so you passed the recruiter screen you've applied for the job now it's time
to interview what questions are they gonna ask you
hey guys Serg here we have another viewer requested question and i love
these because it shows that you guys are active and engaged and are really
listening and really want to take part in this community that we're building
together one day at a time so this question comes in from a viewer and she
asked what questions are asked during a clinical research interview and by the
way if you want to ask the question you could either just comment it down below
or you can email us an elite clinical group at gmail.com we always respond and
you can email us your question or just comment it down below but you can ask
your question that way so this this viewer asks the question what questions
are asked during a clinical research interview and she specifically wanted me
to go in through the entry-level positions and maybe even some of the
higher level position questions that they will ask
so basically clinical research has shifted to a more behavioural approach
based interview and a lot of other industries have done this as well but
basically a behavioral interview is where they ask your how you're gonna act
or your behavior in certain situation so they'll ask something like this like
let's say you have a deadline coming up on Friday and it's Wednesday and you've
got three things you need to get done but you know for sure no matter how hard
you work you're only gonna be able to get two of them done what do you do so
then they want you they just want to hear what your thought process is and
what your what your answer is maybe there's no writing answer to the
particular question they could be asking but they want to hear how you work
through it how you're gonna get through it how are you gonna escalate certain
things etc so they want to know how you're gonna act in different scenarios
so they ask anything like like that - even something it's - an easy one like
you know what are you going to do if if someone if someone's being rude to you
on the phone they're gonna ask you a bunch of these scenario based questions
especially more dealing with the job so let's say your job is you're gonna be on
the a lot let's say you are a you know site
ID person and you they give you a list of people to contact each one's a
contact these people though they're gonna ask you behavior based questions
this is something that you're gonna be dealing with on a daily basis you know
what happened well how you act after you've gotten through like five or so
phone calls how do you act when someone doesn't pick up the phone the first time
how are you gonna act when no one is responding to your emails or missed
phone calls no one seems to be contacting you back how are you gonna
act in all these different situations so there's usually not a way to prepare for
it because you don't know what kind of questions they may be asking you but
what you want to have prepared are some examples that you can reuse over and
over again so you have some bonafide example solid examples of you know a
time that you struggled you're gonna have an example of a time that you
struggled and we're successful you can have an example of a time that you
struggled and failed and you prepare these beforehand so you can use them
during these situations because you never know what questions they're gonna
ask but a lot of times you those are those type of answers that you've
prepared are general enough where they can apply in different scenarios and
situations but the behavioral aspect of the interview is huge
this is something that they asked you know all the way from the littlest like
research assistant all the way up to a senior CR a project manager project
director they want to know how you act in various situations because you're
gonna be faced with these situations on a day-in and day-out basis and they want
to know that your behavior is somewhat predictable and that you're not gonna
just fly off the handle at something or fly off the handle at somebody and cost
the company some money in the long run so behavioral questions are huge and you
know depending on the role it may depend on the more behavioral questions you're
asked for example an entry-level role you're not going to know too much about
clinical research so they're not going to pound you on ICS GCP regulations
they're not going to pound you on you know how to break down a 1572
they're not gonna pound you on everything that needs to be an essential
document in the TMF because you're not gonna know those things off the back of
your hand you may not know them at all especially if it's an entry-level role
but as you get up in the field as you become your in-house CRA
now as you become your CRA as you become your project manager they're gonna ask
you more and more questions dealing with clinical research because then expect
you to know them like the back of your hand so if you're a CRA
you better know how to read a protocol you better know what sections make up a
protocol you better know what constitutes informed consent because
you're that's something that you're gonna be collecting on every visit you
know there's just some things for each position that you have to know and
there's no doubt in my mind that if you're applying for a position that you
will know it because that's just the bare minimum most of that stuff is gonna
come from on-the-job knowledge you know you may review some of those situations
like I mentioned before that you can bring up first different scenarios that
they may ask but a lot of that is just gonna come from the on-the-job knowledge
now if you're new to clinical research you definitely want to focus on the
behavioral aspect to these questions because that's proof that's pretty much
what they're gonna be asking you and then they're gonna be asking you maybe
about your past work experience and so with your past work experience you want
to be able to you know tell them a little bit about it and then be able to
parlay that into how it relates to clinical research or parlay that into
something that will benefit in clinical research or something that they will
like so if they ask you a question you want to be able to you know glean the
positive out of your answer and hit encounter punch with that that's just a
common interview strategy that's not just particular to clinical research but
just in general so you know as you get higher up in clinical research the more
clinical research specific questions they may have
but behavioral is going to be a basis they've been asking behavioral questions
see they started probably pretty much over the past few years really narrowing
it down I had an interview one time not too long ago and they pretty much only
asked behavioral questions especially if you've never had that job before if
you're if you're new to that job role they're not gonna ask you things that
are specific to that job role they're gonna ask you things that were specific
to your previous job role to make sure that you understood that you were
competent in that but they also want to know more about your mindset how do you
act on situations because they can teach you how to do the job but what they
can't teach you is your manners your customer service your email etiquette
your phone etiquette and that's really what they want to narrow down in the
interview so hope that really helps you know not now I haven't done every
position in clinical research so I can't talk specifically about different ones
but just in my experience behavioral questions are huge so I would look
around for different behavioral questions and practice with yourself if
more people are interested in doing that you can leave some in the comments and I
can put and I can practice responding to those in a I think a decent way or you
know maybe we can work something out we have a mock interview if someone's
interested in that and we can film that or record that and put it out for the
audience to critique there's a lot of different things we could do so if any
of you guys are interested in that you can comment down below but yeah just
basically with the interview thing you really just want to prepare your
scenarios and everything is gonna be based on behavioral based questions for
the most part especially if you're new to clinical research so hope that helps
guys as always email us at elite clinical group at gmail.com for any
questions or enquiries you can become part of our resume review program email
us there just send over your resume or if you want to advertise with us you can
email us there as well alright guys take care