Common Midwifery Interview Questions And How To Answer Them

Getting ready for a Midwifery interview? Midwife, Louisa, explains some common Midwifery interview questions, and gives her advice to help you prepare for the big day.

Introduction

Hey guys, my name is Louisa. I am a midwife here in London, England, and today's today is going to be common midwifery job interview questions. Now, I haven't interviewed in like three years, so I forgot majority of what I was asked.

However, I've had a bunch of third year students recently and one of my friends actually recently changed jobs, so I asked them what questions they were asked, and I've compiled a little list here on my phone with some examples of how to answer those questions as well.

Now, obviously, I'm not going to give you specific details of what questions they were asked because every trust is going to be different, so there's no point of you knowing exactly how to answer a question from this trust, or exactly what questions were asked at this trust if you'll be interviewing somewhere else, but these are going to be the pretty common ones.

They also all generally fit under the same themes, which is quite helpful, so there'll be themes like the role of a midwife. Also, you have to look at recent studies and recent articles that have been out and also why you will be a good midwife.

Also, why you'd be a good fit at that trust. Those are the general kind of questions, but let's get into it, and I'll give you some tips on how to answer a few of them and some of them, I'll actually give you example answer as well.

The Role Of A Midwife

As I said, the main things you will get is the role of the midwife. That is a big one that you get across the board. It doesn't matter where you're interviewing, they want to know that you understand what the role of the midwife is.

So with this, you can also add in the six Cs, but you can also add in the six Cs to why you think you'd be a good midwife as well.

It's one of those things where you may feel like you are repeating yourself, but that is completely okay because it just shows that you can give an answer and you can back it up with evidence and it's kind of cool.

She kind of link them all together. They might not even answer you specific questions on why you think you may be a good midwife because you've already answered that. So with the role of the midwife, obviously, there are a bunch of things that is the role of the midwife.

Some of the things that you really kind of want to hit at is the fact that you are there to give compassionate, but also evidence-based care to a woman during her pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal.

That's the basic of the most basic things that you can say. You also want to respect them as a human being and their autonomy, and the best way for a woman to be autonomous is for her to have all the evidence and all the information that she needs to make a choice and then for you to just respect it and listen to it and help to advocate for her.

It's also another big thing as a midwife, your role is to advocate for your women, not to push onto them your beliefs and your thoughts and what you think because of some experience that you've had.

It's not that, and it's not to back up what the doctors are saying if it goes against what the women want. It is to respect what the women want and to help advocate and push her thoughts and wants ahead.

Also, to get extra points. You can talk about things like beneficence, non-maleficence and justice.

I, for one, have forgotten everything about that, so that'll be some research for you to do, but those are things that you do learn in uni, so it should be fresh on your head, fresh in your minds, whereas it's not fresh in my mind, but those are definitely some points to hit as well.

The 6 C’s Of Nursing

As I said, the six Cs are so important to add into the role of the midwife, but also why you think you would be a good midwife. So the six succeeds are care, compassion, courage, communication, commitment, and competence.

Those are just so important.

Showing that you're competent is obviously a massively big thing, which is why every year when you're a qualified midwife, you have to redo your skills and drills and you have mandatory training, because things update and things change all the time.

It's something that you really need to be ahead of because you want to make sure you're giving safe care, and that can only happen if you're competent at your job.

This is something that you can add into your interview questions, interview prep. It's just saying like, I'm competent in this, this and this and this, and if there's ever something that I'm not sure about or I feel like I would need more help with, I am obviously comfortable to ask for that help.

Even if you don't know something, it shows that you want to be safe and that you're not just going to make something up or make a mistake just because you are prideful.

It shows "no, I want to be a competent practitioner, so I'm always going to ask for help and I'm always going to keep on upping my skills and upping my knowledge every time I can".

Showing Care & Compassion

Obviously, showing care and compassion on major things in midwifery because especially when you are looking after a laboring woman, it's such a sensitive time in their life and so you really need to show them that care and compassion.

Where I work, I see some women quite often, and I sometimes see women once in a while, and so I have to learn how to create a rapport quite quickly and with some women, you have to be very compassionate and show them a lot of grace, and you have to be very, how do I say this, I guess like mother them in a way.

Obviously I feel like some women, you have to mother them in a way obviously that suits them. Some of them need you to be extra sweet to them and say, maybe you should do this or maybe this or that, but some women you need to be like, listen, I'm not telling you off.

However, you need to come in sooner next time. Some people need a tiny bit more of a stand thing, and showing compassion and care doesn't always have to be like, oh, you see poor angel.

That isn't it. Showing compassion and care is actually just understanding where someone's at and trying to help them at that spot. You have to meet them where they are and actually just showing someone that you are listening to them, showing someone that you want the best for them and their child.

That is how you can show compassion and care as well.

Communication Is So Important

Communication, obviously, talking to someone in a respectful manner, in a manner that is helpful. Also, communication doesn't just involve the women you're looking after or even their partners, but it's how you can communicate with the team.

As midwives, we always work in a multidisciplinary team, so it's not just us. Yes, we are autonomous practitioners, however, we work in a team as well. We have other midwives, senior midwives, junior midwives.

We also have doctors and anesthetists. Obstetricians, sometimes gyne doctors, so you have to work with everyone and respect them and also be able to communicate with them in an appropriate manner.

I know as a student, I remember I'd be so nervous to talk to an OBs doctor or a gyne doctor or someone from a different ward, but actually now I was qualified midwife, I'm like, it's so important to be able to communicate well and efficiently to get a point across, especially if you need a doctor to come to you urgently, you need to, yes, SBAR is such a great way to communicate.

