You’re reading this because you want to match. So know that every time a program interacts with you, in any way, they must be 100% clear on why you must be selected ahead of the other applicants.

It’s your job to communicate why this is so. And the way you do it is through creating and using a Main Message. Your Main Message is a clear and concise message about why you should be invited to interview and ranked highly by a program.

To get all of the information necessary for your main message you must answer three broad questions:

1. Why do you want to match into residency training in this specialty?

You must be able to articulate the reasons you’re interested in this specialty and what made you think of applying for it. For example, working with children gives you a feeling of fulfillment; that is why you’re interested in pediatrics. You’ll also need to mention what you’d like to achieve once you get into that specific residency program.

2. Why are you worthy of joining this program?

This is important because programs want to have people who can bring something of value to their program. You can mention academic reasons that make you worthy of selection. You can mention your high performance throughout your schooling and clinical rotations. You can also mention non-academic reasons like volunteering while you were studying to show that you’re well rounded.

 Other key areas to mention in this step would be your resilience and your willingness to go the extra mile for your patients. If you overcame obstacles, mention how you used them as stepping stones to grow as a young physician. Also, you may have documented cases where you went above and beyond the call of duty to attend to the needs of your patients, and this helped them have positive outcomes. If you can articulate your worth, you’ll be setting yourself apart from the others.

3. What is your unique value proposition?

Your unique value proposition is the most important part of any Main Message. This is something that you are 100% sure that no other applicant can say about themselves. You must be able to articulate what you can bring to the table that no other applicant can. Maybe, as a Pediatrics applicant, you come from a family of teachers so you have years of experience tutoring and attending to the psychosocial needs of children, in addition to enjoying attending to them in clinical settings. You must clearly express what makes you special.

After answering all of these questions, you must be able to succinctly state all of it in 5 or 6 sentences to create your Main Message.

Your Main Message makes you memorable! Create it and use it for the whole match season.

To get our one-on-support with your match application, email the word “MATCH” to shawna (at) memorableessay.com.

The post How to Make Residency Programs Want You: 3 Steps appeared first on Memorable Essay.

These struggles may come in the form of negative emotions like feeling nervous, overwhelmed, or you may just feel downright lost. That’s okay. 

Here are some things you can focus on to move forward. 

1. Get Clear: Get clear about who you are, where you’re taking your medical career, and why you’re taking it in that direction. As simple as this sounds, it is critical that you take time to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why do you want to get into internal medicine and not pediatrics? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Clarity of purpose will help you know “Your Why”, and knowing “Your Why” put you a step ahead of most.

2. Strategize: After you get a clear vision of what you want and why you want it, you must now make some moves. You have a vision of where you’re going and you need to impose that vision on the world.

A strategic plan is a play-by-play and day-to-day guide of what you must do to get from where you are to where you want to be. Having a strategy will give you confidence, help you work on your application in a paced manner, and give you direction.  

3. Get Support: Most amazing feats cannot be achieved alone. Figure out the parts of your process that you’re struggling with, like organizing it all, coming up with a strategy, mastering your Step exams, creating your personal statement and CV, interviewing, then seek help from people who have a track record of doing these things well. 

Everyone won’t match on their first try. Not every Ambitious IMG will match. However, you can increase your odds of matching on your first attempt, and doing so without feeling nervous, overwhelmed, and lost as you put together your application by:

• being clear about your why you must pursue your match goal to the end 
• having a strategic plan to get your application done 
• getting help will increase your chances of getting the outcome you want.

The post Do These 3 Things As You Work On Your Residency Application appeared first on Memorable Essay.

These include the ability to:

• make a strategic plan
• build key relationships
• push through external resistance
• overcome internal resistance like self-doubt and imposter syndrome

However, no skill is more important than self-advocacy. Self-advocacy is the ability to stand up for yourself and the things that are important to you.

To be a self-advocate, you need to:

1. Constantly “look inside yourself” and become clear about what you want for yourself
2. Develop and carry out a plan to help you get the vision you have for yourself
3. Push through any internal or external obstacle until you get to what you want

This may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be! Take small steps.

To help you become a better self-advocate during your match journey, you need to ask yourself one question every day: “How did I advocate for myself today?”

Since matching as an IMG will require that you become a staunch self-advocate , asking yourself these seven words,  “How did I advocate for myself today?”, will change the trajectory of your life. 

So, how did you advocate for yourself today?

