117: Graduate Nursing Interviews - Grad Nurse Success Series
Graduate Nursing Interviews - Grad Nurse Success Series
Welcome to another episode of Graduate Nurse Series Success, where I share insights and strategies to help you ace your graduate nursing interviews. In this live session on Instagram, I've answered some questions from my followers.
Receiving an interview offer is a reason to celebrate because it means you've already made a positive impression with your application. Remember, nursing panels don't invite just anyone, so when you get that notification, remind yourself that you're already 70% of the way there.
If you're seeking comprehensive guidance and support throughout your graduate nursing journey, I highly recommend joining the Graduate Career Launch Program. We offer expert assistance in note preparation, example tailoring, and interview strategies to significantly increase your chances of success.
To learn more about the specific questions asked by my followers in this live session, I invite you to listen to the full episode. It's packed with valuable information that will further enhance your interview preparation.
Key takeaways:
01:46 - Celebrating the Interview Offer and The Interview Process from Start to Finish
04:22 - The Importance of Preparation
09:43 - How do you not forget everything you've ever done on placement on the spot? Will you do that?
14:33 - What type of scenarios might they ask us about?
15:14 - Two types of scenarios in the interview
17:36 - Is having a portfolio important?
20:24 - Maximizing Opportunities and Strategies in Post-Interview Phase
25:22 - What are your favorite questions to ask the panel?
32:38 - Is there anything to be careful of with group interviews?
34:53 - Any tips not to go blank in the interview?
39:23 - Is it okay to ask the panel to rephrase the question?
41:54 - Is it okay to bring a notepad and jot down parts of the question?
46:58 - Are there questions along the lines of what policy of the healthcare facility aligns with our values potentially?
47:49 - Do you use the STAR framework in your program?
50:50 - How long is an interview typically?
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**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.*
Liam Caswell: [00:00:00] Before you go in practice believing that you're not gonna go blank. I'm being deadly serious. The reason we go blank in the interview is cause we're not prepared. That's it. We're not prepared. And by preparation I mean you haven't done your notes ahead of time, you haven't downloaded all of your thoughts, all of your best examples, all of your best experiences.
You're almost going in blind. Hello, beautiful humans. I hope you're all well welcome. Today I want you to talk about graduate nursing interviews. I'm getting a little ahead of myself because interviews are a little while off. But you can never be too prepared, especially for interviews, and I know that for graduate nurses, this tends to be a space where most of you are terrified and stressed and [00:01:00] worried, and I want to give you as much information as I can about how to navigate interviews as you move through the next couple of months, whether you're going for AI and job.
Or you're nursing on your own terms or you're going for your grad program or specialty. So hello everybody coming in. Drop in your questions that you have about graduate nursing interviews whilst I give you some of my behind the scenes top secret nursing unit manager panel experience tips. So stick around so that I can teach you all the things.
So what I think most people find interesting about interviews is that, or they tend to forget, is that when you get an interview offer firm, What happens is most people crap themselves. They are terrified based on the fact that they got that email, the email that they wanted to receive. It's kind of a bit crazy ride.
So number one, I want you to think about the fact that you want this interview. You really, getting the interview email is a little scary. It's a great sign that your CV you cover outta your selection criteria landing and the panel, like what they [00:02:00] see, I like to think of like your applications like.
The appetizer, like the starter, right? It's just to pick their interests and get them curious about what's coming next. And then the interview is like the main course, right? It's where you show up and you deliver and you reconfirm that you are who you said you were on paper and you show up to interview and you deliver.
Okay? So I want you to acknowledge that when you get an interview you are, you shouldn't be so scared and you are like 50, 60, 70% already there. They really like you. We do not just bring people to interview for the sake of it. Nursing panels do not. It's such a nightmare to pull the nursing panel altogether, the same date, the same time to interview people.
We call that list as much as we can so that we are not interviewing 500 people. We don't have the time. We don't have the capacity. We're not interested in that. So it's really important that you acknowledge that when you get that notification, it's special and they like what they've seen. Hi, everybody [00:03:00] coming in.
Make sure you drop in any questions. Don't be shy. Questions that you have about interviews, okay. Graduate nursing interviews. So the first thing is acknowledge that it's great that you get an email and rewire your brain to see that as a moment of celebration and that you're already 70% there, you've just got 30% left to do.
Just gonna go and confirm what you said on paper. It's true. Now, the other thing that people don't know about interviews is that the interview starts like the minute you step foot on the premises. So a lot of people I see like sitting downstairs, you know, like. Laughing and giggling with their friends in the panel, walk past them and they see them and they might not know who they are, but it's very important to acknowledge that the minute you step foot on site, you are basically Big Brother is watching you.
Treat it like everybody that you engage with could potentially be on the panel because they might just beam. That rule also applies for your clinical practice, right? So it's really important that you make sure that when you go on your clinical practice experiences and your internship and all of these things that you [00:04:00] show up with the mindset.
That anybody that you experience could be on your panel, good or bad. So if you, have an interaction with somebody, maybe you don't love them, you don't like them, or there's a bit of discord there, or maybe you had a really bad experience with them in any way, shape, or form. Always try and treat them with love and kindness and respect because you just don't know if they're gonna be on your panel.
So we've covered about making sure that you show up and that you show up as yourself and that you come in with all of the things.
The other thing that we covered was making sure that you. understand that it's a good thing that you got an interview. Now the next problem that we tend to face going into interviews, and this is not just graduates, it's across the board, is making sure that we are prepared ahead of time.
I want you to think of an interview like a medical, okay? It is a medical emergency. Think of it as like a clinical review, medical emergency code, blue, whatever you call it in your world. It is a high stress fight or flight experience. When you go into the interview, I'm sure you can all [00:05:00] relate to this, you go into what I call like protective mode, right?
Your brain is on high alert, you're on the spot. You only got access to your immediate knowledge. you can't think about the things you did three years ago because. Who can remember what they did three minutes ago and nevermind three years ago in the interview setting. So one of the biggest challenges that people tend to do, or they set themselves up to fail really, is they come in and they're not prepared.
