Why “Being A Good Team Player” Isn’t Enough For Your NHS Consultant Interview

In this episode of the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast, Tessa Davis and Becky Platt break down some of the most frequent stumbling blocks for final-year trainees and locum consultants facing NHS consultant interviews.

They cover:

• Why just saying you’re a “good team player” isn’t enough - and how to prove it with concrete, project-based examples
  
  
• How to use broad MDT initiatives to answer competency questions at a senior level
  
  
• Boosting staff morale: why surface solutions like cake matter, but system-level changes deliver bigger impact
  
  
• Ways to tackle “how do I find my unique selling points?” - and why everyone has more than they think
  
  
• The importance of identifying your five core USPs, and practical approaches for weaving them into every answer
  
  
• How confidence grows when you know how to frame your strengths

If you’re short of time but need clarity on what really matters in consultant interview prep, you’ll want to listen in.

Sign up for our free 5-day email course to give you ​a Crash Course To Ace Your Consultant Interview​.

What is Ace Your NHS Consultant Interview?

Welcome to Ace Your NHS Consultant Interview - the podcast for doctors who want to take the stress and guesswork out of their NHS consultant interview prep.

We know how overwhelming it can feel to prep for your consultant interviews when you’re already stretched thin.

Each episode, we’ll break down what actually works - no fluff, no endless reading, just practical steps you can fit into a hectic week. You’ll hear honest advice, real stories, and the frameworks we use with our own students inside the Academy to help you show up confident, prepped, and ready to secure the job you want.

If you’re a final year trainee or locum consultant and you want to prepare, not panic, you’re in the right place.

Hello and welcome to the Ace Your Consultant Interview Podcast. I'm Tessa Davis. And I'm Becky Platt.

And if you're a final year trainee or a low-income consultant and you want to prep, not panic, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Asia Consultant Interview Academy Podcast. I'm very excited to be back with you, Becky, and looking forward to chatting some more about some interview questions that have come up from our students and examples and so on.

And the first thing that we're going to start with is our student question of the week. So our question this week is, can I use being a good team player as one of my unique selling points? We always ask people to identify what their unique selling points are, right? Because actually, that's going to be the basis of, you know, your interview prep and the way that you use specific examples in answering your questions. And so we hope that people will have a good range and breadth on those.

If we think about being a good team player and whether that is a unique selling point, I suppose the first thing to say is, I only think we would expect anyone who's going for a consultant interview or, you know, anyone that's working in, you know, a high level in the NHS to be a good team player. I hope we would anyway. And I also think that most people would think that they are.

So actually, being a good team player is absolutely a selling point that we want you to be able to demonstrate. But just saying that is not enough. What we actually want you to be able to do is to demonstrate that you are a good team player.

So we want there to be some objective evidence of that rather than just you telling the panel, I'm a great team player. So show them some specifics that's going to persuade them rather than just telling them. So maybe you've done some amazing project where you demonstrated team working skills and you've come to a fantastic outcome that's transformed a patient care pathway in your trust.

And I think that that's the kind of thing that's likely to demonstrate that you've got team working skills rather than just telling them. And then you won't even need to tell them. It'll be really obvious once you start describing this project that by in order to achieve this, you must have been a great team player.

Yeah. So you don't need to add the bit on the end where people go. So that demonstrates that I'm a good team player because it doesn't need to be said.

And it's much it's just been very clearly demonstrated and it's much, much stronger to do it that way. We always push people not to use personality traits as their as one of their unique selling points. Yeah, absolutely.

So so we yeah, again, we would expect you to have multiple personality traits that we'd like to think all doctors have got compassion, kindness, great communication skills. But we really hope that you don't have to just tell the panel that they will get it from all of the other amazing things that you say that are much more specific that show how kind you are, how supportive, how motivating and all all of the other things that we want you to be. OK, so next, we're going to look at our golden example of the week.

So this is an example that one of our students has given us. And the example this week is for the question, tell me about a time you worked well in an MDT. So what example have we got this week, Becky? OK, so this is somebody who's been involved in a preterm optimisation group.

