One of the most important aspects of the application process for nursing school is the interview. This gives the review board a chance to find out who you really are. Up to this point all faculty knows about you is how well you have done in school based on your grades, what other professors and professionals think of you based on your letters of recommendation, and how well you can write and a short glimpse into who you are based on a personal statement. In order to catch the review board’s attention you need to make a great impression at the interview. Here are some typical questions and tips to help you through the interview.
1. Tell me about yourself?
This is your chance to provide that crucial information about who you are and what makes you, you. This is not a chance for you to tell your autobiography. The audience does not care about where you were born (Unless it somehow relates to the school such as that it is in your hometown), where you went to middle school, etc. This is a good time to talk about achievements, hobbies, passions and so on. For myself I used this question to highlight my previous college-level education, discuss some of the community service and leadership activities listed on my resume, share my passion for fitness, and lay the foundation of what lead me to where I was in my life at the time. Now I mentioned sharing your hobbies, this may seem like unusual information to share in a professional interview, but hobbies can say a lot about you. In my case I mentioned working out which demonstrated I value my own personal health. If you enjoy something like reading or even writing blogs. mention it, as it shows you are actively pursuing information or sharing your thoughts with the world. 2. Why do you want to be a nurse? There is a severe shortage of nurses in America and these schools want to produce professionals that are going to fill these positions. Before these schools give up one of their limited positions to you, they want to know you are passionate about entering the nursing field and are going to work hard to better both yourself and the profession. To answer this question you must explore yourself and find your motivation for wanting to be there. There is really no right answer here, but there are wrong answers such as:
Some of those might seem like a joke, but there are actually applicants who go into interviews and say things like that especially answer 1 and 3. If prior to reading this post you would have answered with any of these, you may want to revisit your motivation for wanting to become a nurse and if you are still not sure I have a previous blog post titled “Is Nursing Right For You?” that may help. So, here are some tips on how to make a great answer to this why you want to become a nurse:
3. Can you describe the role of nursing? Now that the interviewers know more about you and why you want to become a nurse, they want to make sure you fully understand what a nurse is and what they do. This question is again open to interpretation and opinion. Nurses are so much more than the people who give medications or start IVs. There are many ways you could describe the role of the nurse, but in my opinion patient care coordination and patient advocacy are the most important. The reason I say care coordination is the most important is because while nurses undertake many tasks they are first and foremost providing the most comprehensive care to patients of all healthcare professions. For example, a patient with multiple comorbidities can be receiving care from a team of multiple specialists, a hospitalist, respiratory therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, CNAs, and even more. The nurse is in a unique role that allows them to keep track of and manage all of the moving parts and team members that provide care to a patient. Patient advocacy is also an important concept to understand because despite what many people believe nurses DO NOT work for doctors, nurses work for the patients. Because of this, nurses must be the voice for patients for doctors and other healthcare professionals in many situations where the patient can not advocate for themselves. 4. Ethical Questions Nurses can be put in many ethical dilemmas and interviewers want to get a look into your moral compass. It is important to understand that it is ok to get these questions “wrong” within reason. The important thing is that you tell the interviewers what you would do in these situations and can explain your reasoning. Some of these questions can be fairly easy such as:
Hint to these questions: Do not be afraid to say you would call security or report to your supervisor and fill out an incident report. In many cases this is actually what you are supposed to do based on hospital policy. Some examples of more difficult answers that the interviewers may ask to see what you say are:
5. Why OUR nursing program? With this question, the interviewers want to know why you want to attend their program. This is a good time to bring up any personal connections you have to the school. Maybe your family is alumni, the school is close to home, the program is nationally ranked, or another reason that has created a personal desire to attend that specific program. This is also a great time to bring up the programs values and mission to demonstrate that not only do you want to go to their program, you have also invested time into researching the program and university past just submitting your application. No one wants to be the second choice in life so make sure you take this time to either explain to this program why they are your first choice or why you value their program. This is also a good time to bring up if you want to continue education which I will discuss in the next section. If this school has graduate programs then they see you as a even higher investment. 6. What are your plans after nursing school/ where do you see yourself in 5 years? This is the part of the interview where you discuss what you want to do in the nursing field. In my interview I discussed that I wanted to work in cardiology and here I am now working on a cardiac telemetry floor, but do not feel like you have to know what you are going to do. The interviewers want to see that you have an idea of what you want to do and see your goals. I previously discussed that saying you are going on to PA or medical school is not good to bring up in the interview. That is not the case for getting your master’s or doctorate in nursing. The interviewers like to see people who are driven and want to continue their education in nursing to go onto become a nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, nurse midwife, nurse manager, nurse educator, and so on,. These positions also have shortages such as registered nurses, and continue to advance and promote the field of nursing. It is also perfectly ok to say you do not want to advance in your education and that you plan on being a nurse for the foreseeable future. 7. What are your strengths and weaknesses? This again is a question that requires personal discovery. I would suggest to take an online personality test such as the enneagram test which can be found at https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test. These tests will give you information based on your answers to a series of questions and can help highlight your strengths and weaknesses. For this question it is okay to have weaknesses, everybody has weaknesses so do not be afraid to share them. What the interviewers want to see is that you can identify your strengths and weaknesses and know how to address your weaknesses and promote your strengths. 8. What are your methods for managing stress? Nursing school is very stressful and known to cause many mental breakdowns. The interviewers want to know that you have a system or strategies in place to manage your time, organize yourself, and handle stressful events. This is an important question to ask to see if applicants will be able to handle the class work, but also important to see how applicants will handle clinicals. Failing a test is one thing, but clinicals involve real people and nursing students tend to be like deer in the headlights. It is important the nursing students can manage their tasks in clinicals and can deal with the stress of taking care of patients, talk with rude patients and families, or interactions with other health professions. 9. Tell me about a time when...? The interviewers will ask for you to recall a specific situation you have experienced to see how you handled it, and what your thought process was. One important skill of every nurse is to be a problem solver and have clinical reasoning skills. Preparing for these questions is difficult because you never know what question they are exactly going to tell you but some common ones are:
10. Ask your interviewer questions At the end of the interview the review board will ask you if you have any questions for them. It is always best to ask questions as it shows continued interest in the program. Make a list of questions you have about the program and then review the school’s website to see if you can answer any of the questions. You do not want to ask questions that are clearly stated on the website. Here are some suggestions of questions:
I hope this post helps you with your interview process for nursing school. Feel free to comment below or send me a message if you have any questions. Also, be sure to subscribe to email updates for new blog posts. Thank you for taking the time to read this article.
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