7 Questions Internship Candidate should ask to the Interviewer

Internship donates ‘precious’ job experience for students who have completed their training program in medical assisting. Students who are new to this industry will definitely be benefited from a lot of practical work experience while working in a real medical office setting. It is obvious that a candidate should attend an interview with the employer and answer his questions in order to get appointed as an intern. But, do you know that a candidate can also question the interviewer? Yes!! A candidate sure has all rights to ask sensible questions to the interviewer about the company and the job position.

Why should you ask some constructive questions to the interviewer?

An internship interview will definitely help an employer to decide whether or not to hire a candidate for that position. On the other hand, the candidate also can ask several questions to the interviewer about the company, nature of work and other essential information to decide whether or not to accept that position.
Generally speaking, this questioning session will provide any candidate with a good likelihood to gain more knowledge about a particular organization.

Question 1: As a Medical assistant Intern, what kind of internship projects will I be involved in?

Why should you ask? You should ask question to the interviewer to understand about that company’s ‘point of view’ on the internship program. Different organizations hold dissimilar viewpoints on the subject of medical assistant internships and interns.

• There are a few organizations which engage interns in an assortment of medical projects with the intention of preparing these trainees for upcoming prospective employment opportunities.

• On the other hand, few other health care organizations will try to alternate the duties of the interns in different departments (of the same company) during their internship program. Fundamentally, such alternate responsibilities are offered to bestow a superior experience to the interns and to expose them to a range of dissimilar duties and tasks.

• There are also companies which appoint interns in one specific (single) department to offer them greater profundity in that specific field but not as much of experience in some other areas.

• On the whole, health care companies which appoint interns in advanced level medical or clinical projects will help the interns to gain superior knowledge to become a skilled medical assistant. By this means, they can construct their future career paths in a superlative manner.

For this reason, ask sensible questions to know about your intern duties and find out whether the program will be a productive (and rewarding) one or not.

Question 2: As an intern, how will I spend most of my time in your organization? Can you tell me the proportion of time that I might spend on office tasks such as data entry, answering telephones, faxing, sending emails etc?

Why should you ask? This question a clever way of asking whether you will be appointed as an intern only to do the clerical tasks or you will be involved in advanced clinical tasks as well. A number of companies will allow the interns only to do paper works or to enter information into their office computer system. Such tasks or training may not be a prolific for your future career.

Based on the answer to this question, you can understand whether or not the nature of work would be ideal for your future job requirements.

Question 3: What kind of skills can I build up if, I intern for your organization? Can I learn More about the medical assisting field?

Why should you ask? In actual fact, the key intention of performing as an intern is to expand the professional skills that boost up an intern’s employment probability for the upcoming medical assistant position in any other health care organization. A few internship programs may truly help you expand your logical and investigative skills, whilst other programs may help you build up your hands-on skills. Despite the fact that both these skills do embrace worth and significance for an intern, each set of skills will definitely train him or her for a special career pathway. As a result, recognize and distinguish your personal career objectives and the kind of skills you believe to be the necessary aspects to continue on that pathway.

After identifying this, compare the skill sets that can be obtained in a particular internship program to those skills that are considered necessary to meet your personal career objectives to get a clear picture.

Question 4: What basic proficiencies do I need for attending this Internship program?

Why should you ask? In essence, each internship program will be completely different from each other. The skill sets that one company looks for in a candidate will be entirely different from the other company’s expectations. A few health care companies expect an intern to be highly dexterous and skillful in the latest computer programs and software. On the other hand, few other companies expect a candidate to have basic (adequate) knowledge and acquaintance with the computer related tasks. As a result, it is better to ask about the company’s expectations in terms of the proficiency and skill set of an intern.

Question 5: Did your company appointed a Medical assistant Intern before? If so, how many of them have interned before?

Why should you ask? This question is asked to know whether you are the first intern to be appointed for the company or the company had already trained other interns as well. If you are the first intern of a company, then, you may or may not get the essential training and knowledge expansion from that internship program.

Question 6: Can You tell me about the previous medical assistant Interns who got appointment as a full time employee in your Organization?

Why should you ask? A number of health care organizations appoint the interns and prepare them for permanent employment in their organizations itself . Often, such organizations make the interns engage in assignments and task that demands superior accountability. In doing so, the interns will be provided with priceless work experience. For the most part, such health care companies will strive to build an affiliation with an intern all the way through his or her period of work. If a lot of interns have decided to continue with the same company even after their internship period, it simply tells you that the organization is worth interning for.

Question 7: What is your organization’s expectation from me as an intern?

Why should you ask? Even though an intern will have greater expectations and hope for an organization, the organization will also expect the same from an intern. For this reason, an intern should try to appreciate, understand and recognize the valid expectations of a company. After having a clear understanding about the anticipations, an intern should decide whether he/she will be able to satisfy those anticipations. It is a well known fact that a 1st year college student who try to find an internship will definitely not have the same edifying knowledge as a 3rd  year college student who seek out a similar job position. So, if the company expects more and further than the capability of the 1st year student, then, obviously the student cannot meet them and ultimately the whole attempt will be a failure.
For this reason, you must always listen to the employer’s answer to this question cautiously in order to find out whether you can meet their job expectations or not.

Conclusion: Ask productive questions to the interviewer and do adequate research to find out a quality internship program that may help you enter into the right career in the field of medical assisting.