Hardest Pharmacist Interview Preparation Guide

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You can refer to either three main aspects of the job: drug management, customer management, and staff management.
Specify whether you are a team player who likes to work with and manage people, advising customers, or whether you prefer to work in the backroom. Describe any other qualities you possess, briefly sketching an example or two highlighting its application.

Refer to the responsibility of advising patients and physicians, verifying accuracy of prescription when in doubt, reviewing possible side effects, assigning correct dosage, recommending most suitable non-prescription drug and instructing patient regarding usage. A pharmacist can also warn the patient and physician regarding drug interactions.

Some pharmacists effectively manage a drug store, which requires not only familiarity with the drugs, but also business aptitude. If relevant, describe such experience: recruitment and management of pharmacist staff, acquiring of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmacist supplies, managing operations and administrative duties, etc.

Talk about familiarity with computer applications and tasks such as preparation and publication of information.

Refer to storing pharmacy files, patient records, inventories and charge system files, registries of poisons and controlled drugs.

Mention collaboration with other professionals of health care to plan, monitor, and evaluate quality of drugs, interactions, side effects as well as their effectiveness.

To be honest, I have a family and try to find a healthy work-life balance. Therefore, once out of work, I do not spend too much time reading magazines or doing something else related to my job. However, I attend ACE classes and follow all the other requirements prescribed in this state to renew my license each year. On the top of that, I try to use every free minute in job to consult my colleagues about latest trends and to read articles on the internet, just to ensure I do not miss anything important. I try to be a very good pharmacist, but you need to have a balanced life too. We should never forget on it.

Show them that pharmaceutics is not only your desired field of work, but also your passion. Being enthusiastic about trends in the industry and mentioning magazines, publications, conferences and other things you read or attended to keep up to date with the trends is a superb way to stand out of the crowd of other, mostly passive job applicants, who do nothing more than attending mandatory classes.

You should show the interviewers that you are never satisfied with your knowledge and always work on improvement of your skills. Accredited continuing education classes are mandatory, ad you won't impress any interviewer with it. Try to show them that you do more than the other applicants.

I try my very best to provide a perfect customer service. I am very focused and try to spot the actual mood of the client as soon as possible, to be able to adjust my behavior to the situation. If the client is angry, I have a clear strategy. I tell him he is right, I calmly tell it many times, even if he complains about the price of the product.
If a client is stupid, I do my best to use the simplest possible language and always write him the instructions on a separate piece of paper clearly. I repeat it until I ensure he understands everything. I simply do my best to ensure clients come back to our store and become loyal customers, what is after all, dependent mostly on the quality of customer service.

★ To make a sale
★ To help the customer
★ To ensure he will come to the pharmacy again, when in need of medicines

However, stupid or clever, calm or angry, client is always right. It is your duty to do your utmost to provide the best possible customer service in each instance. The goal is to ensure that customer will come to the store again and again and spend money.

You need to realize that a pharmacy is an open place for everyone.
While most of the people are nice, some patients are angry (for example because of unexpected price), or stupid (don't understand even the simple suggestions regarding dosage and frequency).

I consider it my duty to do 110% for each customer. For example, in my last job, I called several times a friend, expert in the area of electronics, to give me an advice when a customer asked me a specific question I wasn't able to answer on my own. The customers really appreciated it and I was happy to help.

However, there is no need to be worried if you have no previous working experience. You can speak about a situation from other job, from the college, from the family life. All you have to do is to pick a situation when you did something extraordinary. Pick it and speak about it in detail. After all, the attitude is what matters for the interviewers, not the details of the situation.

It does not matter how great your qualification or marks are. If you do not present yourself as a friendly, patient and customer oriented pharmacist, they will hire someone else.

★ Your excellent communication skills
★ Ability to make a customer feel good in a store
★ Ability to uncover the needs of the others and upsell products and services
★ That you are able to deliver more than expected and exceed the expectation of everyone

I would love to become a specialty pharmacist, oriented on chronic illnesses and complicated diseases in five years time. However, I understand that I need to gain some practice before and therefore I apply for this job. I know there is an option to become a specialist in this hospital in few years time, so that my goal is to work on my education and become one in five years time.

Recruitment is an expensive process. Is in not easy to choose a good pharmacist. Company also needs to train him and it takes some time to make from a good job applicant an useful employee. Therefor, companies try to hire loyal pharmacists, who would not leave them in three months time, as soon as better offer was available.

There aren't huge career growth possibilities for pharmacist. You can become a specialty ph or resident pharmacist, as well as the consultant. However, it is questionable if these jobs are better than a typical job of community pharmacist, or a hospital one. After all, one can become a pharmacy director too, but that is a very long and rocky path.

I am patient, responsible and do not mind doing the same work for a long time. I have good problem solving and observation skills. From the weaknesses, I would love to improve my computer skills. It's not that bad but I believe in this era, one really needs to have better computer skills than I have. Therefore I attend evening classes and hope to improve on my PC skills.

I have good communication skills and do not have a problem to talk to anybody. Also, details are very important for me. I believe that to be detail oriented is a crucial ability for every good pharmacist. From my weaknesses I can mention management and leadership skills. I am planning to work on it, once I have more free time.

★ Good communication skills
★ Ability to uncover the needs of the others
★ Patience and responsibility
★ Detail oriented personality
★ Ability to talk to different kind of people
★ Problem solving skills

Many job seekers are scared of this typical interview question of strengths and weaknesses. Well, nobody likes to talk about his own weaknesses, especially if we try to impress someone and get the job. On the top of that, we are good in seeing the weaknesses of the others, but struggle to identify our own weak spots. All in all, it is a difficult question for every job seeker, at least emotionally.

Drug interaction is one of the most common problems we have to deal with. It is important to keep your knowledge up to date, to be able to notice it, explain the situation to the patient and come up with an alternative solution. It may also happen that we do not have what the patient needs. In this case, we should offer him an alternative or send him some other place where they have it.