Prepare for Nursing Assistant Job Interview

[0:00]Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. This is Pawan. I'm a registered nurse based in Sydney, Australia. Anyone who is enrolled in a nursing degree in Australia, be it Bachelor of nursing or diploma of nursing, can potentially work as a nursing assistant in Australia. But for those of you who are not enrolled in any nursing program, you can still work as a nursing assistant. All you have to do is complete certificate three. It's a short course. Upon completion, you will be eligible to apply for nursing assistant jobs. And in this video, I'm going to go over some tips for nursing assistant interviews, which will include some common questions that are asked during the interviews with some suggested answers. And also some other aspects of the nursing interviews that you need to keep in mind while you prepare for your nursing assistant interview. So let's get right into it. Firstly, prepare for the most common interview questions. Now, there are some questions that employers ask almost every candidate, so you want to make sure that you're familiar with them already. You have some sort of answers prepared already, but again, while you're delivering the answers in the interview, you want to make sure that you're not delivering it in a cramped up way. It should still come out as naturally as possible. So you might have had some bullet points ready to go, but you still need to deliver it as naturally as possible. But we want to make sure that we are already familiar with them. So the first question that I have in mind that most employees will ask nursing assistants in the interview is, um, why do you want to become a nursing assistant? Pretty generic, it's sort of an ice breaker to the interview before they dive into the deeper questions for the role. Um, so this is the one that you really need to think about because this is sort of a first impression as well. And while you're answering this question, think about the reasons, the things that led you to this role. And the things that you like about nursing, so form your answer around that area. But for nursing students who are already enrolled in any course, let's say diploma of nursing or bachelor of nursing, it's actually a little bit easier for them to answer the question. All you have to sort of say is that you want to get some experience in the real life healthcare settings before you graduate. All the things and theory that you're learning in class, you want to be able to apply in real life health care setting is why you're looking for a nursing assistant job. But again, practicing within the scope of your practice also keeping that in mind while you answer this question. But very generic, don't think too hard on it, but just so you know that this will be coming. The second one I have on the list is what qualities make you a good nursing assistant? Now, while you answer this question, think of any qualities about yourself that relates to nursing, for example, good communication, good time management skills, um, empathy, etcetera. And while you answer this question, always reflect back on your clinical rotations that you've done as part of your nursing degree. And for those of you who've done certificate three, are not part of the nursing degree, you would have done some clinical placements as well. So make sure you reflect on them because that adds a lot of value to your answer. And not just clinical rotations, you can even reflect on your previous job experiences that you've had and any transferable skills that you think would be useful in this current role. So, have some scenarios ready so you can share with them but not elaborate too much that you're wasting their time. So keep it nice and short, but do you have some scenarios ready? Now the next question is, what would you do if you had a conflict with a doctor or nurse? Every time I've given a nursing interview, I've been asked this question. Even for a nursing assistant role when I was a nursing student, and even for my other registered nurse roles. So this is one of the common questions that you really need to be prepared for. The goal of this question is that they want to see how you handle conflicts at work with your colleagues and especially with your superiors. In the answer, they're really looking for your communication skills, your professionalism, and your ability to maintain workplace relationships. So try and think of a time in your previous roles or your clinical placements when you were put in a difficult situation, and how did you manage that? How did you use your problem solving skills and your communication skills while resolving that issue? So try and think of a scenario where you had a conflict with a nurse on the ward, and how would you manage that, naturally, how would you manage that? Think about it. So basically, how you would manage that is you would go and speak to the nurse involved first. Um, you both listen to each other, calmly, respectfully, um, addressing what the other person has to say. And taking the matter to a private area as well, so other people are not involved. If you can't resolve between the two of you, the first thing you would do is you would go to the team leader on the shift and speak to them, see if they can resolve it, and if that doesn't work out, then obviously, we have the manager who we can go and speak to the issue about. But they basically want to know your thought process. They want to know that how you would resolve it, even in a hypothetical situation. So again, try and have a scenario ready where you had sort of even a minor conflict at work and how did you manage it? It doesn't have to be even in the nursing field. It could be something that you can reflect on from your previous job experience that would come in handy as well. The next one is, why do you want to work at our healthcare facility? So it could be a hospital, could be an aged care center, could be any healthcare facility. So this is where they are looking whether you actually prepared for this interview. And how enthusiastic you are. They expect that a good candidate would have done some research about the organization. So it's really important that while you prepare for your interview, you go on their website and have a look at their mission values. Or what their mission statement is, and almost have an answer prepared sort of aligning your values with their mission values. This is something that you will have to look up every single time you go for an interview, whereas the other questions are pretty generic and they can be used. The answers that you've prepared before can be used again and again, but this one can't be as this is very unique to the organization you've applied the job for. Now, the next question is, a registered nurse asks you to give medications to a patient. What would you do? In this question, they're really trying to test your knowledge. And