Please quit wasting my time: Interview Advice from Hiring Manager - Page 2

Jeans and shorts, really?

I tend to develop a weird case of stage fright during my interviews.
I can't think. The answers just don't come as quickly. I appear nervous. One interviewer actually gave me a minute to simmer down. LOL
It's horrible.
It's not a good representation for how I really am in the workplace, because I actually do shine under pressure. I just don't know what happens to me in the interview. Those who hire me - I guess they can see through that?

Darn straight!!!!
Don't pooh-pooh on our aides. A good CNA will keep you abreast of change and help you out more times than you can imagine.
We're a team. No matter the title, everyone is as important as everyone else...and there's something to be learned from everyone.
On my floor, we've good med aides who've been passing meds for years. I'm not 'too good' to ask them for tips. As a student aide, I learned a great deal about therapuetic communication and how to take an angry/psychotic resident down 'with words and nonverbal communication' from a 50 year old coworker who'd been a psych tech for 15 years.
I call her, 'The Resident Whisperer'. LOL

They deserved to bounced out of the interview for that one.
Telemetry sounds great. May not be what you want but looking at the big picture? Hey, it's EXPERIENCE.
To me, any experience that I can grab onto as a new nurse is good experience. That's why I'm not particularly put off about working in LTC. Some would think, "I don't want to work at the nursing home."

Well, I'm learning some serious time-management skills. C'mon - passing meds to 36 residents? That's skill. LOL All of that running round? That's making a better professional of me.
Besides, geriatrics is a speciality. Plus, our facility is 'behavioral' and 80% of our residents are on anti-psychs.
Yes, my residents are old, ornery and sundown like crazy. I never paid attn to celestial events until the weekend of the Super Eclipse? Good God!
...but I love em to death. LOL I'd never work in a regular LTC.
Things is, Psych is a speciality, too. So that's two specialities on the resume.
...and Psych experience always comes in handy? You need it in every avenue of nursing. Undx'd types coming in to the ER. New mothers w/PP depression or psychosis. Maybe they don't have psych issues. Maybe you have new parents dealing with fetal demise or malformed infants. Maybe you're dealing with a family member in Med Surg or ICU whose wife is dying and he can't let go.
Maybe you're dealing with a parent in the ER who is combative and angry over goodness knows what.
Well - you have to know how to counsel the pt'sproperly. You have to understand the grief process. Have to know how to deal with an angry pt and resolve that conflict.
It enables you to treat the WHOLE person.

I've done clinicals on the Med Surg and ICU floors and seen how uncomfortable the bulk of the staff gets when a pt wth Alchohol DTS or an individual who has BP and presently 'off the rails' comes through. They almost don't know how to approach the individual.

My nursing school had an "employment specialist" come in toward the end and do mock interviews with us. I think it really helped some people.

I always wear a business suit when I interview and everyone (RN to janitor) gets a handshake. Can't fathom doing anything but.

This original post gave me a smile. Thanks for making my day. Now consider hiring strongly experienced RNs, at least who are matriculated into a BSN program, over unexperienced GN/BSNs. I am all for BSNs getting jobs, but for goodness sake, it's not fair for anyone the way the hiring is going at this time. You do NOT lose your nursing knowledge if it is strong. You may need a couple of weeks to refresh to things, but the critical thinking and judgment should be there if you have STRONG experience. I am all for BSN as baseline; but it does NOT trump strong experience.

Next, understand that many of the floors and units for which many HR people and managers hire, have some unhealthy business going on, and subtle forms or covert horizontal violence occurs a lot--especially when a nurse is on orientation. If the influential few in the crowd--you know, the ones that have management's ear, dislike or feel threatened by a new nurse hire, why there is no limit to how they can spin things. What they should teach nursing students is how to deal with the horrible level of negative politics and gaming that goes on in this field.

It's a great field in terms of what you can do, at least I believe this. I have loved most of what I have done--with all the ups and downs. I have had the pleasure of working with some incredible people. But honestly, there is toxicity that leadership and HR should never allow--especially when people are most vulnerable--on orientation.