They don't understand that the preparation starts outside of the interview. You start answering the questions ahead of time. You start preparing ahead of time. You tap into your prefrontal cortex instead of your subconscious part of your brain, and you really look at your last three years of experience and you see what your best potential examples are.
In doing that, you allow yourself to access your whole brain. When you're in the interview and you leave yourself that like no prep time and you're trying to answer a question in the moment, your brain's only gonna give you what's accessible. In that moment, and you just have much less access to your [00:06:00] prefrontal cortex when you're under fight or flight stress.
Think about the last medical emergency call that you were in. Or whatever experiences that you've had that are high stress, high pressure, you can only deal with the immediate issue. Everything else, the fact that your car needs to go to the mechanic and the fact that you need to drop the kids off at school and the fact that you need to go and have a, your haircut after work all escapes your brain in that moment in an instant, and all you have access to usually is and sometimes not even.
This is like basic life support or advanced life support, or your patient assessment or your observations. Everything else just goes the same is true in the interview. So how do we prep ahead of time? Number one, you just write down all of your best potential examples gathered from your most recent experiences.
Now, as the third year final year student, you definitely do not want to be talking about a lot of first year examples. You want to try and use your most recent examples in your interview preparation, so you want to question yourself. And think about what have I done on placement that shows and demonstrates the panel that I'm ready, [00:07:00] imperfect for a job as a graduate nurse?
What is it that I can show them has set me up for success? How can I convince them that I'm already operating at the level of a graduate nurse? So we have to do that as we move through our third and final year. But you guys that are maybe first, second year watching this, you can start that from the get-go.
You can start thinking about it. Thinking about what would I use from this placement as an example in my selection criteria, my cover letter, my cv, and in my interview. Don't leave it to the last minute. Collect the information as you move through. And then once you've done that, and you think about the best examples, and you look at the job description and you say, this is an ICU graduate nursing position.
What does an ideal graduate nursing. Person look like in an icu. What do they need? What does the job description clearly state? And then from there you build your best examples. So for example, they might have like, Demonstrated ability to conduct a patient assessments. That's obviously a thing that's important.
So take that, create an example [00:08:00] using the star formula that I'll teach probably a bit later on. And then they might talk about comprehensive care. Think about a time that you've delivered comprehensive care to an acutely unwell patient. Every example that you create needs to tie in beautifully to the job.
No point. Giving them a community example for icu. Just not really gonna la they want something more acute. So there's so much that I could talk to you about with preparation of notes. You must, must, must prepare your notes ahead of time for the reason that your brain is gonna fail you in the moment.
Okay? Because that's what it does. And the notes are there as a safety blanket. They're there for you to. Rely on should your brain have a little moment of fatigue like mine does very regularly. So a lot of you won't know, but You can take notes in with you to the interview.
Did you know that? Give me a little emoji if you knew that. And if you didn't give me a little shocked face, because you can, you can totally do it. And it's so good and I'll have done it for years. And I've only once ever been told that I can't have them. And they just kindly [00:09:00] and respectfully said, Liam, do you mind just popping those notes away?
We'd prefer you just to be kind of off the cuff. And I was like, sure, not a problem. So you can take notes in now, if you're somebody that's on the call here, that is in our graduate career launch program. We actually walk you through all of this, and we help you with all of your note preparation, your best examples to make sure that they're specific and tailored to the job that you're going for.
If you're not in the GLP and you're finishing up this year, I just had somebody today on the call that's joining us that said, are you open? I'm like, yeah, we've been open forever and we're still open. And we'd love you to come and join us in the Graduate Career Launch Program. We do all of this with you and you will increase your chances of success dramatically.
And we love it. It's so much fun. It's what we love to do. So, Stevie, thank you for asking question. What are you saying? How do you not forget everything you've ever done on placement on the spot? Will you do that? That's a thing you totally do. But I want you guys to start thinking about interviews as a strategy.
It's a game. And the goal isn't to remember everything. The goal isn't to remember all of the [00:10:00] little micro examples. The goal is to come up with a list of key question themes that you can pull from the job description and you can say, okay, graduate nurse, what are the key themes that they might potentially come up with?
Time management. Conflict. Patient assessment, quality and safety, patient experience, teamwork, communication, written and verbal. What else? Risk mitigation. Right? Quality and safety. I might have already said that. And then once we've got those kind of overarching themes, we can go, okay. When was the last time that I delivered Safe and Quality Care?
What's a specific time that I did that? When was the last time that I used my communication skills to deescalate patient care? When was the last time that I experienced conflict? What was the last patient that I looked after that was acutely unwell and how did I assess them? And then you create your notes from those themes and those are the things that you want to really focus in on.
And what you'll notice, what we've noticed having done this now, like nearly 400 times with people, is that [00:11:00] there are very common themes throughout, and the process and the structure is the same. If you think, Adam, if you're really honest with yourself, when you go to interview and you're asked a question about deteriorating patient, the process is the same as a conflict dealing with a conflict.
Let me give you an example. Tell us about a time you've delivered comprehensive care to an acutely unwell patient and you've assessed them using the E D G, right? Thanks for the question. This is how I would respond. Thanks for the question. Recently, during my time on X placement at X Hospital, I cared for a patient who was acutely unwell with a sepsis.
My task was to use my assessment skills to be able to deliver X, y, and Z care. I achieved this by walking into the room. Reviewing infectious control policies and protocols for that patient, washing my hands, gaining consent to approach. Then once I've gained consent, I approached the patient and conducted a thorough assessment in conducting the thorough assessment, I identified they were tachycardic, they were hypotensive, and they were diaphoretic.
And I also noticed that there are oxygen [00:12:00] sets for 90% as a third year student nurse responsible for the patient's care. I escalated this to the team leader using the s r approach. I communicated for safety in alignment with the national standards for safety and quality. This is the depth, by the way, that you guys need to go to.
