Job Interview Torpedoes for Medical Assistant Training Grads

So you’ve completed medical assistant training at the Allen School and you’re about to set out to land a new job in an exciting field.  Or perhaps you’re long past having completed nursing assistant training and have already worked in a few places.  Either way, there are things you should know how to avoid if you don’t wish to torpedo your chances during the all-important job interview process.  After all, you won’t know if you blew the job interview.  You just won’t get a callback.  They certainly won’t call you back to debrief you on how/when you blew the opportunity. So here are some fantastic tips on ways hiring managers report, candidates take themselves out of the running, and oftentimes not even knowingly.   You Were Inflexible in Scheduling The interview is only a small portion of what is used to gauge your suitability.  Many other factors – some overt and some intuitive – are factored into the decision to “hire” or “pass”.  When called to schedule an interview, if you seem inflexible about the time they offer, it can be a serious strike against you.  Yes, we’re all busy and perhaps the hiring manager offered a time you simply could not be available.  Unless it is impossible, you should try to accept the time they wish to offer.  If you cannot, be ready with several other suggestions for times that work for you so that you come across as both responsible and flexible. You Arrived Too Early (or Late!) Everyone knows it is a dealbreaker to arrive at your interview late (especially without calling to let the interviewer know).  But being too early is also a turn-off for many hiring managers. Being there a half hour or more early is a bad plan.  It conveys that you think the interviewer doesn’t have lots of other tasks to address.  If you do arrive too early, it is best to wait outside until just 5 to 10 minutes before your appointment.  Go sit in the park or have a cup of coffee instead of lingering on the waiting room couch. You Weren’t Cool to the Gatekeeper You may not know it, but receptionists hold a lot of power over your candidacy.  They can (and often do) report on your behavior and attitude to the interviewer.  So (and this really should go without saying) be courteous and friendly with reception.  While waiting, be well-mannered.  Don’t for example yak away on your cell phone.  Be professional with a quiet air of dignity. You Used Your CV as a Script The CV (or resume if you prefer) is the tool that gets you the interview.  It is not a cheat sheet for you to parrot back to the interviewer.  They can read and have already reviewed what you wrote on your resume.  Use the time instead to talk about how your qualifications and experience will bring value to the role you’re applying for.  If you’ve just completed your nursing assistant training and don’t have much on-the-job experience to tout, talk instead about how you bring the same dedication and effort you brought to nursing assistant training to the tasks you’ll be assigned on the job. Failed to Ask Questions Most hiring managers agree that the candidate who doesn’t ask any questions when given the opportunity to do so is often not well-engaged with the opportunity.  Don’t ask pointless questions either, just to have something to ask.  Do your homework about the position, the company, etc., and then ask a few cogent, thoughtful questions.  After all, before you’re hired is the right time to ask.  Once you’ve accepted the job, should you encounter facets of the role that you find objectionable, it is too late to lodge complaints because you’ve already accepted the job and the terms. Be sure to keep up-to-date with our blog at the Allen School of Health Sciences for more information!

You’re bound to hold a number of positions as certified medical assistants are in great demand.  Over the course of your career, you’re likely to change employers multiple times.  And as with almost everything else one can do in the world, there is a right way and a wrong way to leave a job.  If you’ve been working in corporate healthcare you’ll likely have to endure an “exit interview” with corporate HR before you fully fly the coop.  The purpose of the exit interview is to provide the organization with some ideas about how to improve their workplace systems and processes.  It is also an opportunity for inexperienced workers to damage their professional reputations by falling victim to any number of pitfalls.  Here are some of those pitfalls culled from a list of things you should never say during an exit interview. “My boss was a jerk.”  No matter how true this may be, it reflects poorly on you if you mention this to HR in your exit interview.  Remember, you may want to have the ability to use that jerk as an employment reference. “My co-worker was lazy.”  Any variation on the theme that has you trash-talking your former co-workers makes you come across as bitter.  Again, preservation of the reference is what you stand to gain by taking the high road.  No matter if you were always taking up the slack for a slacking co-worker. “This place will fall apart without me.”  No one is indispensable and you too will be replaced.  You may be king or queen among certified nursing assistants, but the time for tooting your own horn was during the hiring interview, not the exit interview.  Saying this makes you look petty. “I was never paid what I was worth and my new job pays much better.”  Again, you accepted the pay rate when you accepted the job.  Even if you are leaving because you feel you’re able to earn more elsewhere, it reflects poorly on you to be complaining about something you’d agreed to when you were hired. “My new job is with a much better company.”  No one likes to be denigrated.  You have nothing to gain and reputational points to lose by trying to make your exit interviewer feel “less than” by comparing their employer unfavorably to yours.  You may be leaving.  But they’re staying. Are you seeing a pattern here?  Certified nursing assistants can mostly choose where and for whom they want to work.  But getting the next job always depends to some extent on how you performed at the last job.  An exit interview may seem like a good time to unload all the bull you were forced to swallow on the job you’re leaving.  But it is far more professional to smile and be diplomatic.  Living well is the best revenge.  Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by being petty and vindictive.

