Odd Nursing interview questions

[moniquer]

Just about to graduate and start my career as an RN!! I haven't had a lot of experience with job interviews, worked at the same job last 12 years. So I'm getting prepared to be back out on the job-searching market. Friends are telling me some odd questions they've gotten in job interviews. Like...if you could be an animal what would you be and why?...If you had six months with no obligations or financial constraints, what would you do with the time?

Have any of you had any job interview questions that made you stumble??

[daisygirl5]

Nothing odd like those examples! Mostly just "tell me about a time when you..." Questions.

Good luck!

[klone, MSN, RN]

Yes, behavioral interview questions seem to be all the trend. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and all that.

Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker and how did you handle it?

[Peppermint_RN]

As above posters said, I haven't had any of the "weird" questions. All mine have been the situational "Tell me about a time when...."

My husband used to work in a department that did a bunch of interviews like that (Not for medical) and gave me advice on how to answer. You want to use the STAR format:

Situation - what was the problem or situation?

Task - what were you trying to accomplish?

Action - how did you go about accomplishing the task?

Result - what was the outcome? Did you accomplish the task?

If you Google "Star format interview", it'll explain it better. :)

The goal of this format for behavioral questions is to make sure you fully explain yourself and completely answer the question.

I went to an interview with the VA with a few new grad friends of mine. They answered their questions short & sweet with no structure and we're pretty much told "thanks but no thanks". I used the star format to answer & was passed on to second round interviews. (unfortunately I didn't get the job though since I didn't have my RN license til after the job posting closed!)

Anyways, good luck!