Preparing for the interview and following up
A medical-writing interview tests how a candidate's skills, interests and working style fit a role, while giving the candidate a chance to assess the employer. Preparation includes researching the company, rehearsing concrete examples and planning questions; follow-up can clarify a delayed decision or challenge a rejection with further evidence.
Company research and questions
Candidates should research a company's work and the likely content of the role through its website, industry news, press releases and awards. Familiarity with current healthcare topics and research into named employees can add to that preparation. Asking who will conduct the interview allows candidates to research those people beforehand.
Preparation for a medical communications agency interview should include reading Good Publication Practice, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' authorship criteria and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's code or its national equivalent, together with an overview of drug and device development. Candidates should prepare a couple of questions that show specific interest in the company.
The interview also allows candidates to assess whether the role and company culture suit them. Questions can cover:
- How training is coordinated.
- The types of work and therapy areas involved.
- Development opportunities and typical career pathways.
- The office environment.
- Senior management's style.
Speaking to someone already working as a medical writer at the company can help a candidate understand everyday work there.
Examples and rehearsal
After a candidate has demonstrated writing ability, an interview offers the chance to show enthusiasm and potential in the other skills the role requires. A candidate should be ready to explain why they would make a successful medical writer, using examples that connect previous experience with the attributes sought, even without previous medical-writing employment.
Being a confident communicator does not itself make someone good at interviews: answers need to demonstrate the skill each question explores. Preparation should include identifying and rehearsing the candidate's value proposition, contribution to a future employer or client, achievements, examples of handling workplace conflict and examples of resolving an issue with an unsupportive stakeholder. Interview skills need training and practice. Preparation should reflect the value of the employment or contract being sought, rather than stop at a quick search and a reading of the job description. A commercial interview coach recommended 15 hours of preparation in 2015.
Agency interviews can explore a candidate’s commitment to staying and ability to handle unexpected situations.
Five agency interview questions to prepare for are:
- What is the candidate's ideal work environment?
- Why did the candidate leave their last job?
- Why does the candidate want to work for this company?
- What stressful situation has the candidate faced, and how did they handle it?
- What are the candidate's immediate career goals?
Video interviews
Candidates should approach video interviews with the flexibility and commitment of a face-to-face interview, ensure the technology works and avoid personal interruptions where possible. Employers should respect time differences and candidates' needs for food and rest, allow breaks between interviews and consider spreading lengthy assessment sessions across two or three days. Candidates are assessing the employer as well as being assessed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, examples of coping with lockdown could demonstrate resilience, crisis-management skills and resourcefulness, even when an interviewer did not ask about lockdown directly. Asking how a company supported patients, clients and employees during the pandemic offered candidates a way to assess its values and commitment to people.
Follow-up after silence or discourtesy
A delayed response can reflect an overworked hiring team. A follow-up call every two or three weeks after an application or interview can ask where the employer is in its decision-making process, clarify whether interviews are continuing and keep the candidate's name in the hiring person's mind.
If interviewers fail to attend and nobody explains or follows up, the behaviour is a warning sign about the employer. One response is a courteous letter to human resources describing what happened and expressing disappointment, rather than a letter to the absent interviewers themselves. Human resources departments may appreciate receiving this feedback.
Further evidence after rejection
In one doctoral student's job search reported in 2018, an employer rejected her two months after an on-site interview, saying she lacked collaboration and conflict-resolution skills. Two months later, after completing her thesis, she wrote to the hiring manager with three scenarios demonstrating those skills. A week later, the manager told her of a new vacancy and encouraged her to apply.
After another interview, feedback that she lacked project-management skills and interest prompted her to email human resources addressing both points. Two days later, she was invited to a second interview. She consulted a university career counsellor, read interview advice, drafted answers to possible questions and prepared with the STAR technique: situation, task, action and result. She felt that interview went well and it overran, but the employer selected another candidate. Across more than 20 interviews with recruiters and human resources staff, interviews also helped her understand medical writers' work in contract research organisations and pharmaceutical companies of different sizes.