Overseas trained specialists who want to practise as specialists in Australia apply to the relevant college for assessment of their qualifications, training and experience against the Australian fellowship, and most colleges include an interview in that assessment. It is not a job interview and it is not an examination. It is a structured conversation with fellows of the college that ends in a decision about comparability, and that decision shapes the next one to three years of your professional life. This guide explains what it is, how it runs and what the decision means.
What the interview is for
The college is deciding whether your training and practice are substantially comparable, partially comparable or not comparable to an Australian trained specialist in your field. The documentation you submitted, the training records, the logbooks, the references and the curriculum vitae, has been assessed first. The interview tests what the documents cannot: how you reason, what you actually do day to day, whether you know your own gaps, and whether you understand the Australian system you would be joining.
How it runs
A panel of two or three fellows in your specialty, with a chair, sometimes with a college staff member observing. Around an hour, structured and scored. The panel takes you through your training stage by stage, probes your scope of practice with numbers and settings, asks you to name the parts of the Australian curriculum your training did not cover, presents specialist level clinical scenarios, and asks about Australian governance: open disclosure, credentialing and scope, the National Standards, cultural safety, and your obligations under the registration conditions you would hold during supervised practice.
The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons publishes its interview purpose and process; other colleges have equivalents. Read yours.
What the decision means
Substantially comparable: a period of supervised practice, usually a year or so, with assessments, after which fellowship can be granted. Partially comparable: a longer period of supervised practice with specified further training or examinations to close the gaps the college identified. Not comparable: the pathway closes, and the doctor may need to enter the Australian training programme or pursue a different route. The decision is made against the Australian curriculum, not against the quality of your home country's training in the abstract.
What the panel is listening for
Accuracy. The mapping of your training to the Australian stages, the examinations aligned, the scope described with numbers. Overstatement is found out quickly because the panel knows the field and has your logbook.
Insight. The gaps you name yourself, and how you would close them. A candidate who sees no gaps against a different country's curriculum reads as unprepared, and the panel will find the gaps anyway.
Judgement. The clinical scenarios answered as an Australian specialist would, with the decisions explained, the complication owned, and the Australian processes applied.
Willingness. Honesty that cultural safety, the governance framework and the system are new, and a plan to learn them under supervision rather than a claim of easy familiarity.
The hospital interview is separate
Many overseas trained specialists also face a hospital interview for the supervised position, and that is a staff specialist interview run under merit selection, with the criterion mapped questions covered on the staff specialist track. Candidates who prepare for one and face the other are caught out. Prepare for both if both apply.
The expedited pathway
The Medical Board's expedited specialist pathway, for specialists from comparable countries in listed specialties, bypasses the college assessment at entry and goes straight to supervised practice. There is no college interview on that route, and the hospital interview is the one that matters. Check which route you are on before preparing.
Preparing
Map your training to the Australian curriculum on paper, stage by stage. Write your scope of practice with numbers. Name your gaps and the plan for each. Prepare the specialist scenarios in your field with the Australian processes. Learn the governance vocabulary. Then practise aloud with someone who probes the way a college panel does, which is politely and relentlessly.