Wondering why you can't get hired or promoted: Resume + Interview hints!
I've been reviewing resumes in my department and can't believe the resumes I've received: misspelling, words crossed off, no cover letter, including personal information about family life. Read to learn "Why am I not getting hired?!"
I was taught in LPN and BSN program how to prepare a resume. Is this a lost art being skipped??
Also agree with our BB members that calling facility and finding out who is department manager, then forwarding your resume to them along with hr is great idea.
I work in smaller organization than hospital but has taken me over two months to get open positions advertised and three weeks to get resumes sent to me...those that sent to me directly have interview same week.
Resume Writing
Resume writing and interview tips for nurses from Univ. of Pennsylvania:
If I called a member of your current staff and asked them to tell me about you, what would they say?
What actions would you take if you came on board?
How do you lead?
What's your secret to getting subordinates to follow you?
How do you motivate employees?
How do you reward employees?
Describe your management philosophy and management style.
Some managers supervise their employees closely, while others use a loose rein. How do you manage?
How have you improved as a manager over the years?
How many people have you fired? how do you go about it?
How would you deal with an employee who broke a policy (ie: late for work)?
How would you deal with an employee who was not open and honest in communication?
It is very hard to attract (critical care, er, or, ob etc.) nurses to this area. What are some strategies you might use to have enough qualified nurses to be sure patients get quality care in the facility?
What single professional event made you most proud to be a manager/leader?
What event made you least proud to be a leader?
In prior positions did you have budgeting responsibilities? If so, what was the size of your operating budget?
Do you know how to figure fte's?
What is your definition of empowerment?
What is your definition of quality assurance (QA), and who should be responsible, for QA?
Tell me about a time when your manager made a decision you disagreed with. What actions did you take and why?
Tell me about a time when you had to handle a disruptive employee. what did you do? what were the results?
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an irate physician, patient, employee etc. how did you handle it and what was the result?
How have you managed to foster a successful team in your past positions?
What methods have you found successful in determining the priorities when you start in a new facility?
What methods do you use to foster open communication with staff and management?
Tell me about a work incident when you were totally honest, despite a potential risk or downside for the honesty.
How did you handle a recent situation where the direction from above was unclear and circumstances were changing?
Describe how you motivated a group of people to do something they did not want to do.
Who is your most effective subordinate and your least effective subordinate?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? What have you done to develop each of these subordinates?
Tell me about some of the people who have become successful as a result of your management. What was your role in their development?
What are the major training and development needs of the people in your department? How did you identify them? What are you doing about them?
Are there any techniques you have found useful in identifying particular subordinates' needs and potentials? Tell me how they worked with a particular person.
What do you do differently than other managers? Why? Examples?
What is the farthest you've had to bend your standards in order to succeed?
What job duties would you like to avoid if at all possible?
Describe a time in which you weighed the pros and cons of a situation and decided not to take action, even though you were under pressure to do so.
All of us have been in situations where we assigned work to other people and they didn't do what we intended. Can you tell me about some of those? What were the circumstances and how did you handle it?
Have you ever had problems in getting your subordinates to accept your ideas or department goals? What approach did you use? How effective was it?
Have you ever needed cooperation from groups that did not report to you? What did you do to gain cooperation? What were the satisfactions and disappointments?
Is there a trait or characteristic about you that you find is frequently misunderstood, that surprises you when you find out that people think that about you?
What 3 things do you hope to accomplish in your first year?
What do you expect of those who report to you? If candidate responds with a one word answer (for example saying, "support" you can probe further by asking the candidate to describe three behaviors that she/he would view as being supportive.
If you had an unfavorable plan (I.e., budget) to implement, what would you do to get the managers' buy in and support?
With the current nursing shortage, what are two solutions you would like to see put in place?
What kind of support do you offer managers, directors and front-line staff, knowing the stress of the nursing shortage and the increasing acuity of our patients?
