How To Prepare For Attorney Interviews: Professional Legal Nurse Consultants’ Guide

by Elizabeth Rudolph | Jan 11, 2022 | Attorney Communication, Legal Nurse Consulting

You want to review medical records for an attorney in your capacity as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant (PLNC). How do you effectively prepare for the attorney interview?

Here are the best attorney interview tips to help you earn the job:

In-person or online. Knowing whether your interview will be live or virtual impacts how you prepare. Live attorney interviews affect what you wear, your physical notetaking, and your transportation. Virtual attorney interviews mean you must have a distraction-free and quiet location, have alternate connectivity plans should things go awry, and dress the part, at least from the waist up.

You act differently when you’re talking with an individual in-person. You might feel less “on” because there’s no camera. While you initially could feel stressed, often the interviewer helps alleviate this by asking you easy-to-answer questions in the beginning. Thus, you’re more relaxed as the interview progresses.

When you’re doing an online interview, you generally will be less relaxed. The technology might interfere with your ability to fully engage. Know this ahead of time and plan for it.

Regardless whether your Professional Legal Nurse Consultant interview is live or virtual, maintain your professionalism at all times. Don’t reach over and grab your coffee cup, for example. This is not a “meet and greet”. It’s a job interview and treat it as such.

Research attorney and law firm. By far the most important preparation you can do is to research the attorney and their law firm in advance. You want to come across as knowledgeable and reliable. Let your fingers do the Google, or other online, search in advance of the interview.

Law practice areas. There is no substitute for knowing ahead of time the type of law practice of the attorney. You’ll likely be interviewing with attorneys who do litigation. Specifically, medical malpractice litigation and personal injury matters.

Limit distractions. For example, during an online job interview, one interviewee’s cat was walking around in the background throughout the entire interview. This is not only a major distraction, it lowers the interviewee’s degree of professionalism. By the same token, the preferred mode of online interview is the use of a desktop or laptop computer. You can’t have your phone ringing or dinging in the background.

Lighting. If you’re interviewing virtually, your voice must be heard clearly and distinctly. Sounds simple, but it might not be. You’ll need the appropriate amount of light in the background without shadows. An overhead ceiling fan often creates a strobe light kind of effect that’s disconcerting, to say the least.

Background. Remember the adage, KISS. Keep is simple, sweetheart. If you’re going to be interviewing virtually, either have a nice and clean background or use a professional virtual background. You’ll likely need a green screen. By now in the Covid pandemic, you’ve probably seen the halo affect that happens when people don’t use a green screen. Don’t let that be you.

Your resume. Regardless whether you’re interviewing in-person or online, have your resume easily transmittable. For in-person attorney interviews, bring extra copies of your resume with you. For online attorney interviews, have your resume on a desktop file so you can easily screenshare. You don’t want to fumble around for one of the most important pieces of documentation.

You should’ve already emailed your resume to the attorney well in advance of your interview. Just like you wouldn’t give a gift unless it were wrapped or in a gift bag, don’t send your resume without an introductory email. You want to pave the way for your success. This can be accomplished with just a few sentences in your email. Some jobs may require a separate cover letter, but you might also need to send an email with it.

Not all job application materials are the same. Be sure you’re sending the items the interviewer is requesting. For example, a cover letter, resume, application, and references could be required. Other attorneys just want an email with your resume. Send what they want even though you have these other items.

Anticipate questions. You’re a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant (PLNC). You’ve already attained your PLNC certification. Professionals anticipate questions they might be asked in an interview. For example, “tell us about yourself”. This is your time to shine. Answer the questions directly and be sure to include your nursing experience. Whether you’ve worked less than one year or thirty years, you have nursing experience. Show it off, however use some humility as well.

Questions like “tell us two of your strengths and two of your weaknesses” are common in interviews. Know in advance your strengths and weaknesses. We all have weaknesses. Not to worry. When it comes to your weaknesses, be sure they could easily be perceived as strengths. The goal is to secure the job, so you want to present yourself as not only competent but knowledgeable.

Come prepared with questions. Almost all interviewers ask interviewees if they have any questions. Come prepared with at least three to five of them. It could be that the interviewer answers a couple of your prepared questions during the interview, so then you’re down to three pre-prepared questions left. You want to be interactive and friendly.

Thank you. Saying “thank you” regardless of how the interview went is the professional thing to do. But, saying it is not enough. You MUST send a thank you note.

There are different schools of thought on whether it should be handwritten or electronic. In this day in age, an email thank you is perfectly appropriate. Regardless which way you decide to send your thank you note, it must be timely. If there were multiple interviewers, send each a separate thank you with slightly different wording. The interviewers could forward your emails to each other, so you want them to be personalized.

Now, go secure that job. You can do it. You’re a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant!

P.S. What, specifically, do you think helped you land the job?