Table Of Contents
Top Pharmacy Residency Interview Questions for 2022
Personality Questions
- Can you please tell us a little about yourself?
- What motivated you to become a pharmacist?
- Why did you attend pharmacy school?
- What do you perceive to be the role of the pharmacist?
- Can you describe your experience working in the pharmacy profession?
- What differentiates you from your peers as a candidate for this position?
- What skills do you perceive to be important towards succeeding as a pharmacy resident?
- What are 3 of your strengths?
- What are you good at?
- What are 3 areas in which you could improve?
- What things do you need to get better at?
- What are your worst qualities?
- What are your 3-year goals?
- What are your 5-year goals?
- Can you describe the components of your continuous professional development plan?
- What question did you prepare to answer, but were not asked today?
Behavioral Questions
- Do you consider yourself good at managing stress?
- What do you do to relieve stress?
Program Questions
- Why do you want to do a pharmacy residency?
- What are you looking for in a residency?
- What areas of pharmacy most interest you?
- How did you come to decide to apply to our residency program?
- What attracts you to this organization/setting/position?
- What makes you the best candidate for our residency program?
- How would our residency program help you achieve your career goals?
- Why are you interested in our residency program?
- What do you expect to get out of doing this pharmacy residency?
- You have probably did some research about our residency program. What do you like the most about our curricula, and is there anything you are missing on it?
Pharmacy Education, Projects and Extracurricular Activities
- What are you most proud of achieving during pharmacy school?
- Do you feel your academic record accurately reflects your abilities and skills?
- What unique skills or abilities do you possess that sets you apart from other candidates?
- What was your most favorite class in pharmacy school? Why?
- What was your least favorite class in pharmacy school? Why?
- What was your most favorite rotation in pharmacy school? Why?
- What was your least favorite rotation in pharmacy school? Why?
- When doing group work, what role do you tend to take on? (i.e., more of a leader or more of a follower?)
- With what types of people do you feel most comfortable working?
- Can you tell us about a time when you were working in a group and had to take up a leadership role?
- Is there a project you worked on that you are most proud of? Why?
- Can you describe a time when you went above and beyond at work?
- What was the most significant intervention you made during pharmacy rotations?
- Can you describe a time when you made a substantial impact on a patient’s care?
- Are there any projects you would prefer not to work on as a pharmacy resident?
- What experience do you have with research?
- What experience do you have with medication use evaluations?
Pharmacy Clinical Questions
- What strategies do you use to stay organized?
- Do you work better alone or in a group?
- How do you stay motivated?
- Do you consider yourself a procrastinator?
- Was there ever a time where you were late on an assignment?
- You are preparing for rounds and have identified several interventions that you feel will improve the care of your patients. However, right before leaving for rounds you are told you must skip rounds and go help staff the outpatient pharmacy, because they are short-staffed and there are many patients waiting. What would you do?
- Imagine that a patient complaints loudly about the service or care you provided to them. How will you react in such a situation?
Challenge Questions
- Can you describe a time where you had to overcome a difficult situation?
- Can you tell us about a time when you had to work with a difficult person? How did you work to improve the situation?
- Can you tell us about a time when you had to work with a difficult prescriber during pharmacy school? How did you handle the situation?
- If you are assigned a group project and your partners are not contributing to the level you expected, what would you do?
- Can you recall a time when you identified an opportunity to improve efficiency at work?
- Tell us about a time when you failed. What did you do to ensure it would not happen again?
- What did you do to prepare for this interview?
- If you do not match to a residency program during phase I of the match, would you plan to enter into phase II of the match?
- If you do not get a residency spot this year, what is your plan for next year?
- If you do not get a residency this year, would you consider trying to re-apply next year?
- What does integrity mean to you?
- Describe a conflict you had with a colleague or a classmate.
- Tell us about a time when you struggled to communicate something to one of your colleagues or patients. How did you eventually manage to get your message over?
Ethics
- Can you describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision?
- Tell me about a time when you made a mistake. What was it and what did you do to correct it?
- If you saw a peer cheating on a test, what course of action would you take?
- If you discovered a co-worker was stealing property from the pharmacy, what course of action would you take?
- If your friend and co-worker repeatedly called out of work “sick” even though you knew they were not sick and just wanted to have a day off, what would you do?
- What would you do if you thought one of your co-workers was being harassed by another staff member?
- What would you do if one of you witnessed one of your co-residents treating a patient unfairly due to the patient’s religion, sexual orientation, or race?
Unexpected Questions
- If you were an animal, what would you be?
- If you were stranded on an island and you could only have 3 drugs with you, which ones would you pick and why?
- What 3 words would your last preceptor use to describe you?
- How would your friends describe you?
- What are you passionate about?
- If you could change one thing about the profession of pharmacy, what would it be?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
- If you could be a drug, which drug would you be?
- If you could be an animal, which animal would you be?
- If you could meet a famous person (alive or dead), who would you pick?
- What is one thing you learned in the last year that has impacted how you live your life?
- What qualities do you expect from your preceptors?
- What expectations do you have for the residency program director?
- If you could opt out of the staffing component of this residency, would you?
- Fast forward to your retirement party. What do you hope your colleagues will say to you?
- Can you tell us about your support system outside of school/work?
- Which is most important to you? Teaching, clinical practice, or research?
- How would you describe your teaching philosophy?
- What was the last journal article you read?
- What was the last book you read?
- What books are you currently reading? What is your most favorite book that relates to healthcare or pharmacy?
Questions for Interviewers
- What are you looking for in a resident candidate?
- Are there opportunities to be on-call during this residency year?
- How would you describe the relationship between the pharmacy residents and staff pharmacists?
- What about this pharmacy residency program are you most proud of?
- What do you perceive to be the greatest strengths and weakness of this residency program?
- What are the key skills needed to succeed in this residency program?
- Are there opportunities to have non-pharmacist preceptors?
- Do residents have an opportunity to participate in decisions regarding which projects are assigned for the year?
- What are your former residents doing today in their professional careers?
- Do you have any insights on the chances for future residents seeking internal employment after successfully finishing the program?
- What do you consider your greatest strength, and your biggest weakness, when we talk about a job of a pharmacist?
- Who or what inspired you to pursue a career of a pharmacist?
- If you should pick someone to be your leader, to guide you during your residency, who would you pick?
- What motivates you the most in this work?
- Why should we choose you, and not one of the other residency program? In which way are you unique?
- Are there opportunities to work with pharmacy students?
- What changes do you anticipate for the residency program from this year to the next year?
- Can you briefly describe opportunities for teaching?
- How would you describe the teaching philosophy of this residency program?
- How would you describe the relationship between the pharmacy service and other services such as nursing and medicine?
- After everything we discussed here, do you have any questions, or do you want to add something?
- If you can turn back the clock, would you apply for to pharmacy again or would you opt for a completely different direction in your professional career?