So this is a group that involves their neonatal colleagues, nurses, theatre team, midwives. And what they've focused on is increased rates of optimal cord management and normothermia for preterm babies through MDT videos. So what they've done is made a selection of videos, some simulation, some visual prompts, and they've done a kind of a series of smart objectives throughout this project.

And they've clearly got great outcomes in terms of optimising preterm neonates. Yeah, I mean, what's not to love with this? This is a great example. This should be one of their USPs.

If it's not, it should be because it's a strong project. It's got lots of good specifics. It's got all the elements of senior level thinking in it as well.

So it's really good to be able to use this as your example of working well in an MDT. And if you contrast that to say, you know, they're a neonate, so say they talk about a baby that was born that was very sick, and they managed the team well, managed to intubate, and they worked with the midwives and the whatevers, then that's also MDT working, but it's a totally different league of MDT working than a broader project. And that's the benefit of using this as a project example versus a case example.

And because we know they can intubate a baby and lead a good resource case, because that's their job. But this shows something else. And it shows what you want to demonstrate in a consultant interview.

So what I would do with this example is to then think about themes of MDT working and draw them out a bit more. So, you know, why did this team work well? Well, we had a shared vision, we had regular meetings, you know, we had clear goals, we valued everyone's skill set or whatever, and just try and pull out a few themes of why it works well in an MDT. And then you can use, you can frame that around your project.

So that way, you talk about your USP, but also you're clearly answering the question about MDT working in a very specific way. So I think that's a great example. Absolutely love it.

Yeah, great example. Okay, so then next, we've got the interview question to talk about this week. And the interview question that we've got is, how would you boost staff morale? Oh, okay.

Right. So this is a good question. It allows you to think about multiple different aspects of your role as a consultant.

And, you know, to think about all the things that you do, you know, on a day to day basis when you're, you know, working on the shop floor, and also to maybe give some examples of kind of that senior level process and system thinking that we want you to be able to demonstrate in the interview. So I guess I would probably think about something to do with supporting people to do their work. And I actually think that when we're thinking about morale, a lot of the reason that morale is sometimes low, is because actually, people are not able to do the job that they really want to do.

Most people come to work to do a good job, right? And that's what they want to do. And sometimes it feels like there are so many barriers in the way to us doing that, you know, we're prevented from doing it. So I think it's good to actually think about, you know, what do you do day to day to enable your team to get on with delivering good care.

So there may be some leadership things that you do. There may be some processes that you've put in place to remove barriers. You may have done a project that smooths out a pathway to make things much easier for people to get things right for patients without jumping through multiple hoops and having to, you know, navigate problems every step of the way.

And I think there's also something in here about, you know, supporting personal development for your trainees, you know, people want to feel like they're making progress in their job. You know, what do you do to support that? Maybe you do some kind of regular teaching. Maybe you've got a method of getting your trainees involved with a research or QI project.

Maybe you've coached somebody to deliver a great conference presentation, and that's been a real career CV boost for them. I think it's really great to have just a nice selection of ideas. What else would you put in there, Tessa? Well, I think the easiest thing to get kind of caught into is, well, you would have nice social events or you have, you know, give everyone cake.

And so it's easy to get in the specific things that make people's day a little bit brighter. But the contrast between that and the kind of things you're talking about is actually quite significant. And so it's, yes, these things are good.

I'm not saying they aren't good things to boost staff morale. They definitely play a part. But on the other side is a much bigger picture of thinking, which is, are people feeling valued? Are we recognising their skillset? Are we thinking about their career development and sustainability? What they need in the role that they're in just now? These are all extremely important.

And so it's fine to have, it's the balance, like you say, it's fine to have a little bit of, well, we have, you know, tea time together and we all sit and have a cup of tea and some chocolate, but also that you have to think about the more significant elements of staff morale and the reasons, exactly what you said, the reasons behind why morale is low. It isn't because you're not having enough social events. It's a much bigger picture thing.