Tell us about a high level innovative idea/change that you implemented. Was it or was it not successful?
Questions to ask the employer:
What unique challenges has this unit faced over the last year? (I.e. successes, failures, etc.)
What sets this organization apart from it's competitors?
How long is the orientation phase and what can I expect?
Will I work with one preceptor throughout or will I have several different preceptors?
How does the administration view nursing in terms of importance to the hospital?
How much independence do nurses have in being creative problem-solvers?
What kind of professional advancement is available to nurses here?
What are some of the attributes of working for your hospital?
If I were to get a job offer from another hospital, why would I want to work for this one?
What is the criterion you will use to select the person you are looking for?
What kind of support can I expect from the nursing educators and preceptors?
How does the hospital handle new grads that might be slow in becoming oriented to their new jobs?
How long have you been the manager of this unit and what is your nursing background?
How many nurses have quit and how many hired for this unit in the past 6 months? How long have some of the nurses been working on this unit?
Who will be precepting me? Can you tell me something about them? Will I always have the same preceptor or will there be more than one?
Have you ever had a new grad who didn't seem to work out? How was it handled?
If for any reason it seems that orientation is just not going well for me what will happen and who should I talk to about it?
Questions about the following are illegal to ask at a job interview here in the US:
your personal life (married, divorced, children)
family planning
pregnancy
provision for child care
religious preference
club memberships
height
weight
dependents
age (birth date)
ethnic background
maiden name
native language
physical problems
psychiatric problems
spouse's employment and/or earnings
credit rating
home ownership
automobile ownership
Resigning from position
Check your facilities policy and procedures--most require that you give notice equal to amount of vacation provided, often 2-3 weeks; long term employed rns can be 4-5weeks.
Managers often need 1-3 months notice to be eligible for rehire -- Don't burn your bridges.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Maybe so, but it helped many of us in rural areas where lining up work was not so easy to do ---especially prior to graduation. Also, it was 7 years ago. May be, by now, policies have changed on this one. Not sure.
My school conducted Resume clinics prior to graduation for all senior nursing students. They even brought in the HR person from the hospital across the street.
This is a great thread, thanks. I did receive training on resume and cover-letter writing in my ADN program, thankfully. It was covered in the last weeks of our final semester. A plus for me was, being in the military, I did get the practice for writing resumes, as we had to often submit our own awards packages. And letter-writing was a huge part of my responsibilities in the Air Force, as well. I got really good at it!
But I think ALL nursing programs need to address this very important issue, not just here and there. I thank you for posting this thread-----we all, myself included----could stand to learn a few tricks and brush up our skills. Very informative.
And I do agree, a sticky would be a good idea, here or in the nursing career threads!
I absolutely love Belusi....what a shame......Anyhow all the resume comments make sense. Since I am going through a rough time and need to secure employment fast, I hired someone to do the dirty work. He is a professional medical resume writer and his wife who is a nurse manager actually reviews them. It was costly, $175.00 but you have to figure it will pay off by presenting yourself in the right light. Some may think this is unneccesary, which it very well maybe, but if you have a weak link there, it may help. Anyone interested please e-mail me. Second thing I would like to mention. Nursing is in a professional realm, look professional! Not implying anyone here isn't but earrings dangling from your nose, eyebrow, ect......tatoos that say look at me, look at me!......really should be not seen. Just my humble opinion. :) Bindy
Does anyone think, that interviewing as a newly graduate nurse, you can have too much experience working as a student nurse that it would hinder getting hired as an RN? I know someone who is having problems getting hired...
