General professional training in psychiatry under the eye of the College has changed rapidly over the past twenty years providing benefit, as well as upheaval, for trainee and trainer alike. Along with the increased structure of training has come a change in trainees' career planning—as in all branches of medicine, perhaps—so that less sampling of different specialties and earlier commitment to a final career specialty is now taking place. This, together with the more formalized and structured training stipulations, has led to the development of so-called integrated training schemes in many centres. In Avon it has been felt that such a scheme would be neither practical nor in the trainees' best interests; but a persistent call by a proportion of trainees has fuelled continuing debate over several years.

‘Have you thought about the questions you will be asked by the selection committee?’ asked a friendly consultant colleague shortly before I attended my first interview for a senior registrar post. My application had been deeply considered, I thought, and I felt myself to be well prepared for success. My failure to get the job was an unexpected blow, but also one from which I subsequently learned some important lessons. Retiring to commiserate with the successful candidate over a cup of coffee, I was lucky enough to obtain by chance some helpful feedback on my sorry performance that afternoon. I had, I learned, conveyed an impression of ambivalence about wanting the job, and worse, uncertainty about the direction of my future career. I was amazed. However, subsequent conversations with a nonmedical friend who was the veteran of many such encounters (from both sides of the interviewing table) soon revealed the many ways in which I had doomed myself to failure. I determined to do better next time, and set out to gather as much expertise as I could. I present the fruit of these researches here, in the hope that they will prove useful to others in a similar position.