The job interview for nurses is one of the most important parts of your hiring process.
Therefore, as a registered nurse or a nurse manger, one should do her best to ace the upcoming interview for getting the job.
This article provides behavioral job interview questions for nurses and suggests answers for two positions: registered nurses and for nurse management positions.
The article is part 2 of the article – nursing job interview questions & answers.
Depending on the institution, the registered nurse, R.N., may also be called: graduate nurse or graduate school nurse, clinical nurse and intensive care nurse.
The nurse job interview questions can be dived into 3 categories: general questions, technical/ medical questions and behavioral questions.
Read further..
Nursing: Behavioral Interview Questions For Nurses
Nursing can be quite a stressful job at times as you should hande delicate situations with patients and their families while maintaining good working relationships with co-workers.
Additionally, you must deal effectively with people from different ethnic backgrounds and various cultures.
The following list is a behavioral interview questions for nursing. These questions, often call situational interview questions, are meant to determine if you will work well in stressful situations as seen in the medical staff environment.
• Give an example of situation when you had to resolve conflict with an uncooperative/abusive/angry patient while providing care. What did you do?
• Tell us about a time where you had to handle a problem arising while no other medical staff available around and/or your replacement hasn’t show at her shift.
• Have you had a situation where you had to demonstrate a strong ethical attitude at work, despite pressure to do the opposite – weaken your integrity and ethical stance?
• Describe a stressful situation when you had to monitor your own stress level while managing to control others stresses level.
• Give an example of a case when you have to explain a medical issue to someone who didn’t speak your language or didn’t understand medical terms.
• Give an example of situation where you didn’t get along with another co-worker. How did you handle the situation and what was the result?
• Have you had situations when you had an unfinished day and a new patient has just arrived in need after the end of your shift?
• What will you do in a situation where a patient is in severe medial status, in intense pain or under stress and you had to provide care while relaxing him?
Answering the above questions:
How would you answer these questions impressing your interviewer?
When you answer a behavioral question, you may use the structure techniques called STAR (situation, task, action, result) or “PAR” (problem, action, result).
Using this technique you actually break the answer into fragments –
Begin your answer with a situation or a problem you had faced, and then describe the tasks you’ve decided to take, the actions that were taken and the result.
Incase you do not able to provide a real past situation, you may give an example of a theoretical case and they way you would handle it.
You may also refer to the articles – situational interview questions & answers and to the behavioral interview for further information.
Nurse Manager: Interview Questions for Nurse Managers Positions
Below is a list of frequently asked nursing management interview questions to prepare answering:
• How do you motivate your nursing staff?
• How do you mentor nurses and how much autonomy do you give nurses for taking decisions regarding patient care?
• Give an example of a change you made to your nursing practices in order to improve quality of the care you provide or ensure safe working conditions.
• What are nurses’ biggest challenges?
• What are your plans for future growth?
Answering these questions:
The interviewer wants to learn about your management style, approach and attitude.
Therefore, one has to demonstrate his/her abilities to assess and monitor patients needs while leading the nursing staff for achieving effective healthcare pathways, thus in order to determine whether the work plans meets the department goals.
The best way to answer these questions is by providing examples of your day to day work as well as telling about your greatest achievement as a nurse manger.
Refer to the articles – management interview questions & answers and to the leadership interview questions.
