Why did you decide to pursue a career in nursing?

[Morningdew2112]

How to answer this question to show your passion in the interview?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I wrote a three-article series on how to answer some of the most common interview questions. Click on the links below if you wish to read:

https://allnurses.com/nursing-interview-help/how-answer-most-748905.html

https://allnurses.com/nursing-interview-help/few-more-common-793986.html

https://allnurses.com/nursing-interview-help/more-common-nursing-797911.html

[Morningdew2112]

TheCommuter: I love your three articles, and I actually use them as a guide for my interview preparation

The reason I'm asking this question because I was recently interviewed and got a score of 1 out of three for this question. This is my answer: I want to become a passionate nurse who will provide the best care to patients as the nurse who motivates me. She gave my husband and I so much support during my complicated labor. She has changed our lives forever. On that special day, I delivered our beautiful baby and made one of the most important decisions in my life: becoming a nurse

I guess this is not good enough :-(

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I suppose the interviewers were looking for internal motivation versus external motivation as your reason for pursuing a nursing career.

Masses of people are motivated to enter nursing because, somewhere along the way, they encountered a wonderful nurse who either provided care for them or one of their family members. This would be external motivation because some entity outside you provided the spark to become a nurse. Other types of external motivation include the salary, benefits, and schedule, or a controlling parent who forces one's 18-year-old daughter to major in nursing.

Other people are motivated to pursue nursing due to supposedly innate personality traits. These people are altruistic, unselfish, helpful, resourceful, and have always wanted to leave their positive mark on humankind ever since they were children. This would be internal motivation because the spark to become a nurse is coming from within.

[llg, PhD, RN]

You have to remember the purpose of an interview -- from the interviewer's perspective, not yours. Interviewers are often looking to hire people who "fit well" with them and the other members of the team. So the "best answer" depends on the personal preferences of the interview and there really is no way for a scoring system to be totally objective about something like that.

It's like buying clothes, a shirt might be wonderful and durable and easy to launder, etc. -- but be an unflattering color on you. The shirt might be perfect for your friend, but be a horrible purchase for you. Does that make it a "good shirt" or a "bad shirt?"

The same is true about the answer to an interview questions. What one person may think is a wonderful answer, may not "fit right" in another context. It may not be what would fit well with that particular interviewer and/or team.

Please don't be offended by this, but when I read your response above, I was not particularly impressed by it either. It sounded like a very standard type of response that is pretty typical of moms enamored with their own babies and birth experiences. As an interviewer, I give my highest scores to applicants who think more deeply than their own warm fuzzy feelings while awash with maternal hormones. I would be looking to hire a candidate whose committment to L&D (or whatever department) had been thought out over a period of time for reasons based on strengths, weaknesses, talents, interests, committment, etc. -- a choice based on reason and reflection -- showing an awareness that not every birth is the ideal, happy experience you personally had. That may be something to think about for future interviews.

But who knows? Maybe you'll get the job offer anyway. I hope you do.

[Morningdew2112]

Thank you so much TheCommuter and llg for your helpful posts. It's all clear to me now