The Interview

There is no more unsatisfying human interaction than an interview. It really doesn't matter what kind of interview. Generally they are for jobs or schools or other positions. They are entirely artificial and their purported purpose of one stranger evaluating another stranger in approximately 30 minutes to determine their suitability for some level of responsibility and capability is entirely absurd. And I'm fairly certain that I've been involved in several hundred interviews both as an interviewee and more so as an interviewer of job applicants, college applicants, med school applicants, residency applicants, fellowship applicants, faculty applicants, and the like.

I completely understand the need to eyeball someone for a position. But in general, about all you can do is determine that they are not drooling, knuckle dragging fools. Beyond that, it's a crap shoot. I cannot believe the number of times that I have been fooled in both directions. 

As everyone knows, the interviewee has a distinct purpose to answer all questions in such a way as to make himself or herself attractive for any given position and will pretty much say anything toward that end. They can be incompetent morons but with the requisite social skills of deception and affability, they can succeed in any interview, particularly with a gullible and naive interviewer such as me. I am reminded of an interview I once had with someone who was interviewing to be my secretary at a hospital. When asked about her computer skills and fluency with certain programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, she stated the number of training hours she had on pretty much every piece of software I mentioned and confirmed her expertise, including documentation of course training hours. She seemed articulate and bright. 

She got the job and on her first morning stated that her computer was broken. My chief technician went to help her and came in to see me shaking his head. I asked him what the problem was and he responded that her computer wouldn't open because she didn't put in the password. When he told her the password, she asked, “What's a password?” Because I was in a federal institution, it took me 2 years to get her transferred out of my department. So much for that interview.

Interviews can also be great opportunities for pranksters among faculty members. When I was a Temple University faculty member, we were interviewing residency applicants. And my good friend Bart and I decided to do our best to embarrass our other good friend Bob. Now Bob was in an office suite that had an open area for the secretaries and interestingly had two widely separated entry doors into that area. So people could be coming and going at the same time without seeing each other. It turned out that there was a very attractive young woman who was an applicant and Bart and I decided that it would be interesting to portray Bob as a sexist pig to this young woman. Which he is not. Such is a partial definition of a prank. So as Bob escorted one applicant out of his office and out the door of the suite, Bart and I snuck into his office from the other door and placed a Sports Illustrated swimsuit poster of a scantily clad model on the wall behind the door to his office, which opened inward to cover the wall. 

His office was arranged in such a way that when he sat behind his desk he faced the wall behind his office door once it was closed. And there was a chair in front of his desk looking directly at him and 180° away from the poster. Which would create quite a predicament for him. And it did. He escorted the young woman into his office and had her sit down and closed his door without looking and went around and sat at his desk. Whereupon he had full view of the near naked model directly behind the attractive young applicant. And had to perform the entire interview looking at it behind her head.

This was intended to present him with a problem predicament that required an innovative solution. First, he had to conduct an entire interview with the woman hoping that she wouldn't turn around and see that he was a sexist pig. And he had to stare at the poster the whole time and keep a straight face. Then he had to figure out a way to get her out of the office without her seeing the poster. Bart and I were obviously quite mature faculty members. Well it turned out that Bob was quite clever. When the interview was over, he asked her to stay seated and said he would be right back. He opened his door and left it open which blocked the view of the poster and then he came back in his office to retrieve the applicant and escort her out of his office without her seeing that he was a sexist pig. Bart and I were totally deflated. And Bob didn't have to go around asking who had done this. See, interviews actually can be fun!

Some of the more interesting experiences of interviews occurred when I was the interviewee. The anecdotes that follow demonstrate the remarkable freedom you have to express yourself, when you no longer have any interest in the position.

When I applied to Harvard Medical School from Harvard College, there were usually two interviews. At that time, it was normal protocol to always give at least one interview to alumni of the college, as a courtesy gesture. You don't want to piss off potential donors. If you were a realistic candidate, you got a second interview, which I did. When I entered that interview, I believe there was an immediate visceral reaction between us of dislike. He was a southern crewcut bow tied pretentious twerp from my perspective and I was a heathen long-haired radical undergraduate from his. In all likelihood, both perceptions were likely incorrect, but there are visceral reactions to appearance and body language in all interviews. To say that the interview went poorly would be a gross understatement. He came from the 1950s and I was coming as a student of medical economics focusing on single payer, high access medical care based on international models, from the 1970s. Something I naively thought was imminent in the US and which we have yet to achieve and absolutely never will.

