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Who You’ll Hear
Kati Kleber, MSN RN – Nurse educator, former cardiac med-surg/stepdown and neurocritical care nurse, author, and speaker.
Melissa Stafford, BSN RN CCRN SCRN – highly experienced and currently practicing nationally certified neurocritical care nurse.
Elizabeth Mills, BSN RN CCRN – highly experienced neurocritical care nurse, current Stroke Navigator for a Primary Stroke Center.
Resumes
- Perfect, no typographical errors
- Don’t put all of your clinical experience
- Put things that are relevant to this job
- Put people other than your clinical instructors; nurses on the unit, MD’s, manager
- Get a team of cheerleaders – people who will vouch for you
- Networking begins in nursing school
- Make a good impression EVERYWHERE
- Don’t think only clinical people can write resumes
- Volunteers, administrators, administrative assistants, leadership
Applications
- Don’t wait until graduation to apply
- Do this way before graduation
- Look at the websites of prospective facilities
- HR departments are slow
- Give it a few weeks before calling about the status of an application
- Many won’t even let you call them; they just update online portals
- Video interview tips
- Don’t look at the floor
- Look at what’s behind you – remember they are seeing that!
- Don’t wait until the last day
Interviews
- First impression begins with scheduling the interview
- Don’t be difficult to schedule because it looks bad
- Look up information on the facility, work into the conversation
- Questions beforehand
- Go over them at home, with others – even if it looks silly!
- Strike the balance between confident and cocky
- Handwritten thank you note post-interview – looks awesome
- Make sure you’re speaking positively about yourself and not negatively about others to make yourself to look good
- Dress appropriately for the interview. Check out this post for tips: What to Wear to a Nursing Interview
More Nurse Job Application, Resumes, and Interview Resources
- Your Last Nursing Class: How to Land Your First Nursing Job by Beth Hawks, MSN RN-BC
- Nursing Interview Questions and Answers – FreshRN blog
- Uncensored Thoughts of a Nurse Interviewer: From Inside the Interview Room – Nurse Code blog
- When You Don’t Land Your Dream Job
Are you done with the guess-work of applying and interviewing for nursing jobs?
Hired from FreshRN is a self-paced, online course for ambitious nurses who want to be the ideal candidate for their dream job. Amber Nibling, MSN RN-BC, and Kati Kleber, MSN RN have interviewed hundreds of nurse applicants and they give you the inside scoop of what interviewers are thinking. Learn everything you need to know to impress potential employers (and yourself) by learning what the hiring team expects from you, so you can not only meet, but exceed those expectations.
