Career fact sheet series

Interview questions for staff nurses Why do you want the job/what attracted you to the post? What skills and experience would you bring to the role? Tell us about a recent situation where you were required to use your own initiative. How do you cope with pressure/stress? What makes a good team player? What role do you play in a team environment? What motivates you as a nurse? Where do you see yourself in two/five years time? Please give example of situation where you have collaborated with the multidisciplinary team. How would you apply research findings to your practice? Please describe your involvement in teaching/how would you help to create a learning environment? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses/development needs? How do you keep up to date? Tell us about a national government initiative in nursing and how it could apply to this role. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing nurses in the NHS today? What do you think we can do to deal with this?

What immediate challenges do you think you would face if you were successful in this job and how would you meet these? Can you tell us about a nurse you have meet during your training/ career that you admired and explain why and what you have learnt from them? What does good quality care mean to you? To improve patient care and develop staff we ask each nurse to take on a link nurse role? What would be your first choice and why? If I asked one of the patients you were looking after yesterday about you, what would they say? What about one of the nurses in the team you were working in? (Newly qualified) What are the main differences between being a student and a registered nurse? What support would you need to help you make the transition? What do you understand by the term named nursing/team nursing? What do you think are the main risks in this area of nursing? those risks? How could you minimise

How would you help reduce a patients anxiety on admission to hospital/the unit/ward/prior to a procedure? (Acute) What is your understanding of the Glasgow Coma Scale? How can we respect diversity in the workplace? Can you name some models of nursing? What are the three important aspects to Security? Describe a situation when a client has threatened you with violence or abuse or a colleague, how did you handle it? How else could you handle it? When did you first become interested in working with vulnerable people? In NICE guidelines what is guidance for.(related to the area applied to) How do you ensure safeguarding on the ward? Describe a situation when you didnt like in your clinical area and you disagreed with your manager, what happened?

Describe most dislike to see in the clinical area (about clients or staff). How do you resolve frustrations at work? Scenario questions You are working on the ward on a very busy shift. The nurse in charge is caught up with a very sick patient and you are left temporarily over seeing two bays of patients with an HCA and a junior student nurse. One patient is being sick, another needs to go to theatre and one needs collecting from recovery. A doctor then asks you to assist him with a procedure. How would you deal with this situation? (Surgical ward) What would you do if a patient returned from theatre and said they were experiencing pain? (Surgical) How would you prepare a patient for theatre? What would you do if you found a patient in cardiac arrest? During the medication round you see that several of the drugs on the previous drug round have not been signed for. What would you do? What would you do if a senior nurse asked you to undertake a complicated dressing that you have not done before? How would you deal with a relative who was aggressive and verbally abusive? What would you do if a patient told you he wanted to make a complaint about the nursing care on the ward/unit? What would you do if you were the only nurse on duty when: A patient falls out of bed A member of the domestic staff cuts themselves on broken glass You notice that some drugs are missing A patient complains that some of their belongings have been stolen? What would you do if a junior nurse to you told you they had made a drug error?