And then from here, I worked with my buddy RN to then implement oxygen therapy because they were hypoxic. And we did an ECG because they were tachycardic, I think. And I did a manual blood pressure, just double check the blood pressure was correct. I made sure they were safe, they were in bed. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
As a result of my ability to do this, I was able to deliver safe patient care, high quality escalation of care in a timely manner. I adhered to the policy and protocol around escalation of patient care. I worked within my scope, and I also prevented further deterioration for this patient. This demonstrates my ability to use my patient assessment skills in managing an acutely unwell patient.
Give me an emoji about what you think of my response, but the point that I. Off the cuff, by the way, but I've done it so many times. The point I'm [00:13:00] trying to make here is that whether it's a patient assessment or whether it's the fact that you've got a conflict scenario, it's exactly the same. Recently during my time working at SX Hospital, I managed a conflict.
My task was to manage the conflict in a safe, kind, compassionate, and timely manner. I achieved this by. Walking into the room, being aware of infection control, policy and protocol, I washed my hands. I applied P P E accordingly. I then approached the patient, gain consent to approach. I made sure that it was safe.
I then used my variable and non-verbal communication skills to deescalate the situation and gained understanding of what's happening. And then from there, I did X, Y, and z. And you see the process. As a result of my ability to communicate clearly, to deescalate this care, to use my active listening skills, and to work with my buddy rn, I was able to deescalate the care and reduce, reduce risk for the safety of the patient and the staff member.
And the family member. This demonstrates my ability to manage complex conflict situations as a graduate nurse. Versus is what [00:14:00] most of you will do, which is, oh yeah, I'm really good at conflict and I've done conflict management and this one time this happened, and then I did this. And that's not what we want.
We want what I just did. That's what all the panels want. It's delivered beautifully. There's a process, there's a structure. That was the star structure. And that's how you respond to these questions, Stevie, and that's how you stay on track and you keep bringing it back. If you noticed, to the question, to the theme, you keep reminding yourself of what the theme is.
Hopefully that helps. And I went a bit of a tangent there, but. I think that will hopefully help. Carla, what type of scenarios might they ask us about? Yeah, so here's, this is a big common myth. They're like, oh my God, they're gonna throw you like a cardiac arrest with like a multiple, you know, motor vehicle accidents.
Like there's 10 people coming in, what would you, they're not gonna go to that depth. It's gonna be quite common scenario as a patient has a fall, patient has chest pain, they're in respiratory distress. Maybe the hypoglycemic maybe they've got a sudden shift in their cognition. Maybe they've got [00:15:00] pain and burning on urination.
Like all of the things that we deal with every day. They've got a understanding. Abdomen, they've got abdominal pain. They're gonna be quite vague and generic things that you come across day to day. It'd be quite cruel for them to be like, give you something super complex. But there's something you need to know about scenarios that your uni's probably not teaching you, is that there are two kind of types of scenarios in the interview.
One is like the star that I just did. So they're gonna ask you a question and they're gonna say, can you tell us about a time that you've delivered comprehensive care? And what they're basically saying is they're like, can you go to your past and give us an example of a time that you did X, Y, and z? And that's where you then use this star and you say, situation was this, the task was this, my actions were this and this was the result.
Then the other type of scenario is when they say to you, alright Carla, you've come on shift. And you're the graduate nurse, so you've gotta put yourself in the graduate nurse. You've come at your graduate nurse and you are in control of four patients [00:16:00] and one patient is hypoglycemic. One patient's tachycardic, the other patient needs to go to the bathroom.
cause they've been in incontinent and the other patient is doing, I don't know, it's a new admission. Talk us through how you would manage this scenario. And then there, it's a future paced scenario. It hasn't happened. It's just created to assess your critical thinking and your strategic thinking and how you would go about doing this.
So these scenarios are less structured and I want you to allow yourself to just be free with them. I want you to think of yourself in the scenario. You're in the room and you can see these four patients and you're thinking yourself, what would I do next? What would I do next? Why would I do that?
What would I do next? And you just step the panel through it. So you'd say, I'd start off by doing this. I'd start off by doing that, then I move to this, and I would delegate the care there. And they just wanna see that You can think more broadly about how you would tackle this patient. In the role as a graduate nurse.
So there are two types of different scenario questions that you could be given, and those are at the Star, which is a [00:17:00] past experience example where they say, tell us about a time, or Can you demonstrate your commitment to quality and safety of, of care? You go to your past and you pull up an example and you use the star.
The opposite of that is the hypothetical. Where they say, right, you've come on shift and you can tell by the way they ask the question. That is the key top tip here is how they ask the question. It's so, so important. You have to listen. Ask them to repeat it and then ask yourself, is this a star question where I'm going to my past?
Or is this a hypothetical scenario where they want me to talk through what I would actually do? Carla, if you're still here, let me know if that helped. Stevie is having a portfolio important. No, no one will ever ask you for your portfolio. I don't know why the unions make you do it. It is a royal waste of time and no panel will ever ask for you.
for a portfolio. You won't have to submit it. If you do, they will look at it. I guarantee it. So if they ask for it, submit it, sure. But I don't think that they're gonna ask for it. I do it. It's a university thing. This brings me to [00:18:00] the other point, which is your uni's gonna make you do all of these things in your final year.
And they're not gonna be industry ready. They're not gonna be industry standard. I see this happen all the time where people come back to me at the end of the year after they've applied for their grads and they used a university assignment, CV and kaleta, and they do not get a job. Please do not use your CV cover letter selection criteria from the uni.
It's an academic assignment. It is not an industry document. There is a difference between the two. For example, in our G C O P, right now we are helping someone write their university. Assignment, so to speak, for their portfolio because they're using the CV that we created and their uni has said to them, we want the CV like this, and the cover 11 needs to be like this.
