The Ten Steps Guide to Failing Your EPIET Selection

Submitted by humbleservant on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 11:46

How to fail your EPIET selection.

Dear friends,
Trust me, I am an expert at job interview failures. And I failed at EPIET-selection! So take it from a pro, if you want to fail, too.

  1. No interest. We are all generalists and so are you. Why specifically care about public and community health? Why bother with statistics and medicine? Besides, the time honoured classic “I always wanted to learn more about epidemiology” is more than reason enough to engage in EPIET and the kiss of death to any application.
  2. No future. At least not in the public health area. After all, it is a great idea to invest two years, lots of EU-money and even more commitment from the hosting institute into an EPIET-fellow who is “interested” in public health and has no intention of continuing a public health career. After all, business consultancies are hiring again.
  3. No learning. You are an expert and you know it. They don’t, but you’ll teach them. Instructions and supervision are for Epsilon Semi-Morons.
  4. No flexibility. To fail, a proven sure-shot approach is to talk with only one training site. Not anyone, but THE ONE you must go to because your boyfriend/girlfriend/sensei/pInkBunny happens to live nearby.
  5. No focus. You love projects, the more the merrier. Only a running project is a good project. Finishing them is a matter you never really bothered about. Finishing projects and publishing them is for self deluded ego-seekers anyway.
  6. No multitasking. If somebody has a new assignement for you, they have to wait until you finished the old one. After all, you, too, are queueing at the checkout and don’t dump everything on somebody else’s stuff on the band-conveyor.
  7. No tact. Diplomacy is for weaklings. They are either with you, or against you. You will deal with critics later. One on one, no knives, no bullets.
  8. No initiative. At home, your parents told you what to do. At school, your teachers told you what to learn. At EPIET, your supervisors will tell you what to research.
  9. No overtime. Your contract states nine-to-five. Full stop.
  10. No humour. This is serious business.
‹ LUA Landau FHI_Oslo_Norway 2010 ›