 What intro are we doing? That's a good one. What is up guys? KarmaMedic here and welcome back to another dose. Today I'm joined by Kenji from Kenji to meet the vlogs. Yep, what's up guys? Yeah, so I'm Kenji Tewisa. Me and Nasser go to the same uni so we thought we may as well make a collab together. Yep, he was actually the first person that I met at King's back a year ago. Kenji. And we've just been friends ever since. We went to Amsterdam together. We party together. We get lit together. I don't wish to say that but we get lit together. Yeah, so we thought we'd just make a video. He also has a YouTube channel. So we're going to be doing one video on my channel and then one video on Kenji's channel. If you want to check out the next video, head over to my channel. I guess it'll be in the description. Yeah, links in the description. Someone on the screen. Check it out. Follow Kenji on Instagram. Follow Kenji on YouTube. Show him some support. Show him some love. So today what we're going to talk about is our top MMI interview tips. These are going to be tips that I talked about a little bit less frequently than what you'll find probably on YouTube and other places. So hopefully you guys find them useful and hopefully you can incorporate them into your own practice for MMI's. So the first tip that I have for you guys is that when you're preparing for MMI interviews, make sure you know what skills it is that the interviewers are searching for. So for example, they want you to be a good communicator, a good leader, have good teamwork skills, etc, etc. So make sure you know what those skills are and then mold your stories and your experiences so that you can fit those descriptions and you hit those points hard so that they know exactly what it is that you're talking about. That's a really good point, yeah. I think for mine I had like five or six different, you know, stories, but no, not stories, but cases where I could apply to any situation and actually just adapt, you know, can adapt it to towards anything. So he's really key to have a few, you know, key moments in your life where you can apply to every single question they might ask. That's actually a really good point. If you have five or six or seven said stories, each story within them will probably show that you were both a good communicator and a good leader. So depending on what the question is that they're asking, you can take that story and talk about the things most relevant to the question. All right, so tip number two is to arrive early. So when I came for my interview, I think I was here like an hour and a half, two hours early, I was super keen for the reason why I arrived early is because you get used to the environment and you sit exactly where, you know, surrounded by the people you're going to be competing against. That's true. I think just being there early can really lower your heart rate and really get you calm. It's nothing, I think it's nothing worse than like coming off a train and going straight to interview, straight into the room. It's really important just to sit down, have a drink of water and just be ready for the interview and that will really, really help calm your nerves. Yeah, I completely agree. I know that when I get nervous, I get really sweaty, I get really hot and if you're rushing around to get to the room or you're lost, you don't know where it is, then that's just going to make everything worse. So yeah, I completely agree. Arrive early, make sure you have everything prepared and you've sort of walked through what it is that you want to do the night before. When I arrived, I think I went straight to the waiting area and they told me exactly where the room is going to be. So I knew where I was going, I knew exactly what we were going to do and I just sat there and just tried as hard as I possibly can to lower my heart rate and that really, really helped out. True. If you have a family member or a friend who can come along with you, who you're really close with and can maybe calm you down or help you talk about something else, I'd also recommend that too. That's what I have for me and it helped me tons. So my tip number three is that you shouldn't underestimate your body language and your demeanour. You don't want to be totally relaxed sitting down like this, waiting for the interview to ask you questions, you don't want to be like super closed up and tense. You kind of want to have a sort of relaxed attitude but you want to be leaning into the questions, you want to be listening attentively, you want to be actively showing the interviewer that you're engaged, you're happy to be here and you want to tell your story. You want to get across why it is that you're a great candidate for medicine and why you want to do this. Yeah. I think also medicine, I remember one of the patient education sessions we had. So one of the medical students was sat like crossing her legs and crossing her arms like that. Right. You're being like very closed and you don't want to do that. You want to be open, not too open like NASA said. You want to be in a position where you're ready to answer questions and you look like you are ready for it. Yeah. And of course you're probably going to be nervous. I think it would be weird if you weren't nervous at all for your interview but just know that you'll become less nervous as time goes on. You sort of open up and become a bit less tense and stressed. Definitely. And interviewers know that. They know you're going to be nervous. So if you're nervous and a little bit tight at the beginning, that's totally fine. Yeah. I think the first station was like the