I have lived to see some really sad things in this field; but the abuse that goes on, which leads to all the turn over for orientation as well as more stable positions is unreal. Some people think the political toxicity is worse in education. It may be close, but I give the cigar to nursing for more reasons than I have time to discuss.

Also, someone needs to do honest studies about financial waste that occurs because of toxicity and abuse and excessive political gaming in nursing. I believe a ton of money could be saved by hiring the right nurse educators as well as managers--those that understand how to both teach adult learners and mentor nurses. I believe turnover could be significantly reduced through major and consistent efforts aimed at changing the clinical cultures from covertly abusive (looks good on the surface, but it's toxic underneath) to more supportive, nuturing environments. Finally, I have been begging, for years, for places to develop more objective systems of evaluation for nurses during their orientation and thereafter--reducing the subjective nonsense. My head is too scarred over to even feel the pain of banging against the walls.

BrandonLPN, I am offended at the comment "don't list jobs you worked for a couple of months". The reason why this offends me is because I just finished an internship/Americorps position that was only for the summer. I listed it on my resume. Rightfully so. So, to OP, please don't discount short jobs because they could have actually completed that experience and also, I had a job I really loved as a tech and gained valuable exp. but my schooling was more important to me (my manager told me she would work with me when I went back, then left me high and dry) and I was also being harrassed by one of the nurses. Otherwise, I would have stayed. My point is, sometimes, there is a legit reason for leaving.

Other than that--atrocious email addresses, pajamas/jeans, etc., I agree. However, I once did wear corduroys and a nice top (somewhat casual, but nice) and sperrys to an interview because I could not afford anything else. Many of us younger people can't afford too much; keep in mind, I think answers can be better than dress because once you hit the floor, you typically wear scrubs. So, you would never be able to pick out who wore what to the interview.

Since you are a manager, I want to know one thing. What do you tell the interviewer when they ask about experience and the position says that it was for people who do not have experience? I am serious. I went on an interview once at the VA that was for people who don't have that much experience, yet the interviewer asked me what experience I had. I got marked down for not having experience. One of the people picked (this person went to the same school I did) had experience in EMT work and she ended up quitting after the program was over because she knew she wanted to work for one of the other health systems.

So, please don't assume people just don't care enough about an interview. Plus, you have to realize that many new grads do not have much interview experience. Mock interviews help but different questions and nerves can get the best of a person.

Loved this post. And as we all know, it's not just limited to Nursing interviews. My husband and I own a business & recently were looking for a helper, our requirements were fairly simple. Much like you described, we were ridden with people dealing with drug issues but probably wouldn't use on the job, prior DUI's, do I have to work weekends/8 hours a day, I've been arrested 3 times, but am now all good.

Sometimes I fear for my kids futures...

Sheesh, I meant don't list jobs that didn't work out that you didn't stay long in as a result. Obviously summer jobs or temp jobs are different.

I think many of us have a job or two that will never make it on the old resume. Sometimes we take a crappy job as a temporary stop gap until we find a decent job. After I left construction but before I became a nurse I worked a couple horrible retail jobs for short periods just to pay bills. Those will never be on my resume cause they aren't relevant to anything.

ElSea, to me, if they were making an effort to become clean and change, that speaks volumes to me. I don't think people should ask for weekends and stuff off; but don't knock people who have a past but are legitimately trying to change.

I do have to say for my own part... after about ten years I FINALLY wised up and changed
my email address. It was NOT the most professional sounding address in the world;
I created it when I was quite young. It wasn't the WORST in the world, like bigsexymomma
or anything like that, but it wasn't great either.

I wouldn't. Especially if they were legitimately turning their life around. We called his sister for a reference (all he could give) and she told us he's still doing all of those things, and she didn't think it would be a good idea to have him to be in peoples homes. (We do custom carpentry)

The other guy? Well, he's someone I've known since high school and still to this day, 20 years later posts his drunken pictures on FB, hasn't held down a job in years. So I'm not meaning to generalize, it was just these people amazed me.