However, also you need to figure out how people communicate in your area and whatever works best and most effectively and efficiently, that's what you need to do as well.

But communication's a massive thing. And communication also comes in the form of emails and writing documentation online, so you can talk about all those things as well when you talk about communication.

An Example Answer

Going over the of role of the midwife, I do have a tiny little snippet of something you guys can borrow too, which is midwives provide safe, respectful, empowering and equitable care irrespective of social context and settings and including wider reproductive health services.

In all settings, the midwife is responsible for creating an environment that is safe, respectful, kind, nurturing, and empowering, which is such an important thing that we do as midwives.

So that's a nice little fancy way of saying everything I said earlier. Also, as a midwife, you've got to have critical thinking. You've got to be able to solve problems.

You want to be a positive role model as well, and you want to be able to develop leadership skills because there'll be times where you'll have a student of your own, so you need to be able to show that you can lead them and teach them in a great way too.

You also want to promote improvement and promote other people's cultures as well because it depending on where you live obviously and where you work.

In London, we are such a diverse melting pot of cultures that it's really good to be able to promote and encourage other people's cultures, especially the women that you look after as well because it shows that you respect them as well.

Why Would You Be A Good Candidate?

Now going on to why you would be a good candidate. I don't know about you, but with me, I hate talking about myself, especially in a way that's really positive. It took me many years to think of this when someone says, what's three things you like about yourself off?

Took me many years of therapy to figure that one out, but I'm just not a big fan of talking about myself. So when I got asked that question in my interview, I was so glad I had already pre-prepped three things that I talk about, my strengths and my weaknesses, and I was ready to go.

But some tips that I want to give to you are basically you want to beat yourself up, you want to hype yourself up, and not in a way that's arrogant, but obviously, in a way that's like, well, this is what I'm good at and I know this and I can show you how that makes me a good midwife.

If you can't think of what you want to say about yourself, you can always ask friends and family members, "What do you think is a good thing about me that I can relate to midwifery?"

Because you can relate almost anything to anything really and truly. Also, I think it's good as well as knowing where weaknesses are and where you need to obviously strengthen those areas in your life so that you can tell to them as well so that they know that you are a person who knows how to reflect upon themselves and actually make improvements.

So you can say things like prompts for things to say are, I am good at, insert here. So for me, I would say I am good at being patient. I was. I don't know if I still am, but I definitely was when I was interviewing.

You could say things like I feel my strongest qualities are, and you can say where those are. So mine would be, let's say I feel like my strongest qualities are the fact that I am compassionate, I am an empathetic person. I like to have things organized.

So things like that can really help me. You can relate that then to midwifery. So with me saying my strongest qualities are one of them being that I like to have things organized, that is so helpful in midwifery because you need to be able to have good time management.

My best friend may disagree with me about time management, but it's about being on time or not.

Time management in midwifery is about knowing who to prioritize, when to prioritize them or when to prioritize different tasks that you need to get done and you need to get them done by a certain time, and to relate that back to your practice basically.

Highlighting Teamwork

Another prompt would be, I feel that being part of a team would benefit my knowledge/practice by ... So being part of a team would benefit my practice by being able to learn from other people.

I would get to experience different skills, different ways to do certain things, and actually that would make me a more well-rounded midwife. Simple. Great sentence.

And if you have an example of this or if you can just kind of think of something, again, great. It's something that is actually so important when you are a midwife, so that'd be really great to add in as well.

What Are The Trust’s Values?

Now, other things that they will ask you about is things like, what are our trust values or how can you relate our trust values into you as a human being? Or how can you relate our trust values into how you perform as a midwife?

That's something that's really important, so you need to make sure you get up the hospital that you are interviewing at trust values. You go through them and you think, okay, how can I relate that to midwifery and how can I relate that to me?

Such important things to go through.

Scenario Based Question

Another one, again, it depends on where you're interviewing at. Some of them may ask you scenario-based questions in your interview, things like, how would you create a peaceful birthing experience or a calm birthing experience, or how would you react in this situation?

And so they'll go through different things and they'll ask you how you would react or what you would do because they want to know who you are as a person and they want to make sure that you're a good human being.

But yeah, also they want to figure out how you think as well. I remember getting into uni, they asked us, they had this whole scenario about the wedding cake that went wrong and how you would fix it basically, or how you would pate the customer, and that was interesting.

I remember it because it was kind of traumatic like the acting, but yeah. I also remember there being a question about you're on a boat in the middle of nowhere, a life raft comes, there's only space for three people, but there's five or six of you on the boat.

Who are you going to choose to go on the boat? I remember coming out and being like, who do you guys choose? I chose this person, this person, this person, and people were like, oh, I'll chose myself and two others. And I was like, "You could choose yourself." I was so confused.

I was like, "I didn't even think about myself." But yeah, so there are different things obviously that shows how you think things through and how you rationalize things basically.

Make Sure You Are Up To Date

As I said, they actually ask about recent CQC reports, recent reviews or things like that when I was interviewing. It was a massive study at the time, and that was the biggest one that was out.

They can ask you about things like women-centered care, promoting home births, if that's something that's important to your trust and also, working collaboratively and in a multidisciplinary team and maternity transformation.

They're going to ask you a whole range of questions. I think it's just good to go through the trust values mainly and see if they give you any prompts beforehand or even in the job description, kind of what they mentioned in that. Do some research on that because obviously whatever they mentioned in the job description is what they're going to be asking you about in the interview as well. I hope this video has been helpful.