Thoughts on hour long interview

[Nurse-please, BSN]

Hey guys,

i just had an interview yesterday for an ER position. I have never worked ER, have been a nurse in women's and children's background. The interview went for an hour and I'm not sure how it went.

Those ER nurses are an intimidating breed and asked very hard questions. I felt like an idiot and like I mumbled through a lot of it. We asked questions back and forth but at times I felt it was brutally awkward. I felt like a baby nurse all over again and didn't get a lot out that I wanted to say. I kind of froze up.

I think they had another interviewer that was behind me because she had been waiting outside for awhile.

At the end the educator said, "we just grilled you for an hour and you did great" and as I was walking out I ask the manager when I'd be expecting to hear from her and she said "by next week but you did a good job." I told her that was a hard interview and she said something along the lines of when you've been in this role for awhile you become hard and don't mean to come off that way.

Just wanna hear your opinions on this and other new ER interview experiences.

[Sour Lemon]

I had a 45 minute med/surg interview that was similar, but I was hired on the spot. I didn't know all the answers to the questions they asked, but I got the impression they were looking for common sense above all else.

[JKL33]

You know - it totally depends on the underlying attitudes, which I wouldn't know unless I experienced it myself.

The ED can be sort of ruthless at times (not the nurses there, but the whole general millieu itself). I would expect an interview team to try to get a sense of whether or not the interviewee's outlook/stamina/personality are such that they will be able to withstand literally constant pressure/prioritizing, emergent situations, need for excellent decision-making, the rough nature of many of our social ills and the populations we serve, etc.

However - - I see no reason those things can't be ascertained in a friendly, pleasant manner. So the question becomes whether it's just that the questions were hard versus the people themselves generally being unnecessarily challenging/sarcastic/unpleasant during the interview.

I wouldn't make excuses for inappropriate behaviors, but at the same time I don't think of good ED nurses in terms of being "hardened." I think we become very adept at getting to the bottom of things efficiently, and the nature of the environment means that as soon as we do that we have to move on and do it again right away with the next patient and the next and the next. But we care about people and their situations just like most every other good nurse does.

As I said over on the ED forum, true jerks in the ED are outliers that really don't thrive there any more than they do anywhere else.

[FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN]

This would raise a red flag for me and I would probably not take the job.

I did in fact turn down a job that I thought I really wanted because of the way in which the DON interviewed me and the fact that she asked me several illegal questions.

The illegal questions made me question her integrity. The harsh, rude, grilling session showed me her philosophy in teaching. Be harsh, demanding and severe and you will whip the nurse into great shape. I did well with it, but that's not the point for me. That might be fine for some people, but I am self directed. I learn anywhere because it's what I want, but I will thrive in a supportive environment. That's what I prefer.

So I turned it down. No regrets.

It sounds like the interview left you feeling insecure. Is that how you will get your best work done? Is that how you will learn and grow? Because whatever they were like in the interview is the best version of what they will be like in your work environment.

[Nurse-please, BSN]

FolksBtrippin,

I didn't get the impression that they were being rude or harsh. Just seemed like the wanted to get to the bottom of the best candidate. They were professional and took a lot of time to explain things to me. I think it just froze and reverted back into my shell because they kept hitting me with behavior questions that I thought were hard. They kept asking what I would do in an ER specific scenario which I found hard to answer since I have never worked ER before.