And when I looked at what they're requiring and what they think the industry needs and wants, they are completely. Off base, completely off base. How do I know? Because we've helped hundreds of people achieve it across all states and territories and in New [00:19:00] Zealand and the uk. So I think we know what we're doing.
I think we know what people need and want and what they don't need and want, especially those directors of nursing, is to see an academic. Evidence-based cv, they need to see a CV that reflects the uniqueness of you, and that's what we pride ourselves on doing is making sure that all of those things are so clearly articulated.
why they should hire you? We had this question yesterday in the G C P where one of our grads said, but I just don't know what makes me unique. I just don't know what makes me stand out. And that like, that stabs me a little bit in the heart every time somebody says that, because we've been so conditioned to just be like each other.
We have to be the nurse that's like, the nurse looks like this and your career path looks like this and the interview looks like this. Well, what if we start breaking the rules? What if we start. Being uniquely you. I'm seeing a huge shift in people, employing people for who they are, not what they have gone are the days where it's, you need to have 10 years experience to be able to get X job.
They're hiring people for [00:20:00] fit now and culture and growth and coachability, and that's exactly how it should be if we want to grow and develop the nursing profession and industry. So we don't wanna a little around there, but the cracks of it is, Your portfolio is bit useless moving forward. It's a necessity for your degree, and I don't want you to spend too much time in it and do not use your CV cover letter selection criteria for your actual applications.
The other thing that people struggle with interview is, In the post-interview phase, right? So you've finished your questions and there's this hurry, this energy to like, get out of the interview and I challenge people to say, no. You need to make sure that before you leave that interview, You've answered all the questions to the best of your ability.
So what most people do is they finish the last question and they go, thank God I'm done. I need to leave now. I need to get out of here. This is horrific. And they run, literally run out the door like, thank you, thank you, and they leave. I want you to do the opposite. I want you to stop and I want you to ask the panel if you can [00:21:00] go back over any of the questions that you might not have, quote unquote in your personal opinion.
Done so well. And you just simply say to them, Hey, would you mind if I go back to question number three? I'd like you to repeat the question please. And create opportunities for yourself to make sure that you leave with no regrets. If you're leaving the interview and you're kicking yourself the minute you walk out the door, you haven't created opportunities for yourself.
You have not given yourself permission to ask for more chances to respond. Many of you think that there's only one chance to answer the question, that's why you put so much pressure on yourself. But what if I told you that you could answer the same question and you could be asked the same question five times?
You can't, the first time it's asked. The second time that you ask them to repeat it, the third time you come back to the question at the end of the interview, the fourth time that you ask them if you can have a minute to think about your response. The fifth time, I dunno what the fifth time is at the end, when you ask them again, you say you go [00:22:00] back or you get them to repeat it for three times.
It doesn't matter. Don't make any of that mean that you're not good enough, you're not capable, you're dumb, you're stupid, you're not gonna progress because you asked for more moments. To respond. It's literally like you're right in an interview. Okay? So have a think about that. Create opportunities for yourself and do not leave, do not proceed and collect the $200 until you have given yourself the most opportunities possible to answer those questions.
Right? And if they don't say to you, Hey, Liam, do you have any questions for the panel? Or do you wanna go back over any of your questions? If they don't offer that opportunity to, you create it for yourself. If they said to you, do you have any questions to the panel? So yeah. Actually, before we dive into questions, can we go back?
I'd love to ask you to review question number three and then add anything that you think you've missed. Even if you duplicate, even if you say the same thing, it's totally fine. Just add whatever you think you missed. Carla, I've worked in government for 20 years. In every interview there's been like catch words.
Do they do that on health? Yes. Such a good question. [00:23:00] And yes, they 100% do. So how do you find out the catch words? You can go through the job description and you can identify the most referenced words now. For those that are tech savvy, I'm gonna give you a little top tip here. You can actually copy and paste the job description and put it into a word cloud, like you know those old word clouds that we used to create?
You can put it into one of those and it will pull up the most evident words and they'll be the biggest words on the word cloud. And you can take them and put them through your cv, cover letter selection criteria, and interview. Or if you're super tech savvy, you can use chat G B T. You can go in there, copy and paste it and say, act as a, or just review this document and.
I outline the most repeated words in this application, in this position description. And then from there we'll create a list for you and you can go, okay, patient safety. They mentioned that like 15 times. I must, must, must talk about patient safety. Now this is where most people struggle as well in an interview because they don't speak the language of the industry.[00:24:00]
They don't use. Words like tachycardia, hypoxia, patient safety, patient experience, autonomy, advocacy culture, quality and safety, risk mitigation. They talk in kind of what I would say layman language, like non-clinician speak. It's very important even as a graduate nurse, that you speak the language of healthcare, right?
Show them that you understand. Hospital acquired complications, hospital acquired injuries. General preventable healthcare injuries. Talk about the lingo and use those buzzwords and make sure that they're lited through everything. So that's where your notes come in handy. Again, on our notes template.
In the g p we have a section at the top, which is just for buzzwords, right? And we just pull all the buzzwords from the job description. Put them in there so you can just refer to them and drop them in where you can. The best place to drop them in. If you're responding to a scenario is in your action section, so you've already told them the situation, the task, you can letter them through there, but then action.
The actions that you take or achieve [00:25:00] this by is your biggest section with the most scope to link to all of these things. Patient safety risk. Communication is bar they the panel. What you don't know is the panel have a little list of things, and as you say, the words we're like literally like sitting wait.
And we're ticking them off as you go. So if you don't say the words, you will score less points. It is a game, my friend. It is a game. Hopefully that helps. Carla, Stevie, what are your favorite questions to ask the panel? Oh, it's so good. I love asking the panel if you don't ask the panel questions. You are literally missing an opportunity to show them how much work you've done in prep for this interview.
And you're also missing an opportunity to make an informed decision about whether or not this is the best job for you. Because as graduate nurses, you're all gonna tell me that you're definitely applying for more than one job, right? Yeah. Good. You must apply for more than one job. So the reason why we want to ask questions is not to be difficult or not to like look fancy.
