NHS communications interview tips

[WhatAreWordsWorth]

I‘ve been invited to interview for a communications role with my local NHS trust. The interview is next week.

I desperately want the job. My skills and experience match up pretty well, but I’m from a private sector background and have never worked for the NHS before.

I’d love some tips and advice from those who are in NHS roles, particularly in comms/PR/marketing.

You might get a better response if you ask MN to move this to Work or Employment Issues as the traffic on chat does mean threads get lost quite easily!

No specific comms experience but I have done a lot of NHS interviewing. Usually it's pretty straight forward/standard stuff based on the person spec, competency style questions usually (tell me about a time when...). You should answer these using a structured STAR format with the best examples you have from your current or recent roles. There's unlikely to be any tricksy or left field questions as the NHS is pretty strict on standardised interview formats for fairness/equality of opportunity reasons.

I'd say they are probably already fairly confident you can do the job or they wouldn't have invited you to interview so although it won't hurt you to read through the trust website and annual report etc carefully, try and get your head around key issues and priorities for the trust etc, plus some of the terms and acronyms that may be used (e.g. FT, STP, NHSE), probably the main thing is to show how you fit their values and desired behaviours, i.e. are you the kind of person they want to work with! The trust will likely have a statement/'charter' somewhere of their values but they are pretty generic usually, things like putting patients first, teamwork, respect feature heavily - think about how you can weave these themes into your answers. Don't be afraid to come across as keen and enthusiastic, passionate about public service and making a difference - this is rarely a bad thing even if the panel are jaded old-hand NHS lags! Good luck!

Wow thank you so much @maxelly that’s really useful advice. I’ve read up a bit about the Trust’s values and priorities for the year so I’ll make sure I know my stuff!

I’ve got an NHS interview for a job next week too that I really want.

Definitely find out the trust values & make sure to say the key words in every answer & say examples.

Find out the key person linked to the job advertisement & email them to ask for a tour or chat about the job/department so this makes you appear keen for the job.

Good luck.

Thanks @fredisthebestandthelast that’s a good tip about using the values in my examples, will definitely remember to do that!

Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me how your communications interview with the NHS went. I have an interview in 2 days and I really need help in preparing for it. I hope you see this in time. thanks

@WhatAreWordsWorth