One aspect of the pharmacy interviews will include a written on-site essay. The purpose of this assessment is to determine the candidate’s ability to effectively communicate, problem solve, and critical thinking skills. Expect to have roughly 30-60 minutes to brainstorm and write your essay.
The essay will cover controversial topics or an open ended type of question where no specialized knowledge is required. It most likely will relate to healthcare or pharmacy. My question was “What Questions should a Patient ask a Pharmacist”?
What questions/topics did you receive? Leave a reply below to share.
How to Approach the On-Site Essay
The most important tip for this type of assessments is to keep it simple. You are given a limited amount of time to complete an essay. Aim for a standard 4-5 paragraph essay to keep things simple. I personally would recommend a 4 paragraph essay:
- Introduction and short background information with thesis statement
- Argument for your stance on the topic
- Argument against your stance on the topic
- Conclusion: summarize what you wrote about and restate your thesis statement
The admission committee understands you wrote the essay in a short amount of time. They are not looking for a well thought out masterpiece. They want to assess your communication skills, how you problem solve, and critical thinking ability. Keeping things simple will allow you to put down your ideas on paper effectively in the time allotted.
One of the things that helped me prepare was to practice writing. I would time myself for 30 minutes with a random topic question. My goal is to write a 4 paragraph essay and have a friend or teacher review it to see where I could improve. Doing this will help speed up your thought process and get things written down on paper much more efficiently.
Another tip that further elaborates on the notion of keeping things simple includes vocabulary and misspellings. This is not the essay to show off how many different words you know. You will most likely be hand writing this essay without spell check. Unfortunately, our generation has become dependent on spell check. Try to keep the misspellings to a minimum and avoid words you cannot spell. Ask yourself how you would feel reading an essay with misspellings in every other sentence. Would this not distract you from the message of the essay?
Keep in mind that some on-site essays are read prior to the candidates actual interview. They could potentially ask you questions about what you wrote. From my personal experience I actually left a opinion based statement that was quite vague. I purposely placed this statement, hoping the interview team would question me on this specific topic. This prompted the interviewer to question what I had written in my on-site essay. Placing this statement in the on-site essay had worked in my favor. It helped guide my interview into an area I was comfortable talking about and had done my research in.
Good luck on the on-site essay and remember keep it simple!
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I hope the recommendations above will help guide, motivate, and inspire you to achieve your goals. Follow my blog for more tips and advice on how to become a pharmacist. What questions were you asked for the on-site essay? Please comment below and share your thoughts.