worst one for me. I walked in and I was sweating like I was panting. And then towards the end I was like actually it's not as bad as you think it is. Yeah. By the end I was having a conversation with the interviewer about something totally random, about Canada. So it definitely loosens up over time. 100%. So tip number three is to be kind and smile. I think if you walk in or you shake the interviewer's hand, you smile. It really does develop a rapport straight away and people are naturally going to like you more if you are likable. So if you smile, you say hi. Before you leave you thank them for their time and thank them for interviewing you. 100%. And that really is important because if you walk up to someone random and they're immediately smiling straight away you just feel like a liking towards them. Yeah. So that definitely applies to the interview as well. 100%. Even if there is an observer watching. So when I walked in for mine there was an observer watching as well. And I made sure to shake both their hands and to say hi to order them. Nice. And thank them as soon as you walk out. Because it's also a form of non-verbal communication as well. 100%. Yeah, straight away. 100%. Why are you there as mine still recording? Just in case. Yeah, in the bottom right. No, it's in the right. In the right circle. Yeah. No. Why do you do this to me? So my third and final tip for this video is that you need to practice your timing. When you're going into the MMI stations usually they're pretty short somewhere between five and seven minutes depending on the school and you don't have too much time to go on and on droning about what it is that you've done. So you want to make sure that you get your points across very efficiently, very concisely and you say almost only what it is that you need to say and directly answer the question. If you guys finish early, that's totally fine. You can sit and have a chat with the interviewer. You can show them a little bit about your personality outside of what is like strictly medicine. Yeah. But don't be scared to finish early. You need to make sure that your answers are well timed. They're not too short and they're not too long. And at my Bristol interview just for a frame of reference they told us that our answer should be anywhere between 45 minutes to a minute... 45 minutes. 45 seconds to a minute and a half. So that isn't too much time if you think about it and answer one question, but it gives the opportunity for interviewers to ask follow-ups and for you to share more about your story. I feel like if you have a lot to say if there's a question where you know very well try and rank your answers in the most important way. So if you have 10 things to say say the most important things first to make sure you get them out of the way because the interviewer might cut you off and you want to get all the key points out of the way first and then if you have points that are not as important you can just say them at the end. That's a really good point. You will get cut off if you run out of time at your station a bell will ring and that'll be it. You'll have no opportunity to add anything else so you really want to make sure you get across the most important things first. That's a good point. The last tip from my side is kind of just what you said so it's use the full time allocates to you so for mine I remember I had like one minute left and I just sat there in all good silence and I definitely don't do that. If you have a minute left there's always things to add or like NASA said if you are happy with your answer that you feel there's nothing more that you could add you can just fully just carry on a conversation with them and just show them again your personality. If you do, like if you are talking to them just generally about your personality and stuff like that if something does come to your head or an extra thing that you could have said comes to your head you can always add it back into the conversation. So I think it's really important just to don't sit there in all good silence if you can, try and think of other things outside. You can always be like do you mind just giving me another 30 seconds just to have to think about what I want to say and then come back to it and add anything you could possibly add. That's a fair point too. If you need a couple of seconds to just collect your thoughts calm down a little bit and then go into your answer that's also totally fine. It's actually a lot better than just quickly starting to blabber and make up things as you go along. Yeah, fully. I did that so many times where I was like actually do you mind if I was to take 20 seconds and just have a think. And it is a bit awkward like sitting there for 20 seconds but they fully understand that. They'd rather have someone who can sit down with thoughts or someone who can just jump straight away and answer questions. Obviously in medicine it's really important to think, absorb, decide and then return. I think it really is important just to show that you can do that. So if you have no answers just give me 30 seconds I'm just going to gather my thoughts together and then present it in a logical way. Yeah, it's fair to you. Alright, so that's it for this video guys. Those are our six tips for the MMIs on my channel. There's going to be a second part of this video up on Kenji's channel. You guys should really go to his YouTube, follow him. There's links to his social media in the description, Instagram, Snapchat and all the rest of it. So make sure you guys follow him, like his videos, comment everything and I'll see you guys in his video. See you soon.