Nursing School Interview Questions: Applicants at Nursing School need to go through the vetting and applications process. Therefore, going through nursing interview questions will offer you a better chance to perform best when in an interview. A face-to-face interview will offer the panel the most effective method of understanding a personality, attitude towards work & life, and motivation.
Top 30+ Advance Nursing School Interview Questions
With the best selected few nursing school interview questions listed below, you will have an idea of what to encounter and how to answer the asked questions.
Tell us about yourself.
This question “Tell us about-yourself” is the most common question to several interviewees face. This is quite vague, & intentionally. It’s an open-ended prompt that can be engaged in every different approach. The interviewer(s) needs to view what gets inside your mind when you are prompted with this kind of vague request. Any person answering this kind of question will be fully unique, depending on their personal experiences, priorities, and values. However, there’s a suitable rule of thumb that keeps in mind.
You are required to work with the prompt until one understands you can cover points you need in 3 to 4 minutes max.
Why did you choose to be a nurse?
The question is made to evaluate the priorities and the reasons for you to pursue this profession. Furthermore, it also shows the amount of mature-reflection you have done in considering the path. It’s critically significant that one shows intrinsic motivation in pursuing this profession. That’s to say, you’re honestly motivated by working and ideals you will be progressing.
Do you operate well with different nurses, doctors & staff?
Teamwork is an important skill for any person in the nursing field. It is significant in expressing that one recognizes the value-of-working together with nurses, doctors & staff members. Working together with co-workers offers one the best patient results, ensures the effectiveness of safety-procedures & increases job satisfaction. Additionally, when one answers the question, emphasize interpersonal skills, like teamwork, active listening, and patience.
How would one deal with a tough patient?
Being a nurse, one needs to have compassion & patience. The patients are normally experiencing difficult states and sometimes this affects their attitudes. Therefore, when one comes across a troublesome patient, take steps in reassuring them. Additionally, you need to ensure that you administer a medication well according to the timetable & provide extra resources which may help in making the patient extra comfortable. Moreover, when you are asked this kind of question, consider providing examples of a time when one encounters hard patients & assisted to improve patient’s outcome.
How does one handle stress at the workplace?
This is normal to experience fast-paced-workflows & complex jobs in the medical field. This should be important for one to require a clear-explanation of the way he/she handles emotionally demanding job aspects. Answering this question states the methods you have developed for stress-relief. One can debate hobbies, exercise regimens, support groups & other ways one can maintain a healthy lifestyle.
State a situation when one works near with a hard coworker. Explain the way you handled the situation? Also were you able to build a relationship with the person?
With this kind of question, you should never talk bad about a person when in an interview. Moreover, explain the situation & why the person individual was hard. Share the way you handled this situation. Try and change everything negative to be positive. State what you learned from this kind of situation.
Operating closely with problematic coworkers is challenging but it’s significant to remember patient, their-care, & family is more significant. Putting the differences aside is significant for every nurse the reason being not every person is similar. Other times this means not debating particular topics LIKE politics or religion while at work.
Talk about conflict within a healthcare team. Which is the conflict & how did you handle-it?
Here you need to explain the conflict which surrounds the situation. State who was involved and what was your role was? You can also state anything positive which came from this and what you learn from this?
Conflict occurs in hospital setting majorly in between new-nurses & -staff as well & doctors. There was a concern from a certain parent that a newer-nurse wasn’t monitoring the patient’s breathing-postoperatively as watchfully as she needs it to be. I was covering the nurse for lunch & the mother came in with her concerns. We discussed & validated her concerns. When the nurse came back from lunch, we spoke with her about the mother’s concerns. This nurse was upset & felt it wasn’t my place to talk anything regarding this. A patient’s or parent’s concerns shouldn’t be dismissed.
What inspired you in pursuing a nursing career?
Nursing schools ask this query for a certain purpose; they want to know if one is passionate about the nursing field. Being a nurse isn’t easy. This takes extra drive, motivation, and dedication that numerous people could muster.
Your answer needs to be like, “I need to assist people,” is not going to operate. That is cliché & too generic. Moreover, there are numerous ways in which you can assist people, thus, it does not clarify why a nursing career is appropriate for you.
