Applicantsʼ Perceptions of the Formal Faculty Interview during Residency Recruitment

Abstract

Objective: Every year thousands of medical students interview for first-year positions in internal medicine. The interview process for programs is labor-intensive, requiring considerable involvement by faculty. Despite the sparcity of data to support the utility of formal faculty interviews, they are nearly a universal part of the interview day and felt to be important. Increasing pressures on available faculty resources have made recruitment of faculty for interviewing more difficult. Thus, we thought it was important to discover our current interns' perceptions of the faculty interview. Specifically, we were looking for how much they valued it and what they hoped to gain from it. Depending on their views, it might make sense to change the emphasis and/or structure of the interviews. Description: Content for a questionnaire came from the literature and an informal discussion session with ten interns. Items focused on goals for and impact of the interview and on perceptions of the importance of the interview and different interview formats. The resulting 20-item questionnaire was given to all interns in a university-based internal medicine residency program in November 2000; 53 of 61 questionnaires were returned. Responses were reported on a five-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neutral, 4 = disagree, 5 = strongly disagree). The most important goals of the faculty interview, in these interns' view, were to learn more about the program (84%), “sell myself” (80%), and determine faculty satisfaction with the institution (76%) and their own interest in the residency program (71%). Nearly all (86%) of the interns agreed that the faculty interview was a necessary part of the interview day. Most (65%) felt that the faculty interview had had an impact on their rank list. More than half (60%) thought that a formal interview conducted by a resident would be beneficial. The most acceptable model of interviewing was two faculty interviews at 30 minutes each (89%), although the majority also thought that two alternative models would be acceptable: two faculty and one resident at 20 minutes each (67%), and one resident and one faculty interview at 30 minutes each (62%). Models unacceptable to the majority were no formal interview (93%), one faculty interview at 60 minutes (61%), and two resident interviews at 30 minutes each (59%). Discussion: It is clear that the faculty interview portion of the interview day cannot be eliminated, but new approaches might be acceptable to applicants while simultaneously permitting more efficient use of faculty resources. We are introducing three different interview models into the upcoming applicant season: our traditional model of two 30-minute faculty interviews; a model of one 30-minute faculty interview and one 30-minute resident interview; and a model of two 20-minute faculty interviews with one 20-minute resident interview. We intend to survey the applicants at the end of the interview day to assess their perceptions of the formal interviews. We will also compare the ratings of applicants given by residents and faculty. Finally, we intend to assess our matched applicants later to determine whether the interview model has any effect.