It's because you're gathering information. What I want for all of you, What we want for every [00:26:00] graduate is to make sure that at the end of this year, you sit down and you have like a suite of things, of opportunities, of options for you to pick from. I want you to have eight job options that you can say, right?
That hospital, the culture was nice, but you know, they couldn't answer the questions. This hospital. The culture was not as good, but the people on the panel seemed lovely. This hospital, they asked really good questions. I had a really good vibe with them. Their rotation seemed great. The culture seems good.
They answer my questions well. This is probably my priority. That's how we should make career decisions, not based on which hospital has the best specialty or the best rotation, right? Because like those things are fleeting, those things aren't always gonna last the test of time. But if you ask the right questions, You'll get a good idea about whether or not a job is a fit for you.
So Stevie, for example, how do you measure success in new grads in your unit is an amazing question. I love that question. Other questions are things like, can you describe the culture here, [00:27:00] or what are some of the biggest challenges that graduates face within the first six months on this specific rotation?
Get specific right. Ask questions that no one else is gonna ask. You could ask. Can you tell us about the career pathways and growth and development within this program? After the graduate year, you basically want to ask any question that you can't find on the internet that you want to clarify so that you can make an informed decision.
What do you need to know about this job for you to be able to confidently take him? And know that you've made the right decision. That's why we ask questions. So when you're reviewing the job description, get super clear with that job. Descriptions are so vague and generic. They're non-specific, so we have to get the specifics at the end of the interview and you can ask 1, 2, 3, 4 questions.
It's totally fine. They might rush you a little bit cause they might not have expected it, but that's fine. You can ask them. And it allows you to future pace as well. It allows you to show them that you've actually already thought of yourself in the job. So powerful. If you're [00:28:00] talking language like, so, you know when I'm successful in achieving this job that's not overly confident or arrogant, that's just like, well, you're here for a reason.
You want to be successful. So when I'm successful in achieving this job, what would the support look like every day on the floor, right? Because they'll tell you that you'll get three study days and you'll get your competencies, and you'll get all of this, and that's all lovely. But what does it look like every day when I need you in the moment?
How much support am I gonna get? Is it gonna take me three hours to be able to get you, or are you offsite or you want to know that information? My friends do not take a program because at the outset it looks incredible. I was on a call this morning with somebody in a program that they've removed the educator from the program.
What There's no educator in the graduate program and they've got grads going through multiple rotations and there's no support. So just be very, very clear and upfront with them and ask these questions cause it will change your options and it will change your decisions moving forwards. But those are some of my favorite ones.
What are, you definitely should not ask are things like, when do I find out? [00:29:00] Or you know, do I have to work rotating shifts? Anything that is in the job description or should be assumed as known, do not ask those questions. The time that you can ask those questions is before you even apply. You should not get to the interviewed and be asking questions like that, cause I'm sensing that if you don't want to work shifts, then you should have identified that before you applied and you should have asked them, called the manager, emailed them, found out through the grapevine whether or not you had to work shifts on that job.
Okay, so make sure that you use the whole process to save yourself time, cause that's the biggest thing right now is that you're lacking in time. Right. What other questions? Any final questions? Query? Hi everybody that's come in. It's good to have you all here. We're talking all things interview, graduate interviews and we've kind of go, gone all over the place, but it's awesome.
Do you have any specific questions, queries, comment about. Interviews about how you can communicate, and, sorry, yourself whilst you are thinking, as I kind of give you a couple minutes to wrap up. I mentioned it earlier, but the panel literally do have, this is my notes for today, what I'm getting done today.[00:30:00]
But the panel do have notes, right? So either the panel or a scribe will have a bit of paper in front of them. And what I want you to think about when you're in the interview, whether it's online or whether it's in person, The panel are always looking for the key buzzwords. So they've got a question and they have what we call an ideal answer.
Now, the ideal answer isn't verbatim. It's not word for word. It's not like Leah needs to say these words perfectly in alignment to be able to pass, but what they do have is they have themes. So for example, biologists are playing up. For example, if you have. A question, like, can you tell us why you want to work here?
Why do you wanna work at Better Health Hospital? First of all, as a person being interviewed, you want to identify what type of question that is. Is it a list style question? It's just a, a combination of sentences that you're gonna respond to with or is it a star where they're looking for an example from your past?
Or is it a hypothetical future scenario? [00:31:00] It's a list, right? It's just a combination of sentences as you're telling them a story. So can you tell us why you wanna work here? Is the panel don't have, obviously your unique reason why you wanna work there, but what they will have is they will have things like the hospital values.
So anytime you drop a value, literally value drop, the word respect kind, whatever the values are, and the vision and the mission of the hospital, they're sitting there now ticking and nodding and smiling and riding. Writing in an interview and ticking and circling is a good thing. Use your situational awareness to be able to see that you're on the right track.
People not writing, if they've got paper in front of them in a pen and it looks like they should be, writing is an indication for you. One, not to freak out, but two, to think about, what am I missing here? And you could stop yourself calmly and say, can you repeat the question please by yourself? Another opportunity.
Or come back to the question later on. So the panel have these little tick boxes and they're writing out [00:32:00] the ideal answer. So if we think about, can you tell us why you wanna work here? Other things could be Knowledge of the reasons of the, developments within that organization.
Knowledge of the vision and the values and their goals, knowledge of what the local area perceives of that organization. All of these things can influence your responses and will get you more marks cause we mark it. If you've only got two out of the 10, we're gonna give you like I don't know, like not competent.
They use silly scoring or maybe you get five and it's like competent. Yep, you're competent. Great. Or maybe you get eight and we're like, oh, fully competent. Okay. So I want you to think about how you can scatter that through. Anne Carla, is there anything to be careful of with group interviews? Apparently Queensland Health interview three people at a time.
Yeah. So yes. There's lots of things. We have a full training on how to navigate group interviews within the G C P and we go through all of the things like solo group interview SK simulation, cause all of the things can happen [00:33:00] and they do happen through the process. Med Cals clinical scenarios. We train you and teach you for all of those things.