“Like father like son” says the old maxim.  But how much truth is there to this idea?  Is there any correlation between the career roles selected by people and the types of work their parents did?  How many Allen School students taking medical assistant training had a mother or father who worked in the medical field?  How about in scientific fields?  Office fields?  Or is there no correlation at all? You may be surprised to know there’s some actual, productive information that comes from the unbelievable volume of personal data collected by Facebook.  The Research at Facebook blog slices and dices this data and sometimes provides interesting insights.  So it was with great interest that we played with their interactive graphic which mapped the careers of fathers against those of their sons as well as careers of mothers against those of their daughters.  The results were fascinating if not inconclusive. According to Facebook research, there are numerous interesting questions users can find answers to in the data provided, including, “How much of our choice of profession depends on who our parents are? Parents pass on their genes, set an example, provide opportunities, and give advice to either aim for or steer clear of their own lines of work. In the end, do their children end up in the same type of job? Do siblings choose the same occupation? And is this more or less true for different professions?” While there may not be any concrete correlation between parents in medical/healthcare careers and the paths chosen by their children, there is still much that can be learned from the interesting data.  Why did you decide to take nursing assistant training with the Allen School?  Was your mom or dad any influence in your decision making?

Medical office assistants are heavily involved in the effective, efficient administration of the medical office.  Like any other administrative career role, a medical office assistant will certainly need to be able to manipulate the productivity software tools in use in office environments around the world.  If you don’t know what a productivity suite is, it is a group of software programs (typically marketed as a package by software companies) that are used for such things as written document creation, spreadsheets, presentation slide design tools, email, calendar management and more. If you’ve used a computer at all, you’re probably already familiar with the Microsoft Office productivity suite which comes installed on the vast majority of computers in the world.  Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and other tools in the Microsoft suite are standard tools used by office administrators and medical office assistants to produce, maintain and store all manner of documents created in the office environment.  What you’re probably not aware of however, is that there are competitive productivity suites that are giving Microsoft Office a run for its money. Enter Google which has fielded its own suite, very much analogous to Microsoft Office.  Google Docs is a word processor like MS Word.  Google Sheets is the equivalent to Excel for spreadsheets.  Google Present is their version of Powerpoint.  And of course, Gmail and Google calendar can easily replace Microsoft Outlook.  Generally speaking, if you’re proficient in manipulating the Microsoft tools, it would be an easy transition to use the Google suite which largely uses the same commands and functionality. One of the best advantages of Google’s tools however, is the fact that it is cloud-based, meaning it is accessible via internet browser connection as opposed to being software you have to install on your local machine (like Microsoft Office Suite).  The cloud accessibility is also very good for collaboration between users in the same office or in offices anywhere in the world.  If you’re a medical office assistant in a large healthcare group with offices all across the state or country, the Google suite in the cloud is an exceptional productivity tool. Having been overtaken by Google’s dominance in the cloud, Microsoft recently released Microsoft 365 which is their cloud-based version of the productivity suite that attempts to offer the same level of collaborative capability as Google.  It mostly succeeds in this regard with one small but important distinction.  Whereas Google’s tools are free to the home-based user, Microsoft’s require a minimum $10 monthly subscription to use. Ultimately though, you probably won’t be the person deciding which productivity suite to use as the medical office assistant.  It will likely have been selected before you get to the job.  That said, a good medical office assistant brings to his/her position, sufficient knowledge of all the administrative tools in wide use out in the business world. How proficient are you? Be sure to stay updated with our blog, and check out our programs at the Allen School of Health Sciences.