Logistics of interviewing 80-100 residency applicants

[Jennifer Duane]

Hello Friends!
As one of the larger residency programs (12 residents per year), we have followed the same model of hosting 2 full interview days, meeting roughly 32 applicants per day for a total of 64 applicants interviewed. We often wonder how we might expand our capacity to interview more candidates. Currently, we have the same 20 faculty members involved in both interview days (plus PD and our 4 Dept. Chairs – as a multi-institution program).
So my question is – for those of you who interview 80+ – how do you do it?
How many interview days do you hold?
Do the same faculty participate each day or does it vary?
Does your Department Chair(s) participate each day?
Does your Chair interview each candidate?
Does your PD interview each candidate?
I look forward to learning what other big programs do! Thanks

[Channon Cordes Cole]

We take 13 residents per year. We hold one interview day and bring 72 candidates to interview. They are given 4, 15 minute interviews with various staff, one of which is a skills assessment. When not interviewing, we have the candidates attend a program director talk and a tour of the campus. Our morning begins with a talk from the Chair of the Department. Our interview morning begins at 8:00 a.m. and concludes at noon on a Saturday morning. We have a very specific grid we use to break the candidates into 3 groups. This is very efficient and works well for our group.

[Anonymous]

Hi Jennifer, we only have 3 spots each year but we always end up interviewing 75-80 applicants each year.
We only have 2 full interview days as well.

The same faculty participates each day, including the PD & Chair.
I typically have 5 rooms for interviews:
PD & Faculty member (2 people)
Chair, APD, Research lead faculty member (3 people)
Core faculty (2 people)
Core faculty (3 people)
Core faculty (2 people)

we do 10 minutes each room for each applicant and stagger the interviews (ex. schedule attached)
we also typically don’t have a formal lunch break and the faculty eats in between when they feel like they can afford a break.

I’ve also attached our itinerary for you as well.
Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

My program recruits 5 residents each year. In the past, we interviewed 80 applicants over two days, 40 each day. We used 10 faculty and 10 residents each day. Faculty were different each day but the residents were required to participate both days. We broke them up into 2 groups of 20 each and each applicant interviewed with 2 faculty and 2 residents, 20 minutes each. We started with breakfast at 7 am, followed by welcome and orientation. Interviews started at 8:30 am and finished at 12:30 pm. It’s a tight grid and you have to keep good time, but it can be done.

We have since gone to interviewing 60 over 2 days because we now interview our sub-i rotators when they come in the summer. We use the same plan but now have 15 faculty and 15 residents each day and interview from 8:30 – 10:30 am.

If I can provide further info, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

[Courtney Matlach]

What a great discussion to get going!

Traditionally we have always had 2 interview days and have interviewed 40 candidates each day for a total of 80 applicants interviewed. However, this year we had a lot of rotators and because we do not interview during the rotation, we wanted to increase the number interviewed since our rotators were taking up a lot of the spots. This year we changed to 3 days with 35 each day totaling 105 interviewed.
Our selection committee consists of the PD, Chair, 7 Faculty, and 3 Chief Residents. The committee is required to participate in every interview day. Every applicant gets to meet with everyone on the committee (including PD & Chair). I split the day into two sessions (AM and PM) so that way the candidates are only here for a few hours and do not have to sit around all day waiting to be interviewed. We have 4-5 interview rooms and the students spend 10 minutes in each room. It’s a lot to fit into just a few hours, but we make it work.

[Anonymous]

Hello!

Penn takes 8 residents a year – see below for your direct questions and then here is a brief summary of our day:

We interview 20 applicants each am/pm session over two days for a total of 80 applicants. Each interview lasts 8-10 minutes and we are on a VERY strict timetable. No faculty goes over his/her allotted interview time (I would like to say it’s because they are afraid of me but mostly it’s because they don’t want to be there all day!). I attached our schedule for your reference. It’s… an intense 3 days because we have receptions the night before… but coming from IM where we had 20+ interview days, the “rip off the bandaid” approach is much preferrable.