So, Come and join us if you're not already in there. And you'll get access to all of that. But in a nutshell, what you want to do in a group environment is you want to be contributing but not overly powerful in that setting. And you want to be cognizant of where the conversation is going.
But the same rules apply, right? The same rules apply that apply to a one-to-one interview, but now you've just gotta navigate two other people being there, making sure that your voice is heard, that their voice is heard, maybe that you add layers to it and you deepen the conversation that you're using all of your non-variable and variable communication skills.
You have to ask yourself why would they put three nurses. In the same situation together, what are they really looking for? Is it depth of clinical knowledge and skills and experience, or is to see how you work with other people to test? Are they looking to see how open and receptive you are to people challenging your feedback and your, opinions?
[00:34:00] Or are they looking for, I don't know, like how open and receptive you are to like just differing opinions? There are so many reasons why they do group interviews that it might not be for the reason that you think. I've had panels do crazy things get people to be back to back, and like to explain a picture that they've been given and the other person had to draw it.
And what they were looking for. There wasn't like amazing drawing skills. They were looking for communication. Are they super frustrated straight away? Are they able to navigate? Can they ask questions back and forth? So I want you to think about what is it that you think they may be are looking for, and go in just as prepared.
Take your notes, go in with your question, theme mapped out, and just be open to having a conversation. What's hilarious about these things? Is we do them every day? So just trust and know that you know what you're gonna be doing in that moment, and just tap into all of your amazing skills and knowledge.
Tash says, any tips not to go blank in the interview? Yeah. Before you go in practice believing [00:35:00] that you're not gonna go blank. I'm being deadly serious. The reason we go blank in the interview is cause we're not prepared. That's it. We're not prepared. And by preparation I mean you haven't done your notes ahead of time, you haven't downloaded all of your thoughts, all of your best examples, all of your best experiences.
You're almost going in blind. So of course you're gonna be blank course, you're gonna go blank. So if you use what we teach in the GCLP in all of our other programs, and you go in prepared, you do your work ahead of time, you download all of your best examples, you manage your mind. And you don't tell yourself that you're gonna go blank, because here's what I know to be true.
When you tell yourself you're gonna go blank, you go blank. Have you ever noticed that When I come on these calls and I tell myself that I'm not good enough, I'm not good, I don't deliver. There is a direct correlation between how you think subconsciously and how you show up. Very, very important for interviews.
You need to convince yourself ahead of time and believe so deeply in your abilities in order to get the result [00:36:00] that you want. It's not a coincidence. The people that get the results that they want believe in their abilities. They might not 100% hold belief, but they believe that they can go in and they can deliver.
Okay, so the reason I'd get, I'd be so curious, Tash, in the past, have you gone in, have you honestly, if you're honest with yourself, been so prepared that it would be unreasonable for you to go blank? Yeah. The other reason why we go blank is because when we go in, we go in with blinkers on, we're not open.
We need to be open. They could ask you anything. And if we are so fixated on responding and you know, being the perfect candidate and having the perfect answers, and all of these pressures that we believe we need to have in an interview, you are gonna go blank. We need to go in open expecting them to ask us like, what's your favorite Disney character and why?
Imagine that, what would you say? We have to be able to go in prepared, confident that what we have will come through in the moment and we need to trust ourselves that we have the skillset set to be able [00:37:00] to deliver. Yeah. TAs says, thank you. I just can't think of a situation in that moment when they ask.
Yeah, because we haven't downloaded our situations ahead of time when we're not in a stressful moment. Think about it. You might have missed this at the start. When you're in the Met call. You can't think of what you're gonna be making for dinner cause you're so focused on what you're doing. So that's why I say download your things ahead of time onto paper.
Work out the question themes, come up with your best examples. Be proud of those examples. Bring them into the interview with you. Show up, have your notes, refer to them, take a moment, delay, be strategic. Use your notes, refer to them, use them as a safety net. Ask them to come back to the question, buy yourself multiple opportunities.
Okay. Remove pressure from yourself that you need to be perfect the first time. Yeah. And I only know this to be true because when I sit on the panel, I see the pressure people put on themselves. It's all cognitive. We are not putting any pressure on you. [00:38:00] Everybody comes to the interview thinking that we are putting pressure on them, like this is a life changing opportunity.
Show up with your best intention. Show up with your belief, deep rooted belief in yourself. That is your challenge on that day. You have all the clinical skills, you have all the knowledge, you have everything that you need. The biggest thing that stops graduates getting their dream job is the stories that they tell themselves that they believe are true from three years of horrific conditioning.
In this industry where you've been taught you can't, you should you won't. You don't have enough. And that you should do this and don't say that because if you say all of that, you need to cleanse yourself of it. It is an unlearning process, a deconditioning process. And when you walk up to the interview and you just be you and you show up and you're prepared and you believe in your ability and your skillset, you are winning.
And even if they don't give you the job, you still leave from an empowered place where you believe in your abilities and you don't make their decision mean anything about [00:39:00] you cause that's optional. Let me say that again. It's optional to beat yourself up because you didn't get a job. It's totally optional.
The panel aren't beating you up. They're not waiting outside your house ready to give you a smack, right? You should have done better. They're not doing that. So do do it to yourself. We move on to the next thing and we learn and we take the learning in the lesson from that. You're welcome, Tash. You've got this.
Emma, is it okay to ask the panel to rephrase the question? Oh, that's a good one, Emma, if you don't understand what they're asking. Yes. So again, in notice here, Emma, your brain, you're 100% human, but your brain's like, does that make me come off as clueless? Right. We've got a little laughy emoji there.
Yeah. Our brain's gonna make all of these things mean something about us. And again, that is optional. We don't have to do that. We can just genuinely be like, I genuinely don't understand. What you're asking in this question now, can a panel rephrase a question? If they're a good panel and they're being fair and equitable across the board?
