My Golden Rules for Success

I've wrote quite a few lengthy articles about specific things you can do to prepare yourself to be successful at getting onto a Paramedic course at Uni - I thought I'd now summarise quickly some key thoughts on what really helped me at the Personal Statement stage and then Interviews.

1. The Health Care Professions Council (HCPC)
L/H - 1000051CStandards_of_Proficiency_Paramedics.pdf - This is your bible for the next few years. If you read through this it states exactly what is expected in a Paramedics Professional Conduct and the Qualities of a Paramedic - you can put money on your University of choice using alot of these standards as the framework for their marking criteria at Interview - During Application and Interview stages you need to demonstrate you live up to these qualities, think of examples - lots of examples that show how you do. Also make sure you can state the role of the HCPC in the Governance of Paramedic Practice - you will get asked this at Interview I promise.



2. Current Affairs in the Paramedic Profession
Google "NHS Bradley Report" and "NHS Francis Report" and have a read through both fully, they will tell you all about the A&E crisis we're currently facing and the expanding role and skill set of the Paramedic including Clinical Performance Indicators and the emphasis on evidence based practice.This will get you used to the sorts of Terminology used in the Profession and add to your vocabulary used when writing your Personal Statement and at Interview. - Make sure you also check out news sites such as BBC News and search for "Paramedic" to keep on-top of recent developments but these reports really need to be top of your reading list.

3. Experience
Get this before you even start filling out your UCAS application, don't volunteer with St Johns or other organisations just for the sake of putting it on your CV - you need to put the time and effort into your experience so that you can talk about it competently and demonstrate what you have learnt from it and how it is relevant during Interviews - I've wrote at length about this in a previous article with some suggestions of the types of experience on offer out there (HERE: Gaining that Relavent Experience ).

4. Mock Interviews
Use your College/Schools opportunities for Mock Interviews - I can't stress this one enough, I put so much effort into learning the lingo, hammering out relevant examples from my experience that I overlooked some very simple Uni/Education based questions that I could barely answer which was brought out in my Mock - a week later I got asked those same questions for real and I had perfect well-rehearsed answers for them - Never think you're too good for a mock interview!!

5. Know those in the Know
Who better to ask than existing Paramedics and Student Paramedics? Create an account over at http://www.ukambulanceforum.com/ and  http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ and read everything you can, ask all the questions you can so you know everything there is to know about the job, the course, the regulation of the role, and how to be a success. I literally obsessed over finding as much information as possible on all of these things when I was researching ahead of writing my Personal Statement and it helped me massively when I had all of my interviews. Any time in research online isn't time wasted I promise you.

Thanks for reading!