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'What do you think a typical day in the role will be like?' interview question

6 replies

7cc8d9 · 29/08/2022 22:35

I always struggle with how to answer this question. I never know which aspects of the role to focus on... Like if I talk about X task and it turns out that's a more minor part of the role, will the interviewers think it's not the job for me because I think X task is a bigger part than it is? Or is it just about reeling off some random duties from the job description to show you have read it? Or vaguely describing what a [role] does rather than specific tasks?

Interview is for a medical lab assistant role. I don't have any lab experience so while I get the gist of the role, I don't know what a day doing the job actually looks like. It's big lab, and the job description is huge and talks about rotating around different areas. I feel really well prepared apart from this one possible question. Does anybody have any advice on how to approach it?

OP posts:
lozabella · 30/08/2022 10:20

What discipline is the job in? I work in healthcare science in NHS.

In general I would focus on things like stock management, specimen receipt and labelling, data entry. If you know which discipline - haematology, biochemistry, cellular pathology/histopathology , microbiology then I would look at usual MLA roles within these teams.

SheWoreYellow · 30/08/2022 10:22

That’s a really shitty question. I’m nhs and have never had to answer it.

Id try and rehash the required skills listed, I think, kind of merged into the job description a bit.

lozabella · 30/08/2022 10:25

SheWoreYellow · 30/08/2022 10:22

That’s a really shitty question. I’m nhs and have never had to answer it.

Id try and rehash the required skills listed, I think, kind of merged into the job description a bit.

Agreed though, shitty question. And I haven't even been asked it, or asked it myself in interviews and I've done a lot of MLA interviews.

7cc8d9 · 30/08/2022 10:50

It's cellular pathology. I really hope it doesn't come up. I just see it mentioned a few times by people talking about MLA interviews online, and I was asked it at an NHS admin interview years ago. In that case, it was a very repetitive job with a very narrow range of tasks and I think they were trying to check people had realistic expectations of it. I wondered if it might be asked at a MLA interview more to over-qualified people as a way of pointing out it's not a trainee biomedical scientist role. Fingers crossed I don't get asked it.

OP posts:
Username3008 · 30/08/2022 22:45

No advice as such but just wanted to add that it's not a great question at all, and I'm surprised it gets asked. That's normally the question that I would ask myself to the interviewer - "What can I expect a typical day to be in this role?".

lozabella · 07/09/2022 21:27

How did it go OP?

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