The entire affair was essentially an argument. The interview can best be summarized by the final two sentences uttered by each of us. His last sentence was, “Son, I believe you're quite naive.” My last sentence and the final sentence of the interview was, “I'm not your son, and I prefer to be naive as opposed to ignorant.” We did not even shake hands at the end. Fortunately, I had decided during the course of the interview (and actually even prior to it) that this probably was not the right place for me and I know I was correct. 

I once interviewed for the position as chairman of radiology at a University affiliated VA hospital on the East Coast. This hospital had a poor reputation and I really wasn't interested in the position, but I did it as a favor to a friend in Washington, DC who was high up in the VA hierarchy. She asked me to at least take a look. The VA administrators at the hospital were quite enthusiastic and extremely kind and deferential. Not so with the chairman of the University affiliate that actually staffed the entire department of radiology there and ran the show within that department. There was obvious antagonism between the two groups and the position I was interviewing for was right in the middle. It would have been a disastrous job, for me at least. 

During an open interview with the university chairman and two VA executives, the university chairman demonstrated himself to be a pretentious and pompous twit. Despite being fairly famous. Or perhaps because of it. I had already decided that there was no way in the world I was accepting this position when he unceremoniously insulted the VA administrators by saying, “This department is a complete disaster and needs to be entirely revamped and restructured. It's been that way for over a decade. What makes you think that you are capable of that?” He was a very hostile guy.

Since I had no interest in the job whatsoever, I was free to speak my mind and said, “Well, there's two things to say. First and most important, it's my understanding that you have been running this department for over a decade on a contractual basis. If that's true, why is it a disaster under your administration? Why were you incapable of fixing it? And second, I do not think that I am capable of correcting the supposedly multiple and extensive problems in this department working with your staff and administrators who have turned it into a mess for over 10 years.” It was quite exhilarating for me to insult this guy. 

The guy went nuts and was absolutely apoplectic. The VA administrators were euphoric because apparently no one had ever spoken to this pretentious ass in this manner, ever. The interview meeting broke up quickly, and the VA guys were falling all over themselves trying to entice me to accept the position simply because I told a jerk that he was a jerk. Enough said.

Nevertheless, I do vividly remember the most significant interview I ever had in terms of learning how to do interviews. I was interviewing for a spot at Duke Medical School and the interviewer came to Boston to do interviews of students there. Rather than ask the usual useless formal questions such as why I wanted to be a doctor (to help humanity!), or what was my favorite book (nowadays, perhaps favorite video game), and other such nonsense that tells you nothing about an individual since they have prepared for this and have well-prepared answers that have nothing to do with their real personas, he did something unique. He said hi, rubbed his face and said he was tired, and asked me what I did last night. I looked at him, surprised, and said, “I went to the Red Sox game.” He laughed and said he did as well and that he was tired because he drank too many beers. And then he asked me my favorite beer. And then we talked about the game. And the crowd. And baseball, sports, traveling around, and a whole variety of things that had nothing to do with medicine, medical school, applications or the last book I read. We went on for about 45 minutes and at the end of that time, that guy knew me better as a person than any interviewer ever did before or after.

During the interview I thought the whole thing was sort of strange, but when it was over I realized that he was the most effective interviewer at determining the type of person I really was. It was entirely informal, and it would have been even better if we had both had beers. When I looked back on it years later, I ended up incorporating his style of interviewing as my style of interviewing forever. I never ever asked anybody why they wanted a position or what they wanted in life or any other such nonsense because they would say what they thought I wanted to hear. The most effective interviewing technique is simply to have as normal a conversation as possible with any given individual in an informal manner, within the constraints of some questions regarding skills and interests. Ask them if or what they drink, what they did last weekend, their favorite vacation spot or country and the details of their last trip there, their favorite musical group, or just about anything that has absolutely nothing to do with the job or position itself, but everything to do with who they are as people. And lead into everything naturally like a normal conversation. In essence, have fun, and try to make a new friend, albeit short-term. Because asking predictable questions will give you predictable answers. Think about it, because it's a really good strategy and I really appreciated having learned it from that Duke guy.