Winners: Claire Speer, Larry Koyama, Nicky Fowler, Nina White
Claire Speer, Larry Koyama, Nicky Fowler, Nina White outline their questions and explain their reasons for them.
Questions
- If you had the opportunity to organise a team building event for your new colleagues what would it be and why?
- What does ‘being in good health’ mean to you? How might you support people to achieve this in your role?
- Please give us a representation of what you believe ‘being caring’ is? We’d like you to share this with us and then give us a short explanation about how you think excellent care is demonstrated. (Candidate would be asked to think about this before the interview and advised they can bring a written answer, props, photos, art supplies, musical instruments, cue cards, and given up to 10 minutes to prepare before presenting this to the panel.)
Why these?
The theme of the questions was to determine whether the people interviewed had ‘a collective soul’. We defined that further as a core belief system which would contribute to a team effort of care, responsibility and doing what is right.
The first question would give insight into how someone would consider other team members, inclusivity, and their ability to communicate and influence others. Prompts could be given to explore how people would be invited, what day or time? We’d prefer an answer which showed thought for other people’s individual preferences, as well as considering the team’s needs as a whole. Bonus points for considering the need for maintaining a service for patients or other staff members.
The questions give the candidate space to explore what truly matters to them, and allows the interviewer to assess how aligned the candidate is with our shared purpose.
The second question acknowledges that health is on a continuum and good health is different for each individual. For some people it is the absence of disease, for others it is the ability to get washed and dressed without help. This question seeks to understand if the candidate acknowledges individuals goals and needs, as well as the ongoing need to promote self management and ownership of health wherever possible. We acknowledge that this may be a challenging question for people working in end of life care to answer, but could be very enlightening for the interviewer in how people see their role in supporting the dying.
For the third, care is such an obvious choice but so central to working in this sector, we couldn’t leave it out. It was important to us to create a question that allowed for people who are neurodivergent, for whom English is a second language, and for people who struggle with pressures of interview to be able to express themselves. We wanted to re-think the interview process without putting people who are used to a traditional interview at a disadvantage either.
About us
- Claire Speer is a Physiotherapist and Pilates instructor, Speer Physiotherapy Ltd
- Larry Koyama, is a Physiotherapist, and Innovation lead at Imperial College Health Partners
- Nicky Fowler is Consultant Physiotherapist and Researcher, Kings College Hospital NHS Trust
- Nina White is Clinical Services Manager, The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt NHS FT
Our team are all Versus Arthritis Musculoskeletal Champions. We met through the charity’s ‘champions’ leadership programme and have formed a strong community of collaborative, passionate leaders throughout all aspects of musculoskeletal care.