You can book a midwifery mock interview here.
Please note, if you subscribe to Midwife Diaries (free) you'll get the first chapter of my book Become A Student Midwife: The Survival Guide For Passionate Applicants for free!
I’m thrilled both that you want to become a midwife and you’re getting this midwifery application support coaching.
This is to celebrate ‘Become A Student Midwife: The Survival Guide For Passionate Applicants’ the second edition coming out. This is a book that’s packed with information to get you through the process, from personal statements, current midwifery news, different types of interviews and tests, reading lists, student midwife tips and so on.
The book has 70% new content and though the old version did a great job and has served people well, I've learned so much more through my work with so many midwives/student midwives since then that I really wanted to get this info out there.
**Do watch the video to find out why you might want to hold off buying the book until Wednesday...**
I was a practising midwife in the UK and New Zealand and these days I do midwifery support online. I love this aspect of what I do because the tools you need to be a good applicant and get a place are the same as the ones needed for excellent midwifery.
On to today’s coaching which is on the topic of….
How To Beat Midwifery Interview Brain Melt
I have an amazing strategy for coping with fear. Fear comes up a lot in midwifery, as I’m sure you know, so this technique will be important for your career.
In an interview that fight, flight or freeze sensation of your brain melting can be awful as someone with your entire future dangled on a string in front of you asks….'so what is the role of a midwife?'
Can I take you back to 2006?
I went to my interview at Kings back in 2006. I failed it and I know why.
A mature applicant who looked like she knew EVERYTHING about midwifery said to me ‘oh, you’re a bit green my love’ (as in new, fresh, inexperienced).
Because of that I totally bottled the interview. Looking back on it if I’d have had my head on straight I would have done fine and these days I know exactly how to handle my fear when it’s so important.
I know how to say to my fear, yep, it’s your job to tell me this is a scary situation. I talk to my fear in my head because I know my limbic system has kicked in and I have to talk to it like I would an out of control child.
The thing that most people don’t realise, but midwives often do, is that you can’t reason with your fear or make it go away.
And why would you want to?
It’s doing an essential task. When we’re driving and a car swerves at us or when we’re on the edge of a cliff fear keeps us alive. You probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your fear.
But the problem is your fear overreacts to everything. It’s designed to because back in our past, it was far better to mistakenly run for cover 100 times if it meant avoiding the lion once.
But in a midwifery interview fear will activate the parts of your brain that stop you thinking clearly: hence the brain melt.
What you can do is talk to your fear, imagine it like a person walking beside you protecting you. You won’t get rid of it 100% but it’ll take the sting away and help you breathe and think.
You can say to fear: thanks for doing a really, really good job at keeping me alive. But right now you don’t need to be concerned for my safety. You can just sit in the corner, fear, and I’ll keep going with my future because I want to become a midwife.
It’s too important for me to let you make any decisions over this situation.
(NB: A lot of my learning on this subject has come from a creativity book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, highly recommended for midwives and indeed all humans).
This is the essence of courage (one of the 6Cs, part of the NHS’ ‘Compassion in Practice’ strategy), feeling afraid but tolerating the feeling, working with it and doing the right, brave thing anyway.
Practice walking with fear and answer the following aloud:
Why do you want to become a midwife?
What is the role of a midwife?
How will you cope with the pressure of being a student and qualified midwife?
By the way, I don’t blame that candidate for her comment at all. I needed to have more resilience. And actually I don’t regret not getting into Kings as in a butterfly effect way, I almost certainly wouldn’t be writing for you now if I had.
And it’s a huge privilege to be writing for you.
Thank you THANK YOU for all the support. So many of you chipped in to say what you'd like in terms of free training and to send your good wishes.
Honestly, when I first started MidwifeDiaries it was a hobby and when the first edition of the book came out there were crickets for months. I was convinced everyone either hated it or didn’t want it.
And then the amazon reviews started to come in! Big surprise. It just goes to show, you have to give things your all and then set them free and see what happens. Especially with the stuff you care about most.
If you have any questions about this coaching, any questions or concerns about what the book covers, or anything else you want to contact me about all you have to do is leave a comment.
In the next bit of training, we’ll be covering something essential: how to ensure you show you understand the role of the midwife in your personal statement. This is a key reason applications are declined and there is a way of doing this that you may not have thought of.
Look out for the post on Monday and then one on Wednesday...
Thank you for subscribing, for wanting to become a midwife and for being brave enough to go after what you want in life.
Much Love,
Ellie x
P.S. I hope you found this helpful! If so please consider sharing this, like it, mention what’s going on in The Secret Community For Midwives In The Making or elsewhere.
MidwifeDiaries is a tiny company and this kind of word of mouth keeps us afloat.
My interview is tomorrow and this video has come at the perfect time, and has already helped me to relax about my interview, thank you for posting it
Great Mae, how did it go?!
As always, very helpful Ellie. Thank you! X
Thank you for your thoughts! I am walking with my fear right now waiting to hear back about getting an interview.
This is very helpful . I’ve done all 5 of my interviews now but I think this will be really beneficial for midwives in the making 🙂 thank you! X
Thanks for your comment Kate and good luck!
Thanks for pointing me in this direction Ellie. I’m going to practice this daily until the next cycle opens.