to find out whether you know what is nursing assistant's scope of practice. So for this one, you would tell them that you know what your scope of practice is. How you would calmly tell the registered nurse that you can't give the medications because legally you are not authorized to do so. And you can also offer help to the registered nurse and say, can I please offload some other tasks off your list? If you have any vital signs to do and or any other tasks. So in this way, you're also saying that, yes, I'm not going to act out of my scope, but also, I do see that she's here, she's busy, and I'm offering help. The next one is, what would you do if you found patient's vital signs outside of normal ranges? Well, in this one, they're again checking your knowledge and seeing how safe you are. So for this one, you would say that you would go and tell the registered nurse or whoever the primary nurse is looking after the patient, about the vital signs being out of range, and after informing then you would also document. Make sure you also mention every time there's a clinical scenario, you need to mention that you would document it properly as well. Throughout the interview, you're basically showing them that you have the knowledge and the skills to work as a nursing assistant. By constantly showing your understanding about, um, the scope of practice, that you won't be acting out of scope, and confidentiality and privacy, the importance of documentation. Infection control and safety protocol. And always reflect on the scenarios from your clinical rotations that you've already done in the past. And all the hands-on experiences you've had during your clinical rotations. Now, those were the most common questions that we get asked in the nursing assistant interviews. But there are some other aspects of the interview that you do need to keep in mind as well. The first one is dress professionally. While we all know once you get your job, you'll be in your scrubs, but it's really important that you dress professionally for the interview. Collared shirt with pants or skirt, whatever you feel comfortable with, that makes you feel confident. And make sure it's wrinkle-free, it's ironed, and paying some attention to grooming as well. The second one is don't be late. This is an obvious one, but please do make sure that you're not late for the interview. It just a big turn off, it doesn't make a really good first impression. So even if it's an online interview, you want to make sure that you're logged in, everything is ready to go. Now, this is the first time they are seeing you. So you want to make sure that you leave a good impression. So maintain a good posture during your interview, which will make you look even more confident. And also make direct eye contact while you're talking to them. And a good firm handshake if your interview is in person would also show how confident you are. And your body language can convey that how confident and engaged you are and that you're ready to take on all the responsibilities of the new role. The next one is be honest about your previous experiences and skills. Especially for those new nursing students who've just joined the course and they've just had a few, um, weeks of clinical placements, you don't know a lot. You've known some things, you don't know everything, especially when compared to a very experienced nursing assistant who's been working in a hospital setting or an age care setting for such a long time. But the panel would know from your resume already that you're not a very experienced nursing assistant, and that's okay. If you don't know how to perform a particular task and if it comes up in the interview, it's okay to say that you don't know how to do it. But you need to express your willingness to learn and to improve over time. Employers are always looking for candidates who are eager to grow. So just be honest about your level of experience. Now, after the interview, they will usually ask you if you have any questions for them. And always have one or two questions ready to go. I can give you a few examples of some of the questions that I can think of that you can ask in the interview, but you can have your own ready as well. The first one you can ask is when will I hear about the outcome of this interview? That's a good one and that's a genuine question as well. You want to make sure that you're not waiting for weeks without a reply. So this will give you a straightforward answer of what to expect after the interview as well. The second one that you can ask is what is the typical daily routine for a nursing assistant at their facility? So for example, if you're applying for a hospital job, you can ask them what the shift work looks like, what kind of shifts do they have, what are the timings? And this question sort of helps you understand the expectations of the job and how you can plan your life around it. The third question that you can ask is, are there any opportunities for further training or advancement? This shows your long-term interest in the job, especially if you're a nursing student who still have like two years of nursing degree to go through. They might even tell you that, oh, we have this new graduate program, then at the end of your nursing degree, if you're interested, you can apply for that program. So this can open up so many doors for you. Always have some sort of questions ready. They don't have to be super smart questions, but it just shows that you're very interested. After the interview, what you can also do to stand out is you can shoot them an email and say how thankful you are to be given an opportunity to be interviewed at such a great facility. And that you look forward to hearing from them. This kind of thank you message is actually pretty nice for the employers to hear, and this will also help you stand out. Now that you've done all that, hopefully, you get an email or call saying that you've been successful for the role. But if you're not successful, when you do get that email or a call saying that you're not successful for the job, always seek feedback and ask them what you could have done better to have secured the job. And that feedback you can use for the interviews in future. And I know interviews can be very nerve-wracking, but it just gets better over time, and try and do some mock ones with your friends or family. It will help you rehearse some of the questions, and they might even give you some feedback on how you're saying the answers or whether you're coming out as natural, or is it sounding more sort of crammed up version of your answer. So do some mock ones with your friends or family as a practice. So guys, that's the end of the video. I hope you found it useful, but if you do have any questions around the same topic, please do leave them in the comment section below, and I'll try and answer them as soon as possible. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.