Interviewing for Locum Tenens Positions

Before Covid, interviews for locum tenens positions were so casual. The site would call you for a brief phone interview. They just wanted to talk about the site, ask you a few questions, and answer any questions you may have. These phone calls were often merely 15-30 minutes long.

In the past, I have taken these phone interviews while on lunch break at work; driving on my way home; or cooking dinner. In fact, the geriatric clinic I normally work for, has an extensive interview process for their permanent providers. It entails 5 or 6 interviews with different leaders, shadowing one of the other providers, touring the clinic etc. Ironically, my phone interview for them as a locums ended up only being 10 minutes while I was laying at the pool. And I ended up working with them on and off over the past 7 years.

Fast forward to now, and it seems like ever since Covid happened, many sites realized they can do interviews by video now (instead of just phone). As a result, many of them are requesting video interviews. This was annoying to me while I was in Europe recently, because I had to make sure I was home and looking sharp when it was time for the video interview. I couldn’t just answer my phone on the fly like I am used to.

In fact, I was so mad at myself for moving forward with a video interview for the California job (as I mentioned in my previous post), that I didn’t really want. I remember I was traveling in Luxembourg, and had to make sure I was at the hotel in time for the interview. And guess what?! The interview took 1.5 hours! I was like ‘are you serious’?

They ended up asking me tons of questions as if I was a permanent hire. They said they had to fill out a questionnaire for HR, which is why they had so many questions. I was even more annoyed because deep down I knew I didn’t even want to work there. And here I was wasting 1.5 hours of my life when I was visiting a new country for the first time. I had to apologize to my friend as well, because I thought the interview would only take 30 minutes.

During my recent job search, I was reminded of a pet peeve of mine. Normally, the agency schedules the phone interview, then provides our phone number to the site, and then someone from the site will call us for the interview. Yet, I was reminded that Barton Associates doesn’t do it this way. They are the only agency that I know of that has one of their lead recruiters do a three-way call between you and the site.

So, the lead recruiter is listening in during the entire interview. I personally do not like that. It seems sketchy and as if I am child being supervised by my parent. I am not sure why they listen in, if it’s because they want to make sure you don’t talk numbers with the client or to see how the interview went etc.

I don’t think they even pay attention because one time the Medical Director was saying why they were so interested in me (I worked with a previous company many times that they are very familiar with). Then they spent the remainder of the interview explaining the site and how things would work. At the end of the interview the Lead Recruiter told me to explain to the site why I would be a good fit for them. Which proved she wasn’t listening because the Medical Director had already spent 5 minutes saying he knew I was a good fit since I had worked at a similar company.

Do any of you have any recent interesting interview experiences you would like to share?