Mel x
Brilliant … I am so glad I stumbled across your page on FB and now your site! I have just been accepted into the Access course starting September and will be applying for the Midwifery degree starting 2018. I have to go into the college next week to begin talking all things personal statement. I’m a mum of 3 and am determined now they are all at school to plough on and go for it. Biggest fear is the interview I am terrible at putting sentences together under pressure and am dreading the interview when I get there! I watched your mock interview video and froze after every question. I just couldn’t think of any words so will need lots of practice there I think. Thank you for inspiring me to know I am on the right path. You are an amazing person. Becky x
Thanks Becky, oh awesome to hear you’re finding the resources helpful! Good luck with your personal statement and please know I remember the first mock interview I did I couldn’t speak properly. Sometimes it just means a lot to us! Sounds like you are an amazing person getting going on your path now your kids are at school.
You might like this for your personal statement?
https://midwifediaries.com/example-ucas-midwifery-personal-statement-rosys-statement-before-and-after-editing/
Good luck!
I have my interview tomorrow for USW, I have almost finished my access and Im hoping to start in September, so exciting and so nerve racking your videos are saving my over melting brain right now 🙂
Ellie, I came across this by ‘accident’. I applied to 5 unis and was lucky enough to be invited to all of them for interview. Unfortunately, I never got an offer from any of them! 🙁 Probably because as a 6th Form student I lack maturity and experience. Anyway, I’m optimistic that I’ll learn so much from your book which will make me much better prepared next year.
Thanks very much for this Ellie. I qualified as a midwife in 1996, so my days of student interview nerves are well behind me. But your tip to acknowledge fear and put it away to sit quietly in the corner is really useful for my singing performance and audition nerves. Thanks so much! Best wishes, Marijn
Thank you for doing this website and the videos. I applied to study midwifery for next years intake just yesterday (4/5/2020) and was searching for practice interview questions for the course for when I get invited to one.
I had tears streaming down my face when I was reading your posts and watching your videos, because I am so passionate about wanting to become a midwife that it scares me to think I might not pass the interview or worse the course!
I had been thinking in prior years that if I could learn on the job, without having to got o university, how much easier it would be, because I finished high school only doing 3 subjects, so I didn’t get a HSC score or whatever they call it these days. I finished high school in 2003, got married in 2004 and had my first child in 2012.
I always wanted to be a nurse when I was growing up. I attempted to do the course at TAFE ( I live in Australia) to become an EEN (Endorsed Enrolled Nurse) back in 2009, it was an external course, meaning I went to TAFE one day a week and the rest from home, I pulled out of the course after 3 months, because the stress of external learning without support had become too much, I was physically ill and ended up in hospital on a drip. I was fine when the class was at TAFE but trying to find the correct information for assignments without prior knowledge of even how to do that successfully took it’s toll on me, I was putting together great assignments when I could find the information I needed, but I was struggling in myself, though apparently I was top of my class. An internal learning structure would have been better for me, but not an option at that time (the TAFE didn’t run the course that way). Anyway, during that experience, I realised that I didn’t actually want to be a nurse working on a ward anymore, I always wanted to get my degree and then specialise to work in the neonatal. But I realised that was no longer the path I wanted to be on.
Anyway, sorry about the long comment….. long story short, when I was pregnant with my 1st and 2nd child I went through a birth centre and had the most wonderful experience with the midwives at that practice, with my first, you got to meet all the midwives thought out your pregnancy, and then one of them would be with you when you gave birth, when I was pregnant with my 2nd child, they had progressed to caseload midwifery and I was blessed to have the midwife I had with my first child be my primary midwife and the one to attend my birth. She went on to be named State and Australian Wide Midwife of the Year in 2015, and she truly was! She went above and beyond for all the women in her care. It was her love and support that got me to thinking I would like to become a midwife myself, so that I can help other women have wonderful birth experiences like I had.
I also want to become a midwife because I feel passionately about women having proper access to as much information as possible or they would like, while pregnant about the types births they can look into having, giving them sufficient information about every aspect of birth and new motherhood, so that they don’t feel scared of the birth process and new motherhood, because knowledge is power and having an idea of what to expect is key as well as believing in themselves and knowing what their rights are when it comes time to give birth and the lead up to it. I know too many women who don’t research anything while they are pregnant and go with the approach that “I’ll just take it as it comes and do as the Dr tells me”. Or they say “I’m not allowed to do this or that” when in labour etc, I want them to know that they are in charge of their bodies and babies and birth experience, so long as everything is going ok. Sure there are times when intervention might be necessary, but it shouldn’t be pushed unless there is an actual need for it.
Also it occurred to me that good midwives are absolutely necessary and that if people like myself who are passionate about womens rights and labour and birth, don’t become midwives, then once the truly great midwives retire, there might not be more truly passionate and compassionate women to take their place, and you would end up with women being cared for by people who lack the empathy and compassion required to truly help women feel safe and supported in their journey to motherhood.
I had my 3rd child in a different state and at a regular hospital, however, I was again blessed with the most wonderful midwife, who because I told them I had only ever had one midwife attend my births and was nervous, went out of the way to assure that I had similar care to what I was used to during my antenatal period and I had her for my birth as well.
I am still in touch with both her and the head midwife at the hospital I birthed in, and have spoken to them of my desire to become a midwife and they are very encouraging and supportive and even have expressed a desire to hire me after I finish my course, because they are wanting to change the way they do things to be more like a birth centre and they know that it is the type of midwifery I want to practice and they have told me that they would love to have me on their team.
Thanks for reading to the end, I hope it wasn’t too much information.
Any feedback you might have on what I have said would also be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Sarah Nezar