The [00:40:00] answer is no. They won't, and they'll just say, they'll just say, you know, we have to ask the question as we are asking it because we've gotta be fair and equitable across the hundred people we're interviewing. However, Most panels are nice and human and they'll rephrase. So this is why I teach people to get the panel to repeat the question cause some of the questions are like four lines long.
And how possibly can you, in a moment of stress and worry and fear and overwhelmed, remember all the things. So when I go to interview myself, I always say, can you just repeat that question for me? And you'll find that they will paraphrase the question maybe indirectly. And I used to do this as a panel member cause it'd be like four lines and it'd be all war full and there's like one line that's actually valuable.
So then I would just say basically, Emma, we're curious about a time where you've delivered safe patient care in an acute care setting. [00:41:00] Can you tell us more about that? And they'll paraphrase the response the question, and that will just help you clarify. So you can totally ask them. I wouldn't ask 'em to rephrase.
I would just be like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm struggling to understand the question. Can you repeat the question for me? And you can do that as many times as you want. Seriously, don't make it mean anything. Your brain's gonna want to tell you like, duh, you're so dumb. You're so silly. If it's anything like mine, you know you're stuffed up there.
You should have known better. That inner critic is not welcome to the interview. The interview is only for you. The inner critic wasn't invited. Okay? Don't bring them. They're not allowed in. Make a conscious effort to tell yourself before you walk in, not, not today. Not today. I don't need you here today.
I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna do my absolute best, and I'm not gonna judge myself as being clueless. I'm not gonna decide that that's what they think about. At me. Okay. I love that question, Emma. Emma, is it okay to bring a notepad and jot down parts of the question? Yeah. Did you know that some panels even give you [00:42:00] the questions ahead of time?
They do. Some of them will even give you them. So they'll come out and they'll give you the question and they'll say you've got 10 minutes. Now at a graduate level, this is uncommon. But Emma, that's a good question. Yeah. So At a graduate level, it's uncommon for them to give you the questions ahead of time.
But as you move through your career, a good, fair and equitable panel will give you the question 10 minutes before because they know and understand that under immense pressure, people do not perform at their best. So they want the best out of you cause they want to see that you're worth investing in and that you're the best person for the job that's gonna cost them between 70 k and 150 k, whatever you're applying for.
So they want to give you a heads up. So if that happens, that's great. Can you take your notepad in and jot down parts of the questions You totally can. As they talk, you can just like think about the key things, but you wanna really use that time that they're questioning you to relieve. Sit and listen.
And Emma, we Emma's in the G C P, so Emma, we go through this in the G C P, where when we get to that stage, All you wanna be doing is [00:43:00] listening intently to the question and then identifying which strategy you're gonna use to respond. Is it a list? Is it a star, is it a hypothetical? And then from there, we move forward and we approach 'em.
Okay. But yeah, the, question or the statement about not showing I'd be quick enough to ride it, but just to prepare is a good thing to think about. Okay. And again, if we go in as prepared as possible, you're gonna set yourself up for success.
And here's the thing that the, the people that are on this call, I want you to take this away. I have sat on a lot of panels. I've seen a lot of car crash interviews. I've seen a lot of really terrible responses, and it breaks my heart because the people that are sitting at the end of the table that are being interviewed by myself and the team, They're incredible.
They're really good. They can do the job. We know they can do the job, but the panel can't just give you a job because they have a gut feeling that you'd be good. You have to show them the features of your diverse experience, and you also have to show [00:44:00] them the benefit to the organization in hiring you if you are not taking your interview as serious as possible, and going in as prepped as you possibly can be.
Demonstrating and showing them why. You are the best fit. You are missing an opportunity to land your dream. Perfect role. Imagine going in to the Apple store and when you walk in, no one says hi, and no one even comes across to you, even though you've got the a thousand dollars, like literally waving it in the air and you're saying, Hey, come serve me.
I wanna buy this phone, and no one's coming. And then you just continue to stand there and you're looking around. The same is true in an interview. If you go into an interview and you don't clearly demonstrate, Your reason why you're there, why you want the job, why you're the best fit, why you do have all the features, why hiring you would benefit them immensely.
Not only just now as a graduate nurse, but for the next 10 years. You're missing an opportunity there. You're going in to sell and communicate your skill, and I know people don't like it when I say this, but it really helps me [00:45:00] think of yourself as a product. You want your product to be irresistible. You want you to be irresistible.
So if you don't believe you're irresistible and you don't think you're a good fit for the job, they will sniff it out. They will smell it a mile away. So you've gotta present yourself in a way that you want to be perceived. You present yourself in a way that you want them to treat you. If you go in and you're unprepared and you're going blank and you're not committing to the answers and you're not being strategic, they're just gonna discount your whole.
Event there your whole time there. But if you go in and you really try, but there's a couple of things that maybe you missed, but you really committed and they could see your notes and you were so prepared, and you were professional and you asked really good questions, they're more likely to give you an opportunity or the opposite.
They're like, wow, you were the best person today. Your job is to go in and blow them away. Think about the X Factor. Think about any of these shows. That's what it's like. We want the next person to come in. That's gonna be incredible. We want you to blow us away, so don't get in your own way of blowing the panel away.[00:46:00]
Okay. I've been chatting for a long time. But some awesome freaking questions. I would love to know if you're still here, like what's one thing you're taking away from what I've said today? What's one thing you're gonna change before you all run away? What's, oh, Carl, ask another question, but let me know.
Please do tell me cause it helps me understand what really lands for people. And you know, I do all of this on here in particular and on the podcast all for free. I've got. So much content out there for free. So if you're going it alone, you can use that content. It will get you to a point. If you want specialist help and you want all of the support, come and join the G C P.
If you've got any questions about the G C P, just message me. We recently just made it so much more accessible. And we have six month and a 12 month payment plan which is just like ridiculous. I think the frost month you come in, it's like a hundred bucks. It's cray cray? And we work with you until you land a job.