What would you do if you are felt falling or struggling behind in nursing class?
Numerous nursing courses are amazingly challenging. Plus, learning is surprisingly fast-paced. It’s not unusual for learners to struggle in a least subject area, one-class, or to possibly fall behind.
The admissions committee needs to understand if you’ve a strategy in position for dealing with the situation. This is almost certain to arise. It is everything about you taking ownership or being accountable for education, as learners that can perform that are likely to thrive.
If you’re treating a client, & they or the family-member became hostile verbally, how do you handle this?
When one is experiencing a medical-crisis, the stress-levels can be extremely high. It is scary, & fear can make an individual do uncharacteristic stuff, even to people that are trying to assist.
The same goes for friends & family members, that are just as worried as a patient. On various occasions, someone will lash out, & you will require to be able to handle this. Additionally, nursing-schools require understanding that you’ll keep cool-under pressure. This is even when the person you are treating is hostile.
What are some of the negative side-effects of having nurses operate work prolonged-periods without rest?
Nurses normally complain about long-shift work time. When asking this question you need to be careful. Questions on “negatives” need to be strategically handled. One needs to demonstrate that he/she has thought via some challenges you’ll face in the profession. Being a passionate as one may be does not mean that every day will be simple. You’ll face real & difficult trials, & you need to demonstrate that you are ready to get these on. Furthermore, the-key is to display that one understands that this is a problem and that you have already applied a stress-relieving method which works for you.
If you’re granted an opportunity to wake-up at any place in the world & pursue anything which your heart yearnings, where would you prefer to wake up & why? Also, what will you like to achieve?
This question is not asking precisely about your future in nursing. Thus it would be simple to rattle-off an answer minus thinking wisely about it. More people would intuitively say anything about waking-up in an attractive location – maybe a rainforest or beach or some lush place – & thinking about kinds of leisure they would like to participate in while with such location. However, one needs to remember that you are being asked this for a specific reason. They doesn’t want to listen that one will like to wake-up on beach sipping & sunning. They are looking for intrinsic motivations, which you need to be doing if you had complete control over the options in life. One needs to demonstrate which work you are pursuing now is a thing that you will be pursuing irrespective of the opportunities you have. You are pursuing it not because it’s just what you need to do, but it’s part of who you’re.
The nursing field contains inter-professional collaboration & teamwork. State a time when one worked as a portion of a highly-diverse team?
This is a standard question on your personal experiences, where one has to share more on your personal history. These emphases on particular quality ranked by this field. One needs to be honest about the experience, & be able to reflect on the values & problems of diversity. Speak the ways in which diverse views & approaches strengthen the team, & the ways in which differences of views are respectfully moved in collaborative efforts.
What will you do if the person replacing you doesn’t arrive?
Nurses are needed to stay at the post until a next-shift nurse comes. The shift change ensures that there are no-lapses in the quality of service offered by nursing staff. When one replaces doesn’t arrive at time, one need to contact the replacement as he/she waits for some few-minutes beyond the shift or getting someone else to continue with the responsibilities as they wait for your co-worker to arrive. You need to talk to the supervisor if there’s an issue or if your replacement is late than one occasion.
How do you handle a difference with a doctor?
When answering this kind of question, you need to emphasize interpersonal skills like as active-listening, flexibility, teamwork to solving issues & the ability to go through a chain of rules when it’s necessary. With your response, you need to state that you’ll first operate directly with a doctor to resolving the discrepancy. When further assistance is required, you are required to talk to the supervisor for some assistance.
Explain the way you can manage a busy-workload?
When one responds to this question, he/she needs to highlight a dedication to attending to a patient during various conditions. Your response needs you to provide examples of the period that one manages an improved number of jobs without compromising procedures or protocols.
How can you handle a crisis like an outbreak?
Here your response needs to demonstrate the hard skills like the knowledge of addressing specific medical-situations & soft skills including teamwork & adaptability. For some strong answers, conversed your ability in collaborating, your in-depth-knowledge of the nursing process & your attention to details.
