It’s common knowledge that your personality will contribute significantly towards whether you land that big job or promotion. However, more than your character, your credentials and skills will be the ultimate deciding factor, and the ones that interviewers usually evaluate more closely. But, do you know what these two factors have in common? No one will be able to tell if you’re friendly, sympathetic, and skilled if you can’t communicate effectively during the interview.

For many candidates, personal interviews are not an effective way to gauge one’s potential. Many of us get really nervous when speaking to an interviewer, which creates lapses in our memory and could make us seem like we don’t know the answers to even the most basic questions. Some individuals prefer a selection process that revolves around a written test to prove their skills beforehand and then have a personal interview afterward. Companies barely follow this method and instead opt to gauge the candidate’s potential exclusively through an interview.

Luckily, these chats don’t have to be as bad as they seem. In most cases, the ball is in your court, and only you have the power to turn a bad or awkward interview into an amenable and pleasant one. When it comes to the field of healthcare, most employers put a lot of weight on your preparation and experience. In this sense, having a good resume is half the battle. Also, when it comes to personal experience, most employers put a lot of weight on the ways you would react in specific situations. It’s better to speak from your own experience rather than giving a generic explanation of how you would manage things in a hypothetical situation; in other words, use your past to shape your future.

The main areas that most healthcare employers explore during interviews are those related to personal skills, as well as your capacity to work in a team. In this sense, the questions they ask are geared toward gauging your proficiency in patient care, the ability to adapt to different settings (departments), style of communication when collaborating with your peers, your ability to manage time and, finally, the things that motivate you to push forward during the job.

Evaluating Different Areas

With patient care, the interviewer will want to explore your ability to provide care for your patients. They will want to ask about your credentials, past education, and about the training you received during your studies. However, once your training is established, the most critical factor here is your proficiency and willingness to go the extra mile for your patients.

It’s vital for you to take your time here and think about an experience where you had a complicated patient and delivered quality care to them, or when you went the extra mile and spent some time educating a family about a condition, and what to expect during its development. If you ever had an angry patient that was dissatisfied with your care, you could explain to the interviewer how you handled that situation.

When it comes to the second topic, adaptability, nurses are expected to have the necessary personal resources to work in several areas, as well as respond effectively to any emergency. In this sense, the interviewer might explore your past experiences working in several departments. If you have no prior experience as a floater, you could talk about your willingness to learn and how you can adapt to different tasks and requirements at a moment’s notice. Lastly, you could also talk about the times when you had to help out during an emergency at previous workplaces.

When it comes to communication in the workplace, it’s essential that you learn how to convey ideas and explain procedures. A good explanation provided by an empathetic nurse is often the deciding factor for a patient to agree to a life-saving procedure, or taking their business elsewhere. Well, maybe not to that extent, but the point still stands that if you can communicate effectively, the caregiving process will go much smoother. This factor is complemented by your ability to manage time, and of your capacity to provide adequate care and communication despite juggling multiple patients at times.

Last but not least, the interviewer will want to understand what makes you tick, or really your values. Even if you’re the most skilled nurse, versed in the intricacies of human anatomy, and proficient in every department you’re assigned to, you will get nowhere if you have a dodgy moral compass, coupled with lax values. When the interviewer tries to ask questions about this area, try to respond with the personal stories that led you down the nursing path, and that give testament to the strength of your resolve to provide quality care to your patients.