Until you land your job, there's no risk involved, right? We're with you every step the way everything you possibly could need. We're here for me and my team, so come and join us or DM me and we can get you the link. Carla, is there [00:47:00] questions along the lines of what policy of the healthcare facility align with our values Potentially?
Yeah, so we want to know the values. Policy is tricky because like they can't expect you to have read all the policies before you come. But policy is a good thing to drop. It's a good buzzword to always drop into your responses. They might ask you about things like national policies. So they might ask you things like, Hey can you tell us more about like the social media policy for nurses?
That could be a question that has been a question that people have had. They might be asking specifically about the organization or like nationally. But that's where I would stick with policy. Talk about policy in the context of the work that you're doing. Infectious control, wound care, all of the things, and weave it in that way. And just drop your values throughout. I hope that answers your question. Sorry. Carl, also don't apologize like I just did. Just like, yeah.
I try my best touch. Do you use the STAR framework in your program? Yes, we teach it. We teach it. We teach in selection criteria. We teach it in interview preparation. If you can master the star, you are gonna absolutely blow them away. [00:48:00] How do I know? Because most people, 99.9% of people come and they're very same, very generic, very broad, very non-specific.
The Star is one of the many tools that we use to help you navigate that path. So come and join us. Task. We'd love to have you in there. It's a no-brainer, like literally every program you're applying for, we support you with and you we'll get multiple job offers. That's the guaranteed program. We're confident cause we've done it over 300 times now, so it's.
Heaps fun. Ka. I love the idea of leaving your inner critic out of the room for the interview. Yes. Park them at the door, like literally park them and be like, not today. Thank you so much. Managing a mind in the interview is the biggest challenge, so if you can really step into that, raise your awareness of the critic.
You are nailing it. My friend Emma. I really taking away from how I'm feeling about the interview and how I need to do more preparation and I need to do some more self-reflection. How I view myself and abilities. Yes. Your own self-concept is the most important part of this process. I want you to think about, do you want to be the nurse that shows up on your first day as a graduate nurse that is [00:49:00] doubting that they can do the job, or do you want to be the nurse that's showing up on the first day that is like, Confidently capable of delivering the foundational level of care that's needed, and you're confident in your ability to escalate care, to challenge, to ask questions, and all of the things.
Which version do you want to be? Because both versions are available to you. And we don't need to indulge in this fear-based, overwhelmed, stressed out approach to starting our careers. It's a horrible way to start our careers. It's so deeply conditioned that it has to be hard. It has to be difficult. It doesn't have to be any of those things.
If we manage how we talk to ourselves and we build a better rapport in relationship with our ourself, the rest will be so much more easy. Right. If you love yourself and you're com kind and compassionate to yourself, this is what our friend to be true you love and are more kind and compassionate to other people by default.
It's like a strategic byproduct. It's like a side effect of self-compassion, self love. If you choose to hate on [00:50:00] yourself and you think you're not good enough and you tell yourself terrible stories that don't empower you, you'll find those problems in other people as well, right? We reflect what we don't process.
Other people do the same thing. Okay, so good down mate. You're killing it and we'll tackle it all in the g p. Now if you are Sam, I'm gonna wrap up there. Thank you so much for your time. If you're Sam d that is want, wants to join the g p, come and join us. Literally, we are open. I dunno what you're waiting for.
we're doing the work. Now is the time to prepare. Get your CV cover letter selection criteria done. It will be done for you within 48 hours of joining. And then from there, we work with you through every application that you can apply for every interview. And we work with you until you land a job, it's a no-brainer.
Come and join us and we love supporting you. It's the best way to start your career legit. And also you get lifetime access, so you can use the stuff that we teach now. For the rest of your career. Tasha, is that, can you quickly answer over? Of course. I will.
In terms of Emma's question, how long is an interview typically?
How long is a piece of string typically for grads, they're short and sweet, mostly between 10 to 20 minutes max, [00:51:00] but they could be longer. The more you move through your career, they're like, 10, 50, 20, 30, 45 minutes as we move through. So keep that in mind. But typically 10 to 20 minutes, not really that long.
So hopefully that helps. And oh God, we're getting lot. I'm, you know, I'm gonna stay. You guys are. If you need to leave, that's totally fine. I will not take it personally. Sarah, I love you. Thank you so much for that. And so beyond my grad time, but always find your information so valuable. It's applicable to everybody, right?
And like we focus on grads because we just see such a need there. But today I was coaching an after hours manager who's applying for an after hours manager position and lots of other things, and I've been doing senior stuff all week. So it's super fun that everybody deals with same problems.
It's hilarious. Actually, I can't, I've heard a lot about transition. Shocking graduate year. Do you have strategies to dealing with this in your program? Yes. Actually one of the bonuses in our program, when you finish the G C P and you've got your dream job and your already walk and roll, we unlock our graduate success.
That's okay. We unlock our graduate success course. So this [00:52:00] year's a first year that we're releasing this and it's a bonus. It's completely free, added into the program. And it's to help you navigate your first year. So transition, shock, managing stress. How do you manage eating and drinking whilst on shift work like.
As a coach, I've learned all of these strategies and I love all of them and I'm giving them all away. In this course. Not only that, how do you burn out proof of your career? How do you manage your thoughts, feelings, and emotions? What do you do when you're being bullied? What happens if you get performance managed as a grad?
All of that is gonna be in this course, and it's all I included, so hopefully that answers your question. Come and join us. We'd love to have you. We'd absolutely love to have you in the G L P and we're moving into June and July and August where it's the busiest time. So selfishly, the sooner you join us, the quicker we can help you and then we can get you really set up.
cause we won't be able to do them like right at the last minute, so I just keep that in mind. But if you want the links to the masterclass or the G clp. And our multiple payment options, let me know and I'll send it through. Alrighty, it's been amazing. I will be [00:53:00] here next week and I'll chat to you all then, but otherwise, look after yourself and I'll chat to you soon.
Bye.
