Nursing Interviews

[crw109]

Hi everyone,

I have to say this website is great!

I'm hoping some of you nice people out there can help me out. I'm graduating in a few months and I've got my interview for a new graduate nursing job next week! EEk very nervous! Anyways, I'm trying to think of possible questions I can be asked and am preparing answers.

I'm told our questions will be centred around infection control, quality control, and we will have a few scenario questions. Basically the questions will be centred around the Australian Nursing competency standards, if anyone is familiar with these. I hear the questions are pretty basic, the interviewer is looking to hear we are competent and will practice safely. I've come up with a list of possible questions, but am struggling to think of some more, particularily patient care/scenario questions. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm not looking for answers, just basic scenario/occupational health and safety questions that I can prepare mock answers to prepared :)

Anyways, a few of the questions I have thought up include:

-What would you do if you came on shift and a patient's IV was running too quickly

-What would I do if a patient was complaining of chest pain

-What would I do if a patient was SOB

-What would I do in the event of a needle stick injury

-How would I deal with difficult nurses, doctors, patients

,etc

Any tips/possible questions are much appreciated!

Cheers!

[SeebachRN]

When I was doing interviews we would ask similar scenarios. We had an interview board which consisted of a ER nurse, a HR representative, and a nurse from the floor we were hiring for. The scenario's usually were based off of the department we would hire for so knowing what department your going into this interview for would be helpful. Some generic questions off of our list included:

1. If you received a phone order for "drug A" but you received "drug B" from pharmacy, you are in a hurry and give the medication and realize shortly after that you gave the wrong medication. How would you handle this?

Most of our questions related to you messing up, and how you would handle it. Some were as simple as you have an irate patient who cannot stand you and complains they want a different nurse. How would you handle this?

Mainly since we hired new grads or RN's newer out of school but with some experience. We were not looking for perfect answers we understood that people don't know everything. It was how you handled it that we really looked for.

The best answer I ever heard was, "I don't know how to handle that situation by myself. I would ask a more experienced nurse, or my charge nurse for the proper steps to follow the companies protocol." Weather that is what they would really do, no one knows, but it was the answer that got this grad hired direct into a NICU position.

Advice, be calm cool and collected. You are a new grad they know that already but have confidence in yourself. You may not know everything, and we can all pretty much guarantee that you don't but if you know where to find the answers your going to be a top notch nurse.