☛ Where do you see yourself in 3 years?

☛ What do you bring to this position? How do you stand out from the other applicants?

☛ What attracts you to this facility? To this position? What do you hope to get out of the experience?

☛ How would you describe your ideal job? Your ideal work environment?

☛ Why are you leaving your current position?

☛ What did you particularly like about your last position?

☛ What's your most important professional achievement?

☛ Who are your career role models and why?

☛ How do you set priorities in your work?

☛ Do you have any time-management tricks other nurses could benefit from?

☛ What are the most important lessons you've learned in your career?

☛ How much supervision do you want or need?

☛ What professional organizations do you belong to?

☛ How have you participated in the professional organizations you belong to?

☛ What nursing publications do you subscribe to?

☛ Have you attended any national conferences? If so, how did you benefit from the experience?

☛ Have you ever done any volunteer work? If so, what was it like?

☛ How do you keep up with the latest information in your field?

☛ What are your goals in terms of going back to school, becoming certified, taking on management responsibilities?

☛ Can you give an example of a time you were a leader?

☛ Can you give some examples of your problem-solving skills?

☛ What do you think are the most challenging aspects of meeting patients' needs?

☛ How do you handle a request you disagree with?

☛ What happened the last time you put your foot in your mouth?

☛ What actions would you take in your first month on the job?

☛ Can you give some examples of your creativity?

☛ Who is the most difficult person you've ever worked with and why?

☛ What type of management style do you work with best?

☛ Can you describe a time when you had to intervene for a patient, what you did, and why? What was the outcome?

☛ How would you rate yourself in communicating with patients—and with families?

☛ Can you describe a situation in which you dealt with a difficult family member?

☛ How do you motivate patients?

☛ Can you describe a time you went beyond the call of duty?

☛ Can you describe a situation in which you thought that you were right and others were wrong—and what you did about it?

☛ Can you describe a situation in which you were supposed to work with a person you didn't like and how you handled it?

☛ Have you ever been in a situation in which a co-worker put a patient in jeopardy? If so, what did you do about it?

☛ What would you do if you were asked to float to a specialty area you weren't familiar with?

☛ Can you describe a time your work was criticized and how you handled it?

☛ How do you handle delegation issues with unlicensed assistive personnel?

☛ How would your co-workers describe you?

☛ How would you describe your role in a recent code?

☛ How do you handle stress?

☛ Have you ever been fired or asked to resign?

☛ What would a background check on you show?

☛ Would your previous employer recommend you?

☛ What would you do if you were caring for an alert patient who suddenly got acutely confused and disoriented?

☛ What would you do if you found an elderly patient on the floor in his room? How would you document it?

☛ Have you worked with many foreign nurses? If so, what did you do to help them?

☛ How would you handle a situation in which you couldn't read a prescriber's orders?

☛ If you were offered your last job again today, would you take it?

☛ How long has it been since you worked as a nurse?

☛ What have you been doing since you've been out of nursing?

☛ How have you prepared to return to nursing?

☛ Did you take a refresher course? How did it help?

☛ How have you kept up with changes in the profession?

☛ What's your most important achievement as a student?

☛ When do you plan to take your NCLEX? Have you taken a course to prepare for it?

☛ Where did you get your clinical experience? What units?

☛ Did your clinical experience include putting in a urinary drainage catheter or starting an intravenous line access? Inserting or removing a nasogastric tube, or caring for a patient with one?

☛ What was your favorite clinical experience? Least favorite? Why?

☛ What types of charting systems have you used? What do you like about them? What do you dislike?

☛ What do you think is a reasonable orientation time?

☛ Have you worked with an electronic medication administration record? Bar coding?

☛ What new technology have you used in school, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs)?

☛ Are you on-line often? What are your favorite sites for reliable health care information?