Palomar Health Nurse Residency 2019 Interview Jan 7 and 11th :) Escondido Poway Pomerado Hospital

Nurses New Nurse

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Hi guys! there's another topic on this but there's basically no activity so I wanted to write about my experience with Palomar Health application and interview process to help future nurses prepare for the experience.

I applied 11/19

on 12/26 I got an email informing me that I have been selected to interview. it had a date and time already in this email. the date for my interview was 1/7.

I was focused on only one specialty. if you applied for one department, and responded to the email quickly, I believe the coordinator tries to get you an interview time where your department will be present. it is important to respond quickly. If you applied for everything then no worries.

I know people who wanted my specialty who did not get to meet their department leads. everyone is not at every interview. the early bird catches the worm!

they had 70 applicants for 18 positions. the interview was a 2 day evolution, 5 interviews with 7 candidates on monday, and the same for friday. for a specialty, my odds were 6 applicants for 2 positions.

If you are department specific, even if you applied for everything but your heart is with one, I highly suggest calling the department ahead of time and asking who the director is, the nurse manager, etc. You can also ask this information of the coordinator who is your point of contact for the interview.

the interview is speed dating style. you meet with 2-3 interviewers in about 7 rooms with about 10 minutes at each station. the first 8 minutes they ask you a few questions, and then you have an opportunity to ask questions. prepare good questions in advance that youd like to know about that department or the hospital in general. Review care bundles if you're a little clueless with them because the ICU department is good for asking about them :)

i cannot emphasize the importance of preparation enough. glassdoor goes over a few questions that are asked in their interviews and then there are just general questions you can be expected to answer. prepare your responses. if you are like me and more prone to nervousness, i recorded my voice in a voicememo, and listened to it over and over again, so i could get used to remembering the points that i wanted to cover for each question.

Since i knew what people from the department I wanted would be at the interview, i made an entire portfolio for the director and nursing manager to keep. go big or go home :) i also made a generic portfolio addressed to Palomar Health instead of Jane/John Doe specifically. so at each station I let the interviewers look through my portfolio when we chatted. when i got to my area of passion, I gave them their personalized portfolio. for each other of the 6 stations I did put my resume and cover letter in a nice presentation folder from staples. I labeled them with each department name that was on the Nurse Residency Palomar website where I went to apply. I figured the departments that would be represented was the departments that were hiring. I was right for the most part. I gave each room a folder to keep. i spent like $100 at staples for quality resume papers, picture paper, thank you cards, portfolios and folders.

I wrote hand written thank you cards and brought them on the interview. my area of specialty got personalized ones. and then other departments got a generalized one. "Dear Emergency Department". I literally had 14 thank you cards on the day of the interview. labeled with departments, and peoples names that I had.

I got a call from HR on 1/18 with an offer. Current new grad pay is low 40s with a evening and night shift differential of about 2-4$

Hope this is helpful for future applicants. Have fun with it. each one reach one. whats for you is for you! shine and do your best :) good luck

5 Votes

You're so awesome for posting this, thank you!! I applied to a few positions for this round starting this summer, but my passion is with L&D, always has been. I know how competitive those jobs are here and I'm so nervous that I'm not competitive enough, but I hope I can at least get an interview. ?

0 Votes

Thank you so much for this post! When do you hand in your interview thank you cards?

0 Votes
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