Interviews

Applicants who are successful at both the Longlisting and Self assessment stage, may be invited to attend an online interview.

Interview invites are subject to the required score for self assessment and agreed interview capacity.

Applicants will be invited to attend 1 online interview.

A list of all the online interview dates for the interview window is listed below.

Interview dates

Tuesday 9 March to Friday 12 March 2027.

Booking an online interview

If an applicant is invited to attend an online interview, they will be required to log into their Oriel account and use the self-service functionality to book an online interview on a date and time of their choosing, subject to availability.

When booking an online interview slot, it is strongly recommended to avoid booking from a mobile device or on internet browsers that have reached the end of their product support lifecycle such as Internet Explorer as these are unlikely to be supported.

The online interview booking window is between Wednesday 24 February and 4pm on Friday 26 February 2027.

Slots will be available on a first come, first served basis.

Applicants who incur any problems whilst booking an online interview slot should contact ICMNRO immediately using the Freshdesk portal.

Adjustments under the Equality Act 2010

All recruiters are aware of the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and will make reasonable adjustments to accommodate applicants at online interviews provided these are made known in advance.

Applicants who require adjustments for their interview (for example, extra time) will be required to submit supporting evidence to substantiate the required adjustment.

This evidence will need to be uploaded to Oriel via the Document Upload dashboard as "Supporting evidence" and attached to the application form at the point of application.

ICMNRO will be unable to review the request if supporting evidence is not provided.

When booking interview slots, applicants are advised to add detail of their reasonable adjustments as a confirmation on their online booking notes.

Failure to provide this information in your booking notes may result in ICMNRO not being able to accommodate your adjustment.

Any additional adjustment requests, not already in your application form, need to be reviewed by ICMNRO, applicants will need to contact ICMNRO using the Freshdesk portal.

Once applicants have booked a slot for an online interview, ICMNRO expects the applicant to forward any reasonable adjustment requests to the lead contact of the region that is conducting their interview.

If applicants would like their assessors to be aware of the reasons for the reasonable adjustment requests, they will need to let the lead contact of the region that is conducting their interview know when they contact them.

Further information is available on the MDRS website.

Confirmation of booking

Once applicants have booked their online interview, they will receive an automated confirmation of booking message in Oriel and a secondary automated message will be sent to their registered email address. 

If this confirmation is not received, applicants are advised to log into their Oriel account to confirm if the booking process was completed in its entirety.

Online interviews

If applicants are invited to participate in an online interview, instructions regarding access to the online system, proof of ID and participation guidelines will be provided in due course.

If applicants are invited to an online interview and are unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances or an emergency, they must contact the region directly to ascertain whether alternative arrangements can be made. It is important to note that alternative arrangements cannot be guaranteed.

Online system and interview format

All online interviews will be a 3 station format performed online via Qpercom.

Candidates will be assessed in a clinical scenario station, commitment to specialty and a task prioritisation station against the domains described.

Each station will last 10 minutes and the whole process should take 1 hour. This includes ID checks prior to interview, 5 minutes reading for the clinical and task prioritisation station, and 5 minutes waiting prior to the commitment to specialty station.

Before the online interview date, applicants will receive information regarding how to log into the Qpercom system as well as a walkthrough video to ascertain how the system works and looks.

Applicants will be expected to login before their interview date to complete a compatibility test on their device for the Qpercom system. 2 assessors will interview in each station and score the applicant independently.

Each domain is scored twice.

Applicants are permitted to make notes during the interview process but are also allowed to bring notes with them to support them in answering the interview questions.

Observers present during the online interview

As well as 2 assessors, there may be observers during an interview. These include Lay Representatives, external assessors from the College of Intensive Care Medicine and future assessors taking part in training. These roles are to ensure that quality, consistency, and standardisation is present throughout the interview process.

Only the 2 assessors will take part in scoring the applicant. Observers have no role in the assessment of an applicant nor in deciding the appointability of an applicant at any stage of the process. Any observer will have their camera and microphone off and will not be visible to the candidate once they have been introduced at the start of the interview station.

Concerns on the day

If you have any issues with the way that the interview is conducted or a concern, you will need to raise these by email with the recruitment team, after your interview and within the day of your interview being completed by sending a ticket to the Freshdesk support.

Complaints procedure

All National Recruitment Offices use a nationally agreed process for handling complaints about recruitment.

If an applicant feels their application has not been managed correctly and have evidence of a failure in the process, they should explore this route.

Complaints should be made in line with the MDRS Complaints Policy and Procedures. This can be found within the MDRS Complaints Policy page on the Medical Training website. A Complaints Policy Submission form is also available on this page.

Raising concerns

Applicants wishing to raise concerns about any part of the recruitment process, where this falls outside the scope of the complaints policy should forward these, in confidence to MDRS: [email protected]

Concerns raised without detail are difficult to investigate due to the volume of applications received. Applicants are therefore requested to provide details of the specialty and, where applicable, the applicants concerned. Any information provided would be treated in the utmost confidence.

Online interview courses and websites

ICMNRO and the College of Intensive Care Medicine do not recommend that potential applicants book commercial courses, sign up to websites or purchase advice and guidance books specifically aimed at doctors undertaking the ICM selection process.