How will you handle a patient that is struggling with pain-management?
Empathy remains an important skill for every nurse to use as they interact with patients that may be experiencing a lot of pain. State that you will take your patient’s-concerns seriously & offer an example that shows that you can assist them via empathy & problem-solving.
How will you respond to people that are asking for your diagnosis outside the clinical setting?
As any other medical-professional, you need to encounter friends that seek your advice on what to do about their medical issues. This is best when one refers an individual to medical professionals that provide a detailed exam, treatment, or diagnosis. Answering this question needs you to briefly state how one tells the friends how significant it is to look at medical advice inside a clinical setting by medical professionals that have access to data from tests.
How did you deal with someone who isn’t satisfied with your patient care?
Here’s the best example of behavioral-question. The interviewer needs to know a concrete example of the way you will handle this situation. Also remember, you need to provide your interviewer with example from experience and the way you dealt with this kind of situation. This will give you a feeling of how you will behave in the same situation in the coming future.
Tell us what makes you feel have the greatest skill as a nurse
This is an opportunity for you to showcase what it’s that makes you different from all applicants. Think about ahead of time & come-up with strong examples which highlight the skill.
How can you handle the stress of a job?
Honestly speaking, nursing is incredibly highly-stress. The panel needs to know the way you will handle stress & whether or not you will be able to work properly under pressure.
Are you comfortable operating with other nurses and doctors?
As a nurse, you need to interact with more people in the medical field. This includes doctors, other nurses, technicians, friends & families of the patients. Moreover, your first response requires being yes. Of course, but, what one will say after that will make or break you in an interview.
What’s more rewarding about nurses according to you?
An interview question will allow you to explain your passion. The powerful the rewards, the powerful you are supposed to be. Better-still, if you see big rewards with nursing, you are less possible to seek them with some other job.
What is your strongest-skill as a nurse?
Homework arrives in handy for nurse-interview questions same as this. It’s as similar as the “weaknesses and strengths” questions of interview. Moreover, the interviewers need one to understand you will fit. If the biggest requirement is excellent patient education & that is your sturdiest skill—ding. You are hired. You don’t need to lie. Though in a toss-up in between three big-skills you’ve, talk first on those they value most.
What are your views on mandatory-influenza-vaccinations for nurses at the hospital?
On surface, this looks to be a pretty-basic question on policy. Though, at its core, it’s a question of competing-values: personal autonomy and patient safety. You will be able to spot such pressures in apparently straightforward-questions is more important, as this shows familiarity with key-concepts in the field. One needs to be reading on ethics & tensions in a chosen profession, as it will assist one spot such things.
With your answer, you need to demonstrate the understanding of all “sides” of the issue, before giving your response. You also need to represent every “side” fairly, though you might likely disagree with either of them.
Do you have a professional affiliation?
The response to this kind of question should be an opportunity to stress that you seek chances to advance your skills. This should be a suitable time to highlight areas on your resume which will list extra certifications you’ve gained through other organizations. Also, you can outline the ways that you’re involved in organizations & certain places of nursing that you’re passionate about.
Tell us about a time that you failed and how did you deal with the situation?
In this question, you need to share a story on your experience of failure. Moreover, you need to talk about the feelings & the reasons why you felt or failed. Additionally, you can discuss anything positive which comes from the failure and what you learned from failing. You can also explain what may be different now?
What are the core values that drive you?
This is a tough question for answering the reason being we often can’t even tell what are our values. Moreover, each of us possesses some values that help us act accordingly. The values may include love, health, hope, faith, compassion, empathy, and movement. They will all resonate best with members of the admission committee.
What do you find the most challenging-aspect of nursing?
Answers to this kind of question are more personal. Nurses that got emotionally-attached to patients, suffered horribly when their loved ones suffer, or the time they died. However, I also knew nurses that simply hate having night shifts, & struggled to cope with the assigned schedule to their jobs.
Conclusion
Passing in an interview isn’t about luck. This includes how well you prepared yourself emotionally, mentally, and also dress code. These questions will highlight a rough idea of what you will encounter and the proper way of answering the questions.
