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.
Very interesting and informative thread. Thank you for information on resumes, we do something called Cirriculum Vitae CV for short, here in UK but apparently they do differ slightly from the US and I will need to do one at some point in the future. I also read with surprise re interview thank you letter. A couple of questions I would be grateful if you could answer please.
1) Do you thank them for getting the job or just for being interviewed?
2) Is a thank you letter expcted for all kind of jobs in US
3) Post interview how long does it take to get job offer? Does this take hours,days, weeks?
When we interview in UK majority of the time you let them know by late afternoon or the next morning.
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.
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.
Sorry, but I disagree.
If someone is not careful with something as important as a resume for a professional position, how careful are they going to be with their language/spelling/grammar on the job or in front of the patient?
I have had to deal with units that use written shift change reports. It is a nightmare to follow some nurses because of their lousy spelling and poor handwriting. It is embarassing that some of these errors are on the patient's permanent chart...it makes the nursing staff look like idiots.
If Nursing is to be considered a "Profession" and not merely a service job, it must do everything in its power to behave professionally.
We are not talking rocket science or absolute perfection, but a reasonably readable correct resume. The type of grammar that most of us should have learned by sixth grade should be sufficient. Yet, very few applicants seem to be able to manage even that.
And, no, just because there is a shortage does not mean that we should accept applicants that do not meet very basic requirements. Logic like that is what moves legislatures to permit "certified medication aides"...."we do not have enough nurses so let's toss in a bunch of lesser qualified aides to just get the job done".
Nursing involves a great deal of professional communication. The employer's assessment of that begins with the prospective employee's resume and application. If their communication skills fail to pass at that level, why would an employer even try to hire the individual.
Requiring professional nurses to behave as a professional when seeking a job is "eating our young"?????
Expecting nurses to demonstrate a very basic knowledge of grammar, spelling, punctuation and writing..things taught in elementary school... is "eating our young"????
Maybe if schools are graduating fifth graders to take the NCLEX, we would be eating our young.
Expecting professional standards from professional nurses - if that is not acceptable to the young, perhaps they need to be eaten.
Nursing involves a great deal of professional communication. The employer's assessment of that begins with the prospective employee's resume and application. If their communication skills fail to pass at that level, why would an employer even try to hire the individual.
I agree completely. The job application, resume, interview process is the applicant's big opportunity to show the prospective employer who they are and the quality of work they will do if hired. If you show them that you do bad quality of work, you can't reasonably expect them to hire you.
the expression "padding your resume" means to lie or to exaggerate things on your resume to make yourself look like a more qualified than you really are. while few people actally tell ourright lies, many people exaggerate a few things in an attempt to make themselves look good.
for example: someone might spend 1 afternoon doing some volunteer work and then list it as if it were a long-term activity. it may seem like an innocent exaggeration, but it is a form of lying -- and when a potential employer sees that sort of thing on a resume, it makes them question the applicant's trustworthiness. if they're not being "up front" about these sorts of things, will they also be a sneaky and "borderline honest" as my employee?
another common example is the listing of school clinicals as if they were jobs. there is a big difference between spending a little time somewhere as a student and actually having a job there. if you don't think so, read some of the threads about being a new grad! if students feel that they should list student experiences on their resume, they should clearly identify that they are student experiences, not jobs.
about putting student experiences ... i suggest only putting those student experiences that are particularly relevent to the job for which you are applying within the body of your resume -- clearly identifying that they are student experiences, of course. then, if you want to list all of your student experiences, do so on a separate sheet of paper. in the body of your resume, you can say something like, "please see the attached list of student clinical experiences." that way, the reader can look them over, but they don't bog down the reader with a bunch of irrelevant experiences.
remember: every nursing student spends at least a few weeks in med/surg ... peds ... ob .... psych ... community health ... etc. the prospective employer knows that anyone who went to nursing school has done these things. what the reader wants to know are things like, "what has this applicant done that is unique and/or particularly relevant to the job they are seeking?" "is there anything in the applicant's past that shows that they have a special interest in the type of work they are applying for?" so, that's the kind of information you want to highlight in your resume.
make that type of information stand out and get noticed. don't cover up your uniqueness with by burying your special qualities within a long list of routine, typical experiences that are irrelevant to the job.
if you don't have any special qualities ... have never shown any interest in the type of work you are applying to do ... and/or have never gotten any experience that is at all relevant to the job you are applying for .... then that is what you need to focus on before you apply for the job.
If someone is not careful with something as important as a resume for a professional position, how careful are they going to be with their language/spelling/grammar on the job or in front of the patient?
I have had to deal with units that use written shift change reports. It is a nightmare to follow some nurses because of their lousy spelling and poor handwriting. It is embarassing that some of these errors are on the patient's permanent chart...it makes the nursing staff look like idiots.
If Nursing is to be considered a "Profession" and not merely a service job, it must do everything in its power to behave professionally.
We are not talking rocket science or absolute perfection, but a reasonably readable correct resume. The type of grammar that most of us should have learned by sixth grade should be sufficient. Yet, very few applicants seem to be able to manage even that.
And, no, just because there is a shortage does not mean that we should accept applicants that do not meet very basic requirements. Logic like that is what moves legislatures to permit "certified medication aides"...."we do not have enough nurses so let's toss in a bunch of lesser qualified aides to just get the job done".
