You're Hired!: The New World Of Hiring Nurses??

DoGoodThenGo · Aug 28, 2012

As the saying goes "only the strongest survive"! *LOL*

In the business world long and drawn out hiring processes serve to root out the weak and or otherwise only marginally interested. Well that is how the thinking goes anyway.

All4NursingRN · Aug 28, 2012

Yep lol. I now realize that I have to ''sell myself'' and even butter up my resume just to get a foot in the door. Before all you had to do was have the passion for your profession and two or three letters behind your name (LPN or RN) and you got the job.

I have no qualms about employers wanting the best, but I feel (and in my experience) as though many times they just want someone who will do the job and jump at their every beck and call, an employee they can jerk around and not someone who wants to move up, better themselves, or advance their careers.

Myself and a few other nurses have had the experience of management holding us back and down just because we wanted to advance or were bright and intelligient. But I'm getting off subject a bit, that's another topic lol!

DoGoodThenGo · Aug 28, 2012

Yep lol. I now realize that I have to ''sell myself'' and even butter up my resume just to get a foot in the door. Before all you had to do was have the passion for your profession and two or three letters behind your name (LPN or RN) and you got the job.
I have no qualms about employers wanting the best, but I feel (and in my experience) as though many times they just want someone who will do the job and jump at their every beck and call, an employee they can jerk around and not someone who wants to move up, better themselves, or advance their careers.
Myself and a few other nurses have had the experience of management holding us back and down just because we wanted to advance or were bright and intelligient. But I'm getting off subject a bit, that's another topic lol!

You could always pull this at your next interview:

Altra, BSN, RN · Aug 29, 2012

I'm really trying to understand this.

When you say that you've never before had an interview in which questions were scored ... are you saying that you believe that questions were just random? Or there was no weight given to individual answers?

I'm asking, in all sincerity, does this seem realistic to you? Or do you think you just have greater awareness of hiring processes now that you've been a nurse for around 2 years or so?

netglow, ASN, RN · Aug 29, 2012

I think the OP is finding it hard to respect the interviewer who asks why she scored low on some test she has no access to. She should have said, "I can't comment on that due to the fact that you failed to communicate to me both the existence of a test and then subsequently my score..."

Look we all know the interview process is a waste of everybody's time. Why have little tests? Keep it simple stupid.

SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS · Aug 29, 2012

Netglow and Altra, I think you're both right.

Of course interviewers rate the person's response. The questions each have a purpose. But the interviewee is not privy to the process, and really can't know how the answers are scored- it's subjective, to some extent, anyway.

The director, in the final interview, sounds like a poor communicator. She may be immersed in the interview process from the other end, and then put the OP on the spot without an explanation of what she was really trying to ask.

Guest343211 · Aug 29, 2012

I was reading another thread and related to this topic.
It seems as though the days of graduating from nursing school and easily finding a job in any speciality (or one of your choice) are long gone.
Now the process of employment in nursing seems to be like that of the business world.
A few months ago I applied to a prestigious hospital and had to go through muliple processes before I even had an actual interview.
Behavioral tests, phone questionnaires, interview with HR, and then finally an interview with someone in nursing.
Little did I know that I was being scored and gauged all throught these processess.
By the time I got to my second and last interview, the first question out of the director's mouth was why I scored low on interpersonal relationships (or something to that effect)
I was stunned. I'd been on many interviews over the course of my career, but I'd never been on an interview where my answers to ''what would you do'' or ''have you ever'' type questions were scored, I had thought I did great on my first interview. Secondly what answer could I provide her? I knew I was a great nurse and great co-worker and no single interview or battery of questionnaires could ever or would ever showcase that.
A career that should be so personal has become so impersonal.
It seems as though they are using all these qualitative tests to weed out the worst when in fact I believe they only fail to measure what is truly important in a candidate and fail to highlight potentially great candidates.
There is no test out there that can give you the best candidate. Employers are going to have to fess up to taking a risk, the same risk that prospective employees takes when they accept a new position. It may or may not be the right fit.
The nursing world is filled with too much politics, and the hiring process is one that's full of politics. They have all these hiring tools, but yet they'll still just hire someone they like or someone they know. Most of these hiring tools are just meant to weed out anyone who can't conform to their wants or anyone who will rock the boat.
It seems like every other profession, nursing is all about employing robots to do the job. If you don't fit the mold, you're out!

I REALLY HATE to say this, but so much of what you are saying is definitely true in my experience.

Psychometric tests are a joke in many cases. Bottom line. You will not know what an applicant is like until you work with them for a good six months IMHO. So much BS in-between clouds the reality, and then the unfair perception can dominate.

So sad. You have to find the best way you can to work around all the BS whilst holding on to your own sense of integrity and truth.

Second most important thing, IMHO, is to make sure you always stay employable and that you have back up jobs. Pick up per diem positions so that your livelihood is protected, b/c in this field, honestly, you can get screwed big time. I wish it were not so. I like nursing and plenty of people with whom I have had the pleasure of working. Thing is, there are the "influential few" that can feel threatened or cause problems for you--and are the complete opposite of supportive--and also get the ear of management--b/c mgt uses them to help them do their job. Not all managers, but plenty of them. They actually think this is professional and helpful, but they often don't have or care to have real insight into what is going on. Or they have learned to play the politics, and since they have had to do so, everyone should have to deal with it as well.

You really have to watch out for yourself in this field, while also still caring about what you are actually there for--and wanting to make a difference. It's tough--tougher that many people really know.

Guttercat, ASN, RN · Aug 29, 2012

Very interesting. News to me.

Thanks for posting.

My guess is, these "template tests" and the results they generate, are designed to flag key data points and guide the interviewer(s) through a series of "check the box" and pre-determined follow up questions.

Similarly to how so much of today's EMR systems are designed to flag criteria based on ready-made "connect the dot" computer-directed patient care.

As an RN with 20 years under her belt, it's fascinating to watch intuition and critical thinking stripped from the process.

SummitRN, BSN, RN · Aug 29, 2012

3 Positions get posted. The problem they have is how to cut down 500 resumes to 9 to interview.

Toss out the ADN new grads, they still have 400.

So then they throw out the BSN new grads, they have 300 left.

Then they throw out people with less than 1 years of experience, and they have 200.

Then they throw out the people with less than two years experience and they have 100.

Then they throw out anyone without a year or desired specialty experience and they have 50 applicants with 2+ years experience and 1+ years of specialty.

50 is a lot of resumes to read. So read and toss some resumes, make em take some cheap tests, and you might get down to the 9 to interview.

Guess we better open some more nursing schools, STAT!

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Aug 29, 2012

It is all true and very sad........

tnmarie · Aug 29, 2012

It is an employer's market. Soon the nurses will get tired of the bad treatment d/t the attitude that 'there are 100 nurses behind you to take your place if you don't like it' and they will leave nursing; then there will be a shortage again. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth on this over the years. We just have the misfortune of being out there in the time of overage. This too shall pass...