Interview guidance

Interviews for 2024 entry will be conducted online via Microsoft Teams. Each candidate will have two 15-minute interviews, each with two interviewers. Therefore, each candidate will be interviewed by four different people. The two interview slots will usually be in the same half-day session (morning or afternoon). Morning sessions run from 9:00am to 12:45pm and afternoon sessions run from 14:00pm to 17:45pm.

When selecting your medicine interview date, you will be required to select a morning or afternoon slot.

If you select a morning slot you will need to be available between 9.00am and 12.45pm.

If you select an afternoon slot you will need to be available between 14.00pm and 17.45pm.

You will receive two Microsoft Teams invitations via email no later than 24 hours before your interview date. Please read both of these carefully as they include details of materials you will need to read in preparation for your interviews. Please ensure you join your interview 5 minutes before your time slot and the interviewers will let you in to the meeting.

Interviewers are drawn from the University, local healthcare settings (hospital and community) and the wider local community. All interviewers have undergone specific training for interviewing prospective medical students.  Candidates will be scored on their performance on separate tasks within the two interviews, covering the following areas:

• Preparation and resilience
• Ethical reasoning
• Professionalism
• Personal responsibilities
• Reasoning from a clinical scenario
• Empathy and caring

Interviews will take place during the period December 2023 to March 2024.

Each interviewer will allocate marks for each section separately, so you will be assessed independently by four different interviewers. This ensures that the interviews are as fair and reliable as possible.   Please note that your interviewers will not have read your UCAS personal statement. If you wish to refer to something from your personal statement, please make sure you provide interviewers with the necessary details.

If you are a current Keele student using your Keele Teams account, please wait for the interviewers to send a request to join your interview through Teams.

Further information about the selection process and interview is available here.

The interview will explore your understanding of the field of Midwifery that you have applied for.  You will be asked to discuss your motivation for joining the profession, as well as some of the values and skills required of midwives.

Your interview will be held remotely via Microsoft Teams, and you may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians. Interviews should last approximately 20 minutes.

The interview will explore your understanding of the field of Nursing that you have applied for.  You will be asked to discuss your motivation for joining the profession, as well as some of the values and skills required of nurses.

Your interview will be held remotely via Microsoft Teams, and you may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians. Interviews for BSc Nursing should last approximately 20 minutes.

Each interview will generally be conducted by two interviewers, but you may find a service user is also on the interview panel. You will be asked a range of questions that will evaluate your knowledge of the paramedic role and profession. The questions are designed to ascertain your values base and motivation for studying paramedicine in higher education.

Important – please watch this video; Learning from the experience of BAME cancer patients - Bias prior to your interview as this will inform you of one of the questions.

At the start the interviewer will check your name and your appearance against the photograph you have submitted to the applicant portal. Please make sure you have your ID ready with you.  Recording the interview is strictly prohibited. If such activity is detected, your application will automatically be rejected.

Please prepare and research for the interview appropriately.  When attempting to answer the questions, do not read from pre-prepared notes during the interview.  The interview will be approximately 30 minutes in duration which will include questions and require you to provide your views the video clip provided prior to the interview.  The interview will cover the following areas:

• Motivation
• Professionalism
• Caring for others
• Compassion
• Insight
• Equality and Diversity

Each interviewing panel will allocate marks for each question, with added input of a service user. This ensures that the interviews are as fair and reliable as possible.

The interview will explore your understanding of Pharmacy. You will be asked to discuss your motivation for joining the profession, and also how you would deal with some hypothetical scenarios relating to the values and skills required of a pharmacist.

The interview will be held remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 15 - 20 minutes. You will be interviewed by a Pharmacy Academic and a Student Ambassador.

The interview will explore your understanding of Physiotherapy, your motivation for joining the profession, discussion around some of the values and skills required of a physiotherapist as well as how you may manage a hypothetical challenging scenario.

Your interview will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 20 minutes. You may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians.

The interview will explore your understanding of Radiography, your motivation for joining the profession, discussion around some of the values and skills required of a radiographer as well as how you may manage a hypothetical challenging scenario.

Your interview will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 20 minutes. You may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians.

Your Group Task will take place at 10am on the day of your interview and you will be asked to discuss, in a group, a case scenario which will be attached to your Microsoft Teams invite.  The Group Task will last approximately 30 minutes.  Your individual interview will be in the afternoon (time slot of your choosing on the Applicant Portal).

Please note you must attend the Group Task before your interview.  If you do not attend this session, you will not be permitted to attend your individual interview. 

Congratulations! You have managed to secure an interview for our well-established and highly regarded social work courses. We look forward to meeting you in your forthcoming interview and hearing more about your motivation and preparation for entering what is undoubtedly a challenging course of study, but one that offers significant satisfaction and reward too. If you are successful in being offered a place on one of our courses, you can expect to join a diverse group of fellow students and to work with a highly student-focussed and professionally qualified academic staff group too. Places on our courses are often significantly oversubscribed and so by reaching the interview stage, you have already done very well indeed. We hope that this guidance document will help you show your potential to the best of your ability during the remaining elements of the selection process.