• Did you sit and decide why you are going to match no matter what (or are you still “okay” with the idea of not matching)?
• Did you create a calendar for the week with protected times for studying and working on your application (or are you still prioritizing other people’s priorities)?
• Did you seek help for your USMLE prep or did you keep struggling on your own?
• Did you neglect to reschedule your Step date even though you’re not scoring how you want to, and you can feel you are not prepared?
• Did you stick to your work schedule for your application or did you allow yourself to be distracted?
• Did you ask a colleague who matched into a program you like to chat with you for 15 minutes, or are you still wondering from afar how they got in because you don’t want to bother them?
• Did you guide the person writing your Letter of Recommendation, or are you just hoping they give you an excellent letter?
• Did you seek help with putting together your personal statement and CV, or did you keep struggling with them alone?
• Did you send your programs Thank You notes in which you subtly addressed a question you fumbled on during the interview, or did you just give up on amending your mistake?

Asking yourself, “How did I advocate for myself today? at the end of every day will force you to re-evaluate your daily performance as it relates to your goal of matching. 

Asking this question also allows you to see how you can advocate for yourself tomorrow and make good use of new opportunities to do better!

Tell us in the comments, how did you advocate for yourself today?

The post Do You Have This Skill, Ambitious IMG? appeared first on Memorable Essay.

Let us use a visit to where you grew up as an example. If you have ever moved away from home, a return in the summer or December vacation period can feel too short. As soon as you take care of your commitment, like a visit to your house or ancestral home, there is something you make time to enjoy—the meal, place, or person’s company you must have as soon as possible. You want it, specifically, because it has no substitute.

When interviewing for a scholarship, adopt the mindset of making yourself a must-have. The reason is simple: The likely scenario is that there will be more people applying than there are available spots, and a large percentage of these applicants will align well enough with the priorities of those providing the opportunity. If you want to give yourself the best chance of winning, you have to move yourself from the “nice to have” pile to the “must have” shortlist.

I’ve been thinking about this over the past two weeks as I have done practice interviews with a bright young person vying for a selective scholarship. The individual is accomplished, driven, and meets each criterion the scholarship creators say they are looking for. However, by the end of practice, the person had not converted me into a “raving selection committee member”. They felt “very nice to have”; however, I was not so sold that, if it came down to a tie, I would call home and ask someone to shelf my dinner, so I could remain in the selection room and hold out for this applicant all evening. I think the person will be a must-have on interview day by using three simple strategies. You, too, can use them:

1. ARTICULATE YOUR UNIQUE VALUE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INTERVIEW

The direction and pace of an interview depend largely on the interviewer(s). However, at all times, you are in charge of your interview; take charge of that ship, or it will drag you to any old place. This is especially true for interviews known to at times be aggressive (Rhodes and Truman, for example). If you are not sure about a scholarship’s interview style, ask a few recent winners.

Set the tone of the interview by sharing upfront the unique way in which you plan to use the scholarship to address the primary issue the scholarship is geared towards. Your uniqueness makes you interesting, and by articulating it, you remind the committee member(s) that you are who they are looking for.

If you prepared well, you will also be ready for some of the obvious spin-off questions. When you set the tone, you even reduce the number of questions that surprise you.

2. SHOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SAY YOU KNOW

Whereas the use of jargon is sometimes discouraged in the classroom, in scholarship interviews, especially in ones with experts on a selection panel, strategically use jargon. Also deliberately introduce concepts, historical context, statistics, landmark research projects and policies, and trends. For niche scholarship interviews, you will be talking with panelists who have read (and perhaps also written) thousands of pages of information about the field to which you are saying you want to contribute. Be as thoroughly informed as possible. More importantly, when you are informed, do not assume people know this; show off. Start and facilitate authoritative conversation.

3. DIVULGE YOUR PERSONAL CONNECTION TO THE SCHOLARSHIP

The scholarship you are applying for will fund a specific area of study. What personal experience or conviction bred your interest in this issue? Yes, some people are more comfortable with being vulnerable than others are, and you should not overshare. However, sharing your emotions remains a powerful way of connecting with people. Do not pander to emotions, lie, or be insincere, but do be open and speak openly.

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, people remember how you make them feel. Make the scholarship committee feel the urgency of your mission so deeply that they eagerly appoint you to become an ambassador for their own mission. There will be time and money for you when you meet the committee’s needs in a way no substitute can. Use these strategies to make yourself a must-have.

Which other strategies have you used to win selective scholarships? Share them below, and share this article with anyone who you know is applying for a competitive scholarship.

The post Scholarship Interview? Make Yourself A Must-Have appeared first on Memorable Essay.