Nursing is an important health care assistance. This job is widely in demand either in state health organizations,  or in private or foreign job vacancies. After achieving your medical training and improving the technical skills required to perform the jobs, it is time to consider about the interview that precedes every actual hiring.

Take a look here, if you want to get more info about the basic strategies for a job interview : 9 must have interview skills to ace an interview

    Before heading into the common nursing interview questions, let prepare for the qualities that every applicant nurse should have, which are personal characteristics and experience

1.      Personal characteristics:

A nurse should have a specific profile that enables her to get professional access in the health care sector. These personal characteristics are usually classified under a category of skills, called soft skills.

To understand this concept, do kindly read this article or click on the above term soft skills:

Since soft skills are very useful in getting positive impressions, here is a general list of the basic personal characteristics required in nursing. First, a nurse must have good listening and speaking skills. She must be flexible, extremely organized. She must know how to manage time and work under pressure.

2.      Experience:

Experience is very important in nursing. It plays a huge part in the success of your job interview. The candidate should give reference to previous occupational experience, because human souls are not an experimental field of tests. Therefore, before deciding this occupation, it is important to evaluate your hard skills.

However, since nursing can includes a service orientation, there are many common nursing  questions present in every interview:

Common nursing interview questions and answers

The majority of these typical questions are usually testing your willing to help people in different situations and from different age groups. They are based on your instant reactions and your critical thinking skills. 

1. Common nursing interview questions based on your professional choices, decisions and motives:

We are going to give you examples of these questions and the purpose of the interviewers.

*.Why do you want to become a nurse? 

*. Why have you applied to this job?

This kind of questions is based on testing your personal theory of how much this job means for you.

The answer for such questions would be:

I want to become a nurse because it is a life saving job. I applied to this job because I am interested in the health care assistance.

1. Common nursing interview questions based on your promising professional commitments:

These questions would focus on your future resolutions to certain medical situations, examples:

*. Are you willing to work for volunteering organizations, such as the Red Cross and  any other non-profit healthcare organization?

* Are you willing to work in foreign countries under a contract arrangement, without offered accommodations?

*. Are you interested in other health assistance services such as, Rehabs and anti-addiction centers, nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals?

*.  Are you completely ready for ER emergencies and able to work night shifts?

As you can see these questions have some sort of difficult working situations, such as working abroad without accommodation, working for non-profit organizations or in special healthcare cases. The purpose here is to know your reactions to hard tasks and to what extent you are ready to take them.

In this respect, it is recommended to put certain boundaries to some offers and not directly nod your head and say “yes” to everything. Exemple, you should say:

-I would eagerly participate in non-profit organizations. But first, I would like to get hired in this hospital, so that my future participation gives more compliments to this hospital and its volunteering team.

Concerning the second question for working without accommodations, the answer depends on you, whether you can work under such conditions or not. But if you are more interested in this specific job, you should know how to reject that propermy:     - I would like to work abroad without accommodation, if the salary was enough to cover these expenses. But, I would be more happy if I were hired here.

The third question sounds very trichy, when it comes to offering certain nursing positions in different healthcare departments. The answer to such a question depends on what type of roles you are seeking. Again, remember that you should not put yourself in an exploiting position and say “yes” to everything. Some healthcare departments are not for your academic field or fit to your experience. Here, you are not underestimating certain job offers, but you are rather negotiating for better opportunities. therefore , you have to give reasons for your rejection to certain offers such as, 

-Well, I can not work in psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes or rehabs because my field is different, my internship belongs to another department. My previous studies and experiences are not fit to the field. But, I would be very willing if you hire me for  ( state the job you want without underestimating the present offers).

Finally, the fourth question depends on your ability to work for night shifts and the answer is optional. If you accept to work for night shifts give a positive answer, if not reject the offer properly, like:

-I am sorry, I would like to, but I cannot afford to work at night for the present moment.

 These are the major common nursing interview questions and answers. Hope you find them effective for your application process. All the best.