08| Nailed it! Advice for Internship and Postdoc Interviews

A pdf of the transcript for this episode is available here.

In this episode, John and Ryan answer questions on the following topics:

  • Logistics of scheduling multiple site visits
  • Tips for organizing travel plans
  • How to stay healthy (physically and mentally) while traveling during the winter
  • Tips for handling nerves leading up to and during interviews
  • What types of materials to look over in order to prepare for the interview day
  • How often interviewers ask about specific application materials (e.g., essays, CV)
  • The most common interview questions and how to navigate them
  • Tips for preparing for performance-based questions and interview styles
  • Do’s and don’ts for self-disclosure during interviews
  • Fielding potentially personal or inappropriate interview questions
  • Most helpful type of information to get from current interns
  • How to keep information from multiple sites organized
  • Post-interview thank you notes – good or bad idea?
  • Tips for ranking sites and weighing criteria
  • And more!

Selected Resources

https://www.appic.org/Training-Resources/For-Students

  • A variety of relevant training resources

https://www.appic.org/Problem-Consultation

  • For a set of potential problems or issues that come up during the process – APPIC has a system for handling these

http://www.canadahrcentre.com/base/interview-questions/

  • Interview questions that are legal and illegal in Canada

Parent, M. C., Weiser, D. A., & MCCourt, A. (2015). “So what are you?”: Inappropriate interview questions for psychology doctoral and internship applicants. Training and Education in Professional Psychology9(2), 136-143.

  • https://gradpsych.apags.org/pubs/journals/features/tep-0000068.pdf
  • A paper written for training directors and faculty about inappropriate interview questions. It includes a list of inappropriate questions. Unfortunately, it does not include advice on how to answer these questions – you should think through this part and get advice from colleagues/supervisors.

https://appic.org/Match/FAQs/Training-Directors/Conducting-Interviews

  • APPIC’s advice to training directors about how to conduct interviews – FAQs

https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/01/answer.aspx

  • Advice from APA gradPSYCH on how to answer five big interview questions:
  1. Why do you want this internship?
  2. Tell us about a good and a bad experience you’ve had with a client
  3. What is your professional philosophy
  4. Where do you see yourself in five years?
  5. Do you have any questions for us?

https://docslide.net/documents/internship-guide-for-umkc-etiquette-5-for-internship-sites-that-were-based.html

  • Many sample questions and a lot of other internship-related materials

http://www.psychzone.com/files/Pincus%20Otis%20Internship%20Manual%202008.pdf

  • Good guide for interviewing, traveling, and a lot more

Interviewing Workshop

  • The Society for Clinical Neuropsychology’s Education Advisory Committee typically offers an interviewing workshop at the annual APA convention.

Episodes

4 Comments

  1. This was quite helpful! Thank you! The additional resources listed with the podcast were also very useful. I appreciate you taking the time to help those of us “NAV”igating these processes now : )

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