Personal interview Flashcards
Greatest strengths
- Calm and keep morale up in difficult situations
* Motivation story - Open-minded approach
* Jazz Band covid story - Multitask and prioritise the work
* Pressure story
Greatest weaknesses
- Authoratative in leadership positions
* Generate good ideas, sometimes not as assertive as I could be
* Jazz Band manager - successful year but choices about concert venues, repertoire, and rehearsal focus were not as efficient as they could be
* Reflected on importance of making firm decisions and confidence in situations requiring clear direction
* Recent quality improvement
* Collaborative, listened to the team, but guided the process and was firm relating to final decisions such as project topic, data collection processs and presentation style in a way that took the whole team’s ideas into consideration.
* Continue to grow and I continue to seek leadership opporunities to develop my skills - Software expertise
* Focus on medicine for the past 10 years - tendency to deskill software skills
* Seek projects that require more IT and tech so I can keep them up and strengthen them
* Audit on management of malaria
* Analysed and presented data using R programming language
* Used online tutorials and resources to teach myself
* This was dissertation for iBSc and received 1st Class Honours
* Whilst developed competency in certain tools, there are more languages and tech skills that are necessary to learn, especially given their increasing relevance in the modern world - Prone to burning out
* Pressure story
Difficult/outside comfort zone situations
- Leading a jazz band through covid
* Manager of jazz band
*In this capacity, I led recruitment, organised rehearsals, and coordinated performances across London.
* Step during Covid- 19
* Adapted to restrictions by transitioning to virtual concerts
* I held discussions with the students’ union, music committee and society members to determine what the society needed during this time
* Difficult as a lot was illegal and doing something that matched in-person rehearsals was tough
* Organised online socials, exercise sessions and continued to organise concerts for a year to maintain morale and connection
* Strengthened ability to lead through uncertainty and discuss with stakeholders - Tonga
* On medical elective - shadowing on medical ward in Tonga, but looking for something else
* Approached someone living in the same lodge - UNICEF representative
* Joined on project for HPV vaccine
* Some points actively involved in dicussions
* Uncomfortable as unfamiliar setting across the world, more responsibility than expected
* A lot of people from Ministry of Education had opposing views to me
* Listened to their perspectives carefully, respected their opinions, and presented my thoughts in a gentle manner when I was asked
* Rewarding experience, amicable conversations
* Importance of collaboration and respect in cross-cultural interactions
(conversations had already started but was still part of the final decision making process so emotions still high)
Team leadership
- Jazz Band manager
- Weight audit
Team work
- Doctor
- Tonga vaccine
- Stroke calls
* On-call with the medical registrar (grade above me) and consultant (grade about registrar)
* Sometimes when on-call you may have 1 or 2 stroke calls a day, and I am not usually involved in their management (just the registrar)
* 3 stroke calls in 5 minutes
* Worked together with consultant and F1 who aren’t involved and used our experiences to split up and prioritise who should be seen
* In this situation, we had to remain calm, listen to what each other had to say, and whilst we had differening experience it was important to breakdown hierarchal interplays to ensure everyone’s voices were heard
Why consulting?
- Interests lie in learning, analysing data, and presenting synoptically
- Whether that’s been through teaching, research, or presentations in the past
- Currently work help others at a community scale, which I love
- Consulting provides the opportunity to work at a much larger scale
- When speaking to other consultants, going to recruiting workshops and events, I really felt comfortable around them
What other industries?
Environment and sustainability
Why McKinsey?
Focus on client-centredness whilst maintaining an inclusive work environment
Openess and proactive approach to sustainability as well as technology.
Supportive, “one-firm” model, breakingdown hierarchy
Place where I would feel comfortable asking for help from anyone but also sharing any useful experience I can with others
Why leave medicine?
Love medicine and if I didn’t receive a role in consulting [I would probably continue in internal medicine and immunology-related training]
Consulting provides more opportunity for me to grow as a person and a professional
Although I have a background in healthcare, I am keen to work with others to learn about other industries
Talk me through your resume
- 25 year old in my second year of working as a medical doctor in a semi-rural hospital in Salisbury
- I trained in a different city environement at Imperial College London where I also completed an intercalated BSc in Immunity and Infection, which is where my specialist interests lie and I continue to develop them through teaching others, research and conference presentation
- I have applied my experience outside of academia last year in Tonga, where I partnered with a UNICEF representative to help increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine compliance in school children.
- Music and the arts are a big part of my life, both personally playing for myself and in ensembles, but also directing for others for example having the opportunity to lead a jazz band at the turn of covid, which was challenging but very rewarding.
- I hope to use these experiences to work with like-minded people in consulting on interesting projects that are impactful on a larger scale.
How do you work under pressure?
Work well and I’ve learnt ways to stay calm scary situations
For me important to make sure each job that is done is done well - I think it’s natural to rushing and trying to do as much as possible.
As a doctor, when tasked with many high stake jobs
- understand each job
- prioritise and organise
- stay focussed on each job until I have finished
- if i am needed urgently to change jobs, I ensure I have a safety-net for the first job and clear instructions for myself or anyone else who comes back to it
Once work has finished, I reflect and decompress with music.
Most significant professional accomplishment?
Tonga
How would others describe you?
Kind
Approachable
Thoughtful
Why should we hire you?
I feel like I would fit in well in McKinsey’s work environment where I am excited to be surrounded by equally driven people, learn from them and also share anything that I can.
I can provide a unique persepective to projects with my healthcare and creative background - I have a great attention to detal but I am also someone who likes to think outside the box for all possibilities when faced with challenges.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
2 main directions I am considering
* Use experience in medicine and consulting to go onto work on policy and advocacy in immunology and public health, particularly with vaccines which have been so pertinent recently, and look into startups in healthtech - particularly personalised medicine
* Back in the NHS in internal medicine training, working towards being an allergist. If contuing down this path I would still eventually like to work on a startup at the side of after completing training.