Yeah. And I think also, you know, think about, you know, what's it like to work in the health service at the minute? It's low picnic really. It's not easy.

And actually, you know, when your team is going through a series of stressful events or, you know, some particular difficult circumstances, then actually, you know, thinking about how do we help the team to navigate that? You know, how do we address team morale and support our staff after significant events? So, you know, for example, you might talk about a debriefing programme that you have and demonstrate a way that that has boosted morale for your team. You know, that is something that allows people to continue to do the jobs that they do day to day. And I think, you know, as you say, that those things that have a much bigger, more lasting and more measurable impact than the kind of social things which are important, but shouldn't form the whole basis of your answer in this question.

The final thing that we're going to talk about is our tip and trick of the week. And this week, the tip and trick we wanted to focus on was thinking about how you identify your unique selling points, because we talk a lot about use one of your USPs, make sure you know your USPs, but it's maybe easier said than done. So how can people start to identify their USPs? So I think the first thing to say is, everyone's got some.

And often people, you know, get on a call with somebody and that's I don't think I've got any USPs. Yeah. And I've never met anyone who we can't identify at least five USPs for.

So fear not, you definitely have got some. And I think the other thing to say is they don't have to be absolutely unique. And you know, you don't have to be the only person in the world who's done this.

And you don't have to have won a Nobel Prize for it. But what we want you to be able to do is to demonstrate that you've got, you know, some projects, some service improvement, things that you've done, or an audit that's made a difference, and for you to describe it in a way that showcases your skills, you know, things that you brought to the table in order to be able to make that work, or things that you learn as a result, and for you to be able to demonstrate outcomes. So as we talked about earlier, don't think necessarily about character traits, don't think about, you know, I'm a great team player.

Think about, okay, what project have I done that really did demonstrate my ability to work in a team? And then, you know, you can use that as one of your USPs. So the MDT working example that we just talked about earlier, this is a great USP. Because you can use this to describe all of the steps that came into play when you were making that happen.

And it's got some measurable outcomes. That's the kind of thing we want for USP. Yeah, and it takes time to think through them.

But it's so important to do this stage, because this is like the core of your whole interview. Once you know your five USPs, that's what you want to get out. That's your priority list for what you want to get out in your interview.

You don't want to have left your interview room without having said them. Otherwise, you'll be kicking yourself. And so you can get these in, in answer to whatever question you can try.

We always say, as your first thing, can you bring in one of your USPs to answer the question? And so this step must not be missed. It's difficult, but it's worth it. Once you've got them, you're going to feel, I think what we notice, or what I feel is that people's confidence boosts when they recognise what their USPs are.

Because that feeling of that, like you mentioned, where they're like, there's nothing special about me. I'm just the same as everyone else. I've just done audits, same as everyone else has done.

But then when we actually draw out their USPs, and they understand why they're choosing them by bringing in the specifics, then suddenly it's a different picture. Because you start to know like, yeah, I get what I'm bringing to the team, and I feel good talking about this. So I think it makes a massive difference.

Yeah. And if you think about this MDT working example that we just used, actually, there are multiple different aspects to that. And with any good USP, you will have multiple angles that you can pick up on for your interview.

So this, with the MDT working, there's a USP that demonstrates multidisciplinary team working. But this USP could also demonstrate multiple other things. So you could use it to answer a question about change management.

You could use it to answer a question about how we engage stakeholders, how we teach people to do something different, how we embed new evidence. Because there are a vast amount of facets to it that you can just draw out. And that's the key, just have a really deep understanding of all the steps and outcomes that are relevant to this particular USP.

Great. Okay. I think we'll wrap up this week's podcast there.

Thank you very much, Becky. And we will chat again next week. And next week, one of the things we're going to look at is what to do when you have more than one job coming up at the same time, more than one interview, and how to navigate that between the different groups of people and how to avoid upsetting everyone as a result.

So look forward to chatting to you then. See you then.