RN job interviews? Advice please! :)

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I am going to graduate from nursing school in a couple of months and I hope to find a job relatively soon after passing the NCLEX.

My question is: can anyone give me an idea of what kind of questions are asked at job interviews for RN positions? I get terribly nervous in interviews. Terribly! I'm a pretty laid back person but in those "all eyes on me" situations, I totally freeze up.

I would really appreciate any help anyone can offer! :D

Thanks in advance!

mama.RN

167 Posts

1) Why did you decide to become a nurse? (everyone asked this, every interview)

2) Why do you want to work here?

3) What nursing specialties do you think you would like/not like?

4) What apsects of nursing do you like/not like?

5) Summarize your background and how it would translate into your being a good nurse here.

6) What if you were working one day and everything went wrong at once...computers down, critical meds overdue, 2 emergencies at once, another nurse calls in sick, there is a small fire, family is yelling at you, doctor is on the phone, etc.

7) What did you like best about nursing school?

8) What if you saw another nurse who was doing something that endangered patient health/safety, for example, consistently not washing hands between patients?

9) What would you do if you found a patient unresponsive?

10) What if you had several patients with meds due at the same time, how would you decide who was the priority to receive their meds?

teboz

49 Posts

The best advice I can give is give an example for every answer. "Why do you want to be a nurse?" Don't just say you like taking care of people.....give an example. If you don't have any work experience, then say something like "I really enjoy taking care of people, but during my clinical rotation I had a patient that _________, and I was able to make them more comfortable by ____________. And I felt _________, and knew that I had made the right choice." A lot of interviews are behavioral type questions, they want to know how you are going to react, but also want and example to see if you can verbally demonstrate what you say you would do. For example, I have been asked, "When you are clocking in for your shift, you overhear another nurse taking someone for clocking her in when she was running late. You know that this is against company policy, what do you do?" From my experience, employers want to hear that you are comfortable confronting coworkers in a constructive manner. So something like, "I would first approach the nurse and let her know that the policy forbids others from clocking someone else in, and that she could face more trouble than being late in the first place. That I would do this first assuming she doesn't realize the policy and implications of breaking the rules. Then I said if I noticed that the issue continued, I would report it to the supervisor. Hope this helps, here are a few other questions I have recently been asked:

1. You have 3 patients, one is really needy, but you have to give meds and a treatment due now for your other patients, what do you do? Employer was looking for Providing immediate safety, and giving the patient a time frame when you would return "I will be back in 45 min..." and following through.

2. Have you ever been asked to do something that you didn't consider part of your job description? Give an example and how you handled it." Employer is looking for you to say how you worked through it in a positive manner. Make sure it is in your scope of practice.

tuhcoolyuh

10 Posts

Hi there, I am a new graduate RN, and after about three months of applying to over fifty jobs, I scored two interviews and just had my first offer. I found this new graduate nurse interview handbook (from a link in another allnurses post): http://www.nursing.umich.edu/studentresources/resumes/resume_guide.pdf and it was incredibly helpful. I got together with a few classmates and we took turns interviewing each other. I can't stress how important it was to practice and take notes of your strengths, experiences, etc. and look them over before your interviews.

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