Please help me get this admin job!

[Newyearnewusername2024]

Hello
I was previously in a band 6 clinical role until it made me a bit unwell :(
I have an interview for an NHS band 3 administrator role and would really appreciate help to get the job!
I did apply for some B6/7 clinical jobs recently and have not got anywhere and confidence has plummeted.

Can someone please help me as I am not sure what questions will be asked in an admin Interview. I have the skills but I don't have admin qualifications so may not be first pick anyway.

Please help!

What role is it for?

Have you a copy of skills and attributes they are looking for and job description?

I would be ensuring you have evidence of when you can demonstrate x y z that they are asking for.

I've recently been an interviewee for this sort of job. Most of the questions are likely to be competency based - likely to be focussed on managing workload/prioritising/organisation skills/teamwork. Might get something about conflict with colleagues/patients or confidentiality. You need to "sell yourself" and prepare answers to likely questions in advance. So focus on the "I" and not the "we" when talking about what you have done. There are also likely to be a few generic questions - talk me through your CV/tell me about yourself etc/why this job/hospital.

What is the role and the department?

There will be general questions about information governance/confidentiality etc but then also things more specific to the role. You know all the answers, you just need to have confidence in yourself! Remember for a lot of band 2 & 3 roles, there will be candidates from all walks of life with all sorts of different experiences. Some, like you, with no admin experience at all. With your previous experience you have a great foundation to build on. You've already got the added benefit of working within the NHS previously and a lot of managers would welcome that. The interviews are usually quite general/relaxed and they are getting a feel for how you would fit their team etc.

Thank you for your helpful replies.

It is supporting a patient education service. I have experience of medical education from my previous roles, and we had to do all our own admin so hoping that will be enough.

@ExpertNutritionalistAndBestSellingAuthor ooo love your username! I wonder who you are unless it's a red herring.

I am starting a health business so want a job to fit in with that, I think a senior role just wouldn't allow me the time to do this. The good things about this job is you have a lot of patient contact which I will really enjoy.

Alas, my username is from a very funny thread about eggs few weeks ago. I'm not a best seller I'm afraid.

Good luck with the interview. It sounds like you have plenty of relevant experience. Refer back to your admin experience in your past role, it should be more than enough. I used to be clinical with the odd bit of admin and that was plenty of experience to get me into the admin side of things.

Hehe @ExpertNutritionalistAndBestSellingAuthor !!!
May I ask how you feel about the switch from clinical to admin.... Is it less stressful/ a different sort of stress....better for a family life balance? I have met a few people that went from admin to clinical training but not really the other way around.

I am also sure they will ask me why I don't want to be a clinician anymore. Is honesty best?

Thank you for the advice.

use the Chatgpt website and put in the job description- ask it for interview questions and answers.

Check what skills and experience they are asking for. Then for the main ones, prepare some examples of when you've demonstrated those.

A good outline to use is 'STAR' - you describe the Situation, then the specific Task, then the Action (what you did), and the Result (why what you did made the situation 1000% better than it was before).

So if they are looking for experience of implementing admin procedures, you could say that you developed this new way of doing an admin task, and it improved your efficiency. If they are asking about management experience, you could say you had to have a "difficult conversation" with a colleague about xyz, so you approached it like this and the outcome was colleague started performing amazingly and was a joy to work with.

You get the idea! Don't be afraid to sell yourself a little. When I'm interviewing I tend to find that women particularly undersell themselves. You don't want to be a billy bullshitter, but you think of how a good supportive friend would describe you and what you did in a particular situation. Then say that version not the version in your own head!

I've been in a these type of interviews both on panel and the interviewee. I would ensure you research the department you are going to work for as they may ask you what you know about them, what you feel they are trying to achieve and what you can bring to the team. You may also get asked how you prioritise and to give an example. How you deal with conflicting demands etc. you might get a scenario question based around confidentiality and what you may do in a situation. You might get asked about a time when things didn't go as you'd liked and what you did to change that. It's all those type of questions where you will be asked to give examples.

You will probably be asked why you want to change from clinical to admin. I don't think you need to go into massive detail here, for me I'd keep it brief and to the point.

Admin in the NHS is massively busy and can be stressful as you are constantly spinning several plates whilst trying to navigate your way around a sometimes ridiculous workload (not dissimilar to if you are clinical but in a different way). You also have the added pressure of when people leave it takes months to get replacements and then months to train them up so it always feels like you are short staffed and overworked but again if you are clinical you'll know all about that . Good luck 🤞

I've been an administrator for a couple of decades but don't have any formal qualifications in it. Is it AMSPAR for the NHS? But guessing you'll have GDPR and GCP training already?

Generally, I've found that there are 2 types of admin roles, one is more PA focussed (inbox and calendar management for team or an individual, travel arrangements, scheduling meetings/presentations and preparing and distributing docs, taking minutes), I avoid these types of roles as I find them unrewarding although the pay is often better. The other type is more varied and has more scope to it and has lead me into account management, change management and project support roles.

Best of luck for your interview, when is it?

Honesty is best but there are ways of saying it. Basically you don't want it to seem like you think this job is going to be piss easy