How to prepare for a selection day:

Practicalities – make sure you you can access meetings/links and information you need ahead of the interview day; let us know if you would like to request disability-related adjustments to the selection process to support your participation.

Other preparation that will help you show your full potential – revisit your personal statement to make sure you are familiar with all you have said about your motivations and interests in starting your professional training. Think about what it is about social work (and not just the ‘helping’ element) that means it is a good career/course for you and also why you are a good candidate for the social work course. So, what is it about you as a person, your skills and values and abilities, that means you have the potential to become a safe and effective practitioner. In order to do this, you may need to make sure you have expanded your understanding of what social work is, and what social workers do in a range of contexts. You may find the following reading helpful, and in addition, make sure that you watch and read about current and recent news stories relevant to social work and make the most of any current or previous studies too and come prepared to draw upon these in your interview:

Community Care online
Guardian Society section
Social care Institute for Excellence https://www.scie.org.uk/index
BASW https://www.basw.co.uk/
Social Work England https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk/

How will you be assessed:

The assessors will be trained and experienced service users and carers, social work practitioners and academic tutors. You will have sight of the interview questions at the start of the interview so that you can refer back to these if needed throughout.

Your interview will be based upon a number of questions that are the same for all candidates and one that is specific to your application, based upon information you have included in that. You will be able to ask questions too and we also hope that you will feel comfortable enough to say if you do not understand questions and want anything re-phrased at all. We know that many people will be nervous!

You will need to be successful in both the individual interview and the group task in order to be offered a place on the course, and we will aim to make decisions within a week of the interviews where at all possible.

The questions have been designed to help assess your current preparation and readiness to start a professional social work course of study and so are based upon our regulatory body requirements and also national expectations and sector standards. In order to complete your preparation for interview, you will find it helpful to be familiar with these standards. Details can be found via the links below:

https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk
Regulatory Body, look at ‘Professional Standards’ and importantly for this stage, at ‘Education and Training Standards, 2021’ from the menu on the home page.

https://www.basw.co.uk/professional-development/professional-capabilities-framework-pcf/the-pcf
Professional Body with good practice and sector standards we work to. Look at entry level standards and expectations of what applicants know and understand before entering social work courses.

We hope that you find preparing for the interview process deepens your motivation as well as furthering your understanding of social work and the nature of social work education and we look forward to meeting you soon.

Key contacts at Keele:
Mick Baker, Admissions Tutor:  m.baker1@keele.ac.uk
Cath Holmstrom, Programme Director/Head of Department:  c.holmstrom@keele.ac.uk

Declaration of Suitability form

You should complete a Declaration of Suitability form prior to your interview. You are advised to complete the form prior to your interview but you should not upload it to your Applicant Portal until after your interview has taken place. A decision on your interview performance will not be made until this document is uploaded.

To log onto the Applicant Portal, please click here and follow the instructions on the acknowledgement email we sent to you shortly after you submitted your application. If you have previously logged into the Applicant Portal and cannot remember the password you were prompted to enter then please click on the "Forgotten Your Password" button.

The interview has two main functions: as well as us interviewing you to assess your suitability to train as a counsellor on our Masters programme, you will have the opportunity to assess whether Keele will be the University you choose to undertake your training, if offered a place.

In the group interview, there will usually be two counselling tutors and a small group of around 10 students. As part of the process, you will have the opportunity to talk with the tutors and ask questions. The group interview will take between 1.5 - 2 hours.

The interview will explore your understanding of the field of Nursing that you have applied for.  You will be asked to discuss your motivation for joining the profession, as well as some of the values and skills required of nurses.

Your interview will be held remotely via Microsoft Teams, and you may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians. Interviews for MSc Nursing should last approximately 30-40 minutes.

The interview will explore your understanding of Occupational Therapy, your motivation for joining the profession, discussion around some of the values and skills required of a occupational therapist as well as how you may manage a hypothetical challenging scenario.

Your interview will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 20 minutes. You may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians.

You will be interviewed by Physician Associate Course Director Dr Alison Pooler and two other members of the teaching team, and we anticipate the interview to last approximately 20 minutes.

If you have not submitted your Roles and Responsibilities paperwork, this MUST be uploaded prior to the interview.

The interview will explore your understanding of Physiotherapy, your motivation for joining the profession, discussion around some of the values and skills required of a physiotherapist as well as how you may manage a hypothetical challenging scenario.

Your interview will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 20 minutes. You may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians.

The interview will explore your understanding of Prosthetics and Orthotics, your motivation for joining the profession, discussion around some of the values and skills required of a prosthetist and orthotist as well as how you may manage a hypothetical challenging scenario.

Your interview will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 20 minutes. You may be interviewed by a combination of staff, students, lay advisors and clinicians.