How many interview days do you hold? 2
Do the same faculty participate each day or does it vary? varies year to year but we also have our Director of Research interview each year for the research track positions; we have 4 faculty rooms with 2 faculty each, the chairman gets his own room, and then the 3 administrative chief residents get a room for a total of 12 interviewers.
Does your Department Chair(s) participate each day? yes – he interviews every candidate and participates in the rank meeting
Does your Chair interview each candidate? yes
Does your PD interview each candidate? yes
I look forward to learning what other big programs do! Thanks

Happy to discuss further if you want – thanks!
Shannon

[Vicky Norton]

This is a great discussion. Some excellent feedback. If you count that we interview each visiting student when they are here, plus just our own students on one special day, and then those that are selected from ERAS, we interview many days.

So my question is – for those of you who interview 80+ – how do you do it?
How many interview days do you hold? Basically 2 big days – 1 day our students, 1 day ERAS applicants
Do the same faculty participate each day or does it vary? If they are available they do
Does your Department Chair(s) participate each day? Same as Chair
Does your Chair interview each candidate? Yes, and interviews each candidate
Does your PD interview each candidate? Yes, and interviews each candidate.

My question back on this – how much help do you have as the coordinator on the day of the interviews do you have?

[Suzanne K Swanson]

Jennifer,
This is a great discussion as we are always looking for ways to improve our interview days. At Brown we match 6 residents per year and this year we interviewed 95 applicants, this includes 30 students who rotated here. We have 2 interview days with the applicants split pretty evenly on each day. We also have a social the night before each interview day for the applicants and residents only.

We interview two groups each interview day, the 1st group comes in at 6:30 am for a 30 minute orientation session with our PD and Chairman, then begin their interviews. The 2nd groups comes in at 9:30 am and goes on a bus tour of our research facilities, the city of Providence, and our newest location where residents spend a great deal of time in the physicians’ offices and in the surgery center. Both groups meet for lunch at 12 noon where each Division Chief gives a 5 minute overview of their faculty and resident rotation. Once lunch is complete the 1st group goes on their tour which ends at approximately 3:00 pm, the 2nd group stays for orientation and then begin their interviews which end at approximately 6:00 pm.

The PD and Chairman each interview half of the applicants, 2 researchers each interview half of the applicants, we have 4 groups of two faculty members who interview as teams, each applicant interviews with 2 of these groups, these are the same faculty members each day. We also have a Chief Resident/PGY-6 room where applicants meet as a group to ask questions. Our residents have no clinical duties these days, except for our trauma team, they spend the entire days with the applicants. It’s a tight schedule but somehow we keep everyone on time.

I have attached the schedule I used this year. I hope this information is helpful and look forward to continuing this discussion at the ARCOS meeting.

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[Renee Poe]

Hi Jennifer:
At UT-Campbell Clinic, we match 8 residents. We interview roughly 100 – 105 per interview season. We schedule three interview days which are always held on a Friday. On the Thursday before interview day, applicants attend a short conference and then dinner is brought in at the interview location. A social event is scheduled with current residents and applicants may also bring a guest to that event. UT-Campbell Clinic has an education committee. There are 11 points to interview and each area focuses on something different (grades, personal statement, CV, research, etc.) The chair is involved in interviews along with the Program Director and Associate Program Director. On interview day 1/2 of the applicants interview in the a.m. and the other 1/2 interview after lunch. While one group is interviewing the other group tours the city as well as some of the hospitals where they will spend a great deal of time while in residency. Breakfast and lunch are provided on interview day. Campbell Clinic recently built a new clinic directly behind the old clinic (which is being renovated) and the applicants take a short tour of that building after lunch. I am “smack-dab” in the middle of interview season. Our second interview day is January 17 and the final interview day is January 31. Down time is built into the schedule since there are more applicants per session than there are interviewers. The residents that are on rotation with the interviewers usually are available during the down time to answer any questions that the applicants may have about the rotations, location, where to live, etc. One or two residents act as tour guides for the tour of the city and facilities.

[Jennifer Duane]

Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the conversation! It’s so helpful to learn what others do and how you fit even more candidates into a day. It’s definitely food for thought as we figure out if we want to change what we’re doing.

To answer Vicky’s question about help with the interview days – our residency has a staff of 2 to begin with – Kaitlin Duffy and me. So we oversee the timing of some of the 10-min interview rooms while also managing the logistics of the day to ensure all goes smoothly. We seek out 2-3 administrative assistants to help with ushering applicants to some of the interview rooms and timing those rooms. Then we ask for 2 residents to lead the hospital tours and go on the trolley tours. Sometimes we have just 1 resident, sometimes a couple extra are available.

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