strategic approach to enhancing your chances
- Just what does it take to get the job you really want
- Developing the right strategy to stack the deck in your favour
- Small things that make massive differences
- Bigger things that tip the balance
- Enhancing a CV to improve short listing chances
- Typical pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Just what does effective preparation look like?
- Pre-Interview visits, creating personal presence & deriving benefit
- Understanding your consultant interview panel
- Building rapport with interviewers
- Effective communication skills within interviews
- Advanced interview techniques
- Psychological techniques for increased rapport, impact & clarity
- Understanding the reasoning behind the question
- Answering questions within the context of who is asking – understanding the interviewer
- Recognising the effects of your internal wiring on your approach to answering questions
- Effectively structuring your answers
- Talking about yourself & showing the real you – do & don’t guidance
- The answers you must have – knowing what to research
- Handling difficult or unexpected questions
- Dealing with ethical questions
- Dealing with political questions
- Developing business or commercial healthcare knowledge
- Effective presentation skills
- In-depth question analysis and practice techniques
- Demonstrating initiative, personality, leadership and political awareness
Insights Course
Alongside a significant and growing set of resources in Portal, this video-based course represents the most comprehensive and fastest way to get up-to-speed on NHS structure and process.
- Course delivered by Andrew Vincent (10+ years spent managing this evidence body and lecturing on it)
- Focuses on interpretation, issues, tensions, impacts on Trusts etc, not just facts
- Important from a whole career perspective, not just consultant interviews
Full details
INSU1A – Introduction to Insights Update & System Performance
- Introduction to the programme
- Financial Performance
- Operational Performance
- Overall System Health
- Response by the System – Getting a Grip
INSU1B – Early Behavioural Insights
- Leadership Potency and how its failure plays a part
- Strategic misalignment and how it manifests itself financially
- The strategic cycle and how to utilise it to improve decision-making
- A very scary story of massive provider failure, behaviourally guaranteed
- How the story is repeating itself
- The most critical, critical success factor for service survival today
INSU2 – The Underlying Reality & Bigger Picture
- The underlying healthcare problem facing all Western nations
- Our problem and its financial progression
- UK economic capability and how it is changing
- Its impact on healthcare funding
- Population dynamics and their implications
- Ageing-driven healthcare complexity and its impact on demand
- The shifting disease burden
- Age-effect on different types of disease
- Understanding the exponential growth in demand
- What is it telling us about the degree of change necessary?
INSU3A – Current & Emerging Policies & their Likely Impacts
- Performance revisited as a prelude to policy
- Cascade of reform effects
- Major tranches of healthcare policy
- What’s happening with the prevention agenda?
- How has policy changed post-coalition?
- Tariff changes with significant implications
- Productivity targets and areas of focus
- Upgrading our thinking about the change processes
- Latest thinking on competition and choice
INSU3B – Commissioning Update, Intentions & Activity
- Understanding the new commissioning infrastructure and how it is evolving
- Local versus specialist commissioning and how they are changing
- Re-shaping the healthcare system – core principles
- Five Year Forward View
- How is this different to Darzi?
- New models of care
- Vanguard services and what they are doing
- Understanding the safety net system we have
INSU4 – Intelligent Responses & Adaptations
- What does the new system value most and least?
- Re-visiting the most critical, critical success factor and why it’s a survival predictor
- Organisational design and its impact on this factor
- Understanding the root cause of inertia and poor decision-making
- What does a stable and secure service look like?
- Understanding the 4 Cornerstones model
- The 8 Domains of Service Stability
- A complex behavioural change journey
- The essential culture for services determined to survive
Presentation Skills Course
Presentations have become an ever more important part of consultant interviews and it is now quite rare to have one without a presentation. This ‘Presenter on Fire’ programme is designed to ensure you are impressive.
- Delivered by Andrew Vincent (10,000+ hours presenting to healthcare audiences)
- Deals with structure, strategy and layout
- Designed to deal with confidence, delivery and presence, not just technical topics
Full details
SESSION 1 – Presentations on Fire
If we are going to turn you into an expert presenter with peak status then we had better start with knowing exactly what that looks like from the outset. We won’t just explain it, we’ll start by showing you. With an example at hand, we’ll deconstruct it to ensure you are crystal clear on what made the difference, providing you with a clear blueprint to use over and over. For a dessert of anti-inspiration, we’ll then show you exactly why so many falter and how to avoid these common but not always obvious traps. And that’s all in the first session.
- An Inspirational Start to Illustrate on Fire
- The Critical Elements of the Presentation on Fire
- From Resounding to Resuscitation – Five Key Pitfalls to Never Make
SESSION 2 – People & Pertinence
Presentations that don’t connect with people just don’t do their job and yet they always have a job to do. We’ll show you why they don’t and how you can change that. The screaming irony is that the majority don’t do what they absolutely must and then worry themselves into a nervous wreck, wheres our advocated approach creates spot-on presentations whilst simultaneously building confidence. You just need to know what to do. We’ll show you both what and how.
- Audience Analytics – Taking the Eyes Open Approach
- Perfect Pertinence – How to Engage Everybody
- People Pitch – Optimising for Inner Humans
SESSION 3 – Perfect Production
We see countless presentations where near perfect content is destroyed in an uncessary and failed attempt to demonstrate technical software competence. Unless you are the Head of Creativity for Microsoft, you need to be thinking simplicity, not complexity. You should be far more concerned with how you integrate and flow your content. Let’s not hide the fact that slides are important but let’s also be crystal clear that you won’t get a top table seat with perfect slides for a story told imperfectly. The peak status approach though is how you blend the two, so that the story comes out with power.
- The Story of Stories
- Turning Tradition on its Head for Maximum Awe
- Restructuring Structure for Hungry Crocodiles
SESSION 4 – Impact in Spades
Your job is NOT to impart information. Yes, you read that right. Transfer of information is purely a means to an end and as Stephen Covey told us so clearly, we always need to start with the end in mind. Impact is multifactorial and the peak status presenter knows how to engage all faculties seamlessly. You’ll be surprised at just how successful you can be when you discover just what you’re leaving out that’s critical, along with what you are putting in that’s calamatous. By the end of this session, You’ll be itching to get out and try.
- Make Every Presentation ON PURPOSE
- The Generalist Versus the Specialist
- Inspirational Influencing to Achieve your Impact