Remember: You are Applying for Training, Not a Job
Strategies for Presenting Your Qualifications
Effectively During Interviews
One
of the biggest mistakes you can make in applying for internship or practicum
is acting as though you are applying for a professional job - instead of for a
training experience. In your drive to compete successfully with fellow
applicants, you might unintentionally oversell yourself and your qualifications.
Yet, unless you stop, pay attention, and prepare yourself, you are likely
to do this without even realizing what you have done until it is too late. In
the process, you might also might wind up undermining your own needs.
Of course, you want to present yourself to
selection committees in the most professional manner possible - dressing
appropriately and conducting yourself with poise, composure, and
self-assurance. You want to discuss your goals and previous experiences with
the depth and seriousness of someone in the final phases of your graduate
education. You want to convey your strong interest in making the most of the
training opportunities they offer. In short, you want to present yourself as
someone who has clearly started moving beyond the preliminary role of
"student" toward becoming a "professional-in-training".
But, that is where the similarities end.
Recognize
the Benefits of
marketing Your qualifications appropriately
The primary difference between applying for a
job and applying for a training experience lies in how you select - and choose
to present - information about yourself. If you are not careful about
maintaining this distinction, you might inadvertently over- or undersell
yourself during your interviews without realizing what you have done or having
an opportunity to correct your error. You will significantly decrease your
risk of representing your qualifications inaccurately and improve your chances of
making a strong impression on selection committees if you keep the
following distinctions in mind:
In
applying for a Job, you want to
show that you can
- function
independently as a clinician - that is, make appropriate treatment choices,
balance your work responsibilities, initiate and complete your
assignments with only minimal direction
- apply an established theoretical framework to conceptualize
your cases competently and justify your clinical decisions based upon it
- meet your departmental expectations for
generating revenue, productivity and effectiveness
in providing services to clients
- recognize and take responsibility
for maintaining the boundaries of professional competence in
accepting and treating clients
|
In
Applying for Training, you want to
show that you can:
- work well
under supervision - regularly seek guidance about treatment
decisions, expand the limits of existing competence, inform
supervisors client status and intervention outcomes
- present your theoretical orientation
as a work-in-progress - questioning your assumptions and
learning to apply various theories to cases
- spend adequate time conceptualizing
cases to develop comprehensive,
in-depth understanding of the treatment priorities
- take calculated risks trying
approaches
outside of your comfort zone to develop your qualifications and
make the most of working under supervision
|
While the above list is not exhaustive and
these categories are not mutually-exclusive, it does highlight the
differences in approach and attitude that applicants should consider in
presenting their qualifications during interviews.
Clearly, most internship and practicum supervisors will
understand that you are in transition between the passive role of student and
the active role of independent professional. So, they should not expect you to
be able to function independently. Furthermore, they should never
treat you as a source "cheap labor," working you 80 hours a week and
providing you with only minimal training or direct supervision. Remain alert
to these possibilities during your interviews and ask any questions necessary
to improve your chances of avoiding such an unfortunate situation.
Instead, you should expect interviewers to
show you specifically how they would expand your competence and invest in your
individual professional development, through providing customized training experiences, adequate
learning opportunities, and close, regular supervision. At the same time, they
will expect you as an internship applicant to demonstrate that you have advanced beyond the skill and
knowledge level of a beginning practicum student. If you are applying for
practicum training, they will expect you show that you are ready to move
beyond book knowledge to start gaining hands-on experience. In both
cases, the more clear and specific your examples, the more convincingly you
will present yourself as someone prepared to benefit from their training
programs.
Learn
to navigate the Transition from Student to
Intern
So, how can you stay focused on presenting
yourself as a trainee rather than a job applicant?
The secret lies in careful preparation. Begin
by shifting your perspective from worrying about whether you already know
enough to thinking about what you still want to learn. Ideally,
internship and practicum selection committees will care less about how much experience you
already have and more about how you can show what you want to learn and
how they can help you to learn it.
For example, you might want to focus on
learning to assess and treat adult clients because you have previously worked
only with children. If you were applying for a job, an employer would probably
have less interest in hiring you if you did not already have experience with
adults. He or she would need you to start treating that population right away,
as soon as you began working. Few clinics can afford either the time or the
financial investment necessary to provide such basic training for their employees.
More likely,
an employer would expect you to learn these new skills through seminars and
workshops or classes at your own expense and outside of your regular work
schedule.
By contrast, the entire emphasis during
internship and practicum should be on training. The best programs focus the
majority of their time on helping "professionals-in-training" to
gain knowledge in new areas and to expand their existing competence. So, for
example, if you had gained most of your clinical experience with children,
selection committees would expect you to talk during your interview about why
you want to learn to work with adults. And, they would want you to show how you
would transfer your existing skills and knowledge to treating this new population.
More
importantly, they would want you to explain how you would use their training
experiences to develop the competence you need in this new area of
concentration.
Start Preparing Mentally for the Transition Now
In short, you owe it to yourself to start
becoming more aware of the skills and knowledge you already possess to
identify the additional expertise you need to work successfully with
your chosen population(s). Then, you need to spell out specifically how each site's program
would help you develop your competencies in these areas By openly and clearly
articulating
your training goals, needs, and interests to your interviewers, you
will automatically spend less time trying to impress them with what you
already know and more time helping them see what you need their help to
learn. This approach will significantly lower your anxiety - and
make you a much more attractive candidate.
Besides, can you imagine a much more
attractive applicant than someone who wants specifically to learn what the
supervisor wants to teach?
John T. Carlsen, Psy.D. is
a licensed clinical psychologist who trains and supervises psychology interns
and externs. He offers personal coaching and training resources for graduate
students applying for internships and post-doctoral jobs. Click here
to learn more about how to write
effective applications and prepare for interviews. Click here
to submit comments, questions, or suggestions for future newsletter topics.