With a nursing shortage that is 'real', wouldn't one would think recruitors would be less picky? Just another reason to doubt the hoopla about a 'nursing shortage', and see it for what it really is: an excuse for understaffing.
i've been reviewing resume's for open positions in my department and can't believe the resumes i've received: misspelling, words crossed off, no cover letter, including personal information about family life. please don't send a resume if you have none of the job qualifications, unless your cover letter has explanation eg enrolled in education program etc.
i was taught in lpn and bsn program how to prepare a resume. is this a lost art being skipped??
also agree with our bb members that calling facility and finding out who is department manager, then forwarding your resume to them along with hr is great idea.
i work in smaller organization than hospital but has taken me over two months to get open positions advertised and three weeks to get resume's sent to me...those that sent to me directly have interview same week.
check out:
resume writing and interview tips for nurses from univ. of pennsylvania:
healthcare resume and interview tips... polish your interviewing skills with our virtual interview, which contains common healthcare interviewquestions
are you confident your resume will make it to the yes pile? take our resume readiness quiz for healthcare pros, and see if your resume passes the test.
actually, no, my bsn program did not have a course on resume writing.!!! at the time, i didn't think it was necessary for me as i was a "mature" student who had worked in other (non-professional) areas and had applied for numerous other jobs and written more than my share of resumes through the years. i am > 12 years out of nursing school and have worked only one position as an rn (in inpatient psychiatric care). i didn't realize how difficult it would be to update my resume until i tried a few yrs ago when i found myself dissatisfied w/my current position. a resume/skills summary seemed almost impossible to complete. it is such a specialized area (nursing in general and psych. nursing in particular). thank you for posting those links. i believe i will bookmark them for future reference. it is not the form, the grammer or the spelling that has me stumped. how do i translate what a nurse does every day into layman's terms? although i have a bsn, i am "just a staff nurse" and do not have any "notable" accomplishments to list. although, really, the job i do every day, which involves judgement, discernment, tact and highly developed communiction skills is pretty amazing. i really have a hard time illustrating these as concrete skills. oh well, thanks for the post. and the links.
With a nursing shortage that is 'real', wouldn't one would think recruitors would be less picky? Just another reason to doubt the hoopla about a 'nursing shortage', and see it for what it really is: an excuse for understaffing.
Karen, thank you so much for posting all that great advice and the links, I bookmarked them all. Thank you! And thank you to everyone else for all the great advice!
I'm probably one of the only May graduates that doesn't have a job lined up yet. I wanted to wait until I got back home, so I could start looking and go in person to inquire and talk with recruiters.
Now I'm just scared to death and just don't know where to start with writing my resume, eeeek! I have a couple questions though. I'm looking at a certain new grad program that I would love to get into, but I don't meet their GPA requirement. I am still planning on applying though, do you think that's inappropriate? I meet all the other requirements/qualifications, but I had a really bad semester a couple years ago and it hurt my GPA.
Another question I have is do I need to be listing all my clinical experiences on my resume? I saw this mentioned in another thread and the answers were conflicting ..... some said no, some said yes. What do you all think?
As someone who has read a lot lot of resumes, applications, etc. and done lots of interviews ... I wholeheartedly agree with the previous posts in this thread. In fact, as coordinator of a nursing student extern program, I have decided to emphasize job hunting, career planning, and employee skills in our extern classes as opposed to offering a lot of physiology and nursing care classes. The applicants who "do it right" really stand out from those who don't know how to make a positive impression on a potential employer.
Here is another tip for resumes:
Do NOT pad your resume or try to make school experiences look like employee experiences. I've seen a lot of that -- and it makes a very bad impression. It makes me think the applicant is sneaky, someone I can't completely trust. No one wants to hire a person they can't trust.
With a nursing shortage that is 'real', wouldn't one would think recruitors would be less picky? Just another reason to doubt the hoopla about a 'nursing shortage', and see it for what it really is: an excuse for understaffing.
Yes, and I have been through quite a few interviews where it was blatantly obvious that the recruiter had already made up his/her mind as to who they were going to hire...before I even arrived. Grrrrr.....! :angryfire
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
Maybe so, but it helped many of us in rural areas where lining up work was not so easy to do ---especially prior to graduation. Also, it was 7 years ago. May be, by now, policies have changed on this one. Not sure.