Nursing involves a great deal of professional communication. The employer's assessment of that begins with the prospective employee's resume and application. If their communication skills fail to pass at that level, why would an employer even try to hire the individual.
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.
nurse karen: i have a big resume problem. i just took my nclex to renew my rn license on may 19th in ca. i graduated in 1972 and worked my first year at a teaching hospital and another hospital for 2 years. after that i worked for the agencies until 1995 and worked in a variety of positions, icu, micu, but primarily med/surg.
i would only want to work per diem. however, since it has been such a long time, i don't remember the agencies i worked for, and most of them have been sold to other corporations.
Another common example is the listing of school clinicals as if they were jobs. There is a big difference between spending a little time somewhere as a student and actually having a job there. If you don't think so, read some of the threads about being a new grad! If students feel that they should list student experiences on their resume, they should clearly identify that they are student experiences, not jobs.
About putting student experiences ... I suggest only putting those student experiences that are particularly relevent to the job for which you are applying within the body of your resume -- clearly identifying that they are student experiences, of course. Then, if you want to list ALL of your student experiences, do so on a separate sheet of paper. In the body of your resume, you can say something like, "Please see the attached list of student clinical experiences." That way, the reader can look them over, but they don't bog down the reader with a bunch of irrelevant experiences.
Remember: EVERY nursing student spends at least a few weeks in med/surg ... peds ... OB .... psych ... community health ... etc. The prospective employer knows that anyone who went to nursing school has done these things. What the reader wants to know are things like, "What has this applicant done that is unique and/or particularly relevant to the job they are seeking?" "Is there anything in the applicant's past that shows that they have a special interest in the type of work they are applying for?" So, that's the kind of information you want to highlight in your resume.
Make that type of information stand out and get noticed. Don't cover up your uniqueness with by burying your special qualities within a long list of routine, typical experiences that are irrelevant to the job.
llg, thank you so much for this post!! I am working on a resume to get into a NICU at a children's hospital for a position in their new grad NICU program. I did a 144-hour preceptorship just a couple months ago for my practicum, in a NICU. I am planning on putting this experience in my resume. If I understand you correctly, it would be good to include this in my resume, but I don't need to include all my other clinical experiences ... correct?
Thanks so much for all the info, it is greatly appreciated!
llg, thank you so much for this post!! I am working on a resume to get into a NICU at a children's hospital for a position in their new grad NICU program. I did a 144-hour preceptorship just a couple months ago for my practicum, in a NICU. I am planning on putting this experience in my resume. If I understand you correctly, it would be good to include this in my resume, but I don't need to include all my other clinical experiences ... correct?
Thanks so much for all the info, it is greatly appreciated!
Exactly! You got it! In fact, I am an old NICU nurse. We are always on the look-out for people who did practicums like the one you mention. We almost always hire those people -- unless they really screw something up in their application process. .... But we really don't want to waste time reading about the few weeks you spent doing med/surg somewhere, etc. Highlight your practicum so that they are sure to notice it, but don't cover it up with a lot of other irrelevant material.
Exactly! You got it! In fact, I am an old NICU nurse. We are always on the look-out for people who did practicums like the one you mention. We almost always hire those people -- unless they really screw something up in their application process. .... But we really don't want to waste time reading about the few weeks you spent doing med/surg somewhere, etc. Highlight your practicum so that they are sure to notice it, but don't cover it up with a lot of other irrelevant material.
Good luck! ... and I hope you enjoy the NICU.
llg
Thanks! That gives me hope. I fell in love with the NICU during my preceptorship and cried on the last day because I was so sad it was over. I would love to be able to get into this new grad program and work in the NICU. The only thing I'm worried about is my GPA not meeting their requirements. I had 1 bad semester during my prereqs and it hurt my GPA, so it's not quite up to par for their requirements, but I'm going to apply anyway.
Very interesting and informative thread. Thank you for information on resumes, we do something called Cirriculum Vitae CV for short, here in UK but apparently they do differ slightly from the US and I will need to do one at some point in the future. I also read with surprise re interview thank you letter. A couple of questions I would be grateful if you could answer please.
1) Do you thank them for getting the job or just for being interviewed?
2) Is a thank you letter expcted for all kind of jobs in US
3) Post interview how long does it take to get job offer? Does this take hours,days, weeks?
When we interview in UK majority of the time you let them know by late afternoon or the next morning.
1)You thank them for the time they took to interview you.
2)Nothing is expected. But it is considered good form to ALWAYS give a thank you note for the opportunity to interview,
3)This varies. Forget hours unless they are especially desperate for help, in which case you probably would not want to work there any way. Be very careful!
madwife2002, BSN, RN
26 Articles; 4,777 Posts
Very interesting and informative thread. Thank you for information on resumes, we do something called Cirriculum Vitae CV for short, here in UK but apparently they do differ slightly from the US and I will need to do one at some point in the future. I also read with surprise re interview thank you letter. A couple of questions I would be grateful if you could answer please.
1) Do you thank them for getting the job or just for being interviewed?
2) Is a thank you letter expcted for all kind of jobs in US
3) Post interview how long does it take to get job offer? Does this take hours,days, weeks?
When we interview in UK majority of the time you let them know by late afternoon or the next morning.