Kaiser Nursing Interview Questions (Sample Answers)

Tell me about yourself (60-90 sec)
- I currently graduated from CBU
- Worked as nursing assistant
- Did not find nursing in a traditional way
- Work monitor tech (love heart stuff)
- Love Teaching
- New Grad Kaiser Program Dream Job

What is your patient care philosophy?
- All humans deserve high quality healthcare
- All people recieving healthcare have the right to getting compassionate care
- Patient care is a special kind of privilege
- Hold myself to higher standard because peoples lives are in my hands
- Owe patients the duty of continuously educating

Tell me about your healthcare related education and training.
- BSN at cal baptist
- Loved cardiac stuff, took dysrhythmia course, got job as monitor tech
- Webinars, ACCN, Classes

What made you want to be a nurse?
-family in hospital
-best friend
-combines creativity and critical thinking (strengths)
-want to make a positive difference in peoples lives

Patient care requires a strong amount of compassion. Do you consider yourself a compassionate person?
- I consider myself very compassionate
- Understanding
- Empathetic
- Caring
- Warm hearted (big heart)

Would you consider yourself dedicated to a career in healthcare services?
- Yes, One great aspect is variety in nursing, opportunities are endless
- Rewarding, Challenging, life-long learner
- Nursing is something you ARE, not just a 9-5 job
- I dedicate myself to my craft

In the healthcare services industry there are many emotions in a day. Have your emotions ever been in the way of your productivity?
- I do not let my emotions impede my productivity
- Everyone can be emotional to a certain degree
- I would call myself 'expressive', or 'big hearted'
- I am very good at turning an emotional situation into something more positive
- If a patient is passing, I try to have conversations with family about happy memories with their loved one

Do you consider yourself to be a strong relationship builder?
- Yes, past employers would describe me as having a very positive attitude
- I love becoming familiar with people especially if we'll be working together
- Offer sincere conversation
- NA would ask people questions about themselves
- Always avoid gossip, be mindful of actions, be positive

Healthcare services companies require strong organizational skills and attention to detail. How do you ensure that your work is properly organized, and highly accurate?
- One of my strengths is my attention to detail
- I am big with writing everything down
- Strongly attempt to document as soon as possible, because rest of health care team needs to keep updated
- Always have pen and paper with me and jot down my thoughts as they come
- Even though abrupt changes occur throughout the day I am always successful at remaining organized

If you could expand your knowledge and expertise in any area of healthcare services, which would you choose?
- Cardiac critical care, get CCRN
- Chose Kaiser because largely focused on community health, I love to work on some community based project or program
- Maybe certified midwife

It is often said that a career in healthcare is a 'thankless job'. How can we keep you motivated and engaged, even on the days when you feel your work goes unnoticed?
- I chose this career because I personally get a lot out of caring for people or doing something positive for someone, gives me joy and motivation
- I am easily motivated simple thank you means everything
- Feeling like you are an asset for your team is more than enough to keep me motivated
- Setting goals I can achieve through out the day keeps me engaged and motivated

Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?
- I love that Kaiser is so invested in the growth of their employees
- I want to have maintained a firm foundation as a nurse
- Love to see my career at Kaiser moving towards a leadership role, community outreach for health education
- Want CCRN, work on a critical care unit at Kaiser
- Become fluent in Spanish

When were you able to successfully resolve a problem in the work place?
...

When have you shown a willingness to learn a new method or new approach to solving a problem?
- Continuous changes in hospital environment
- Changes in 5150 protocol Chino, info meeting

How would you describe your personality?
- Positive
- Easy going
- Good sense of humor

When have you worked amongst a diverse group of people?
- Most of my work experience is with diverse people
- I've done volunteering for organizations with diverse people
- Community health class, blessing center
- Diversity fosters innovation because people from different back grounds can contribute something from a different perspective

Do you prefer to work in a team based position or individually?
- Depending on the situation, I love working collaboratively with a team, camaraderie
- If i am completely comfortable handling a task on my own, I would probably work more efficiently individually
- Either way I will always give my best

How do you balance life and work?
- If I am in a position that I enjoy, my job does not feel like a chore
- On days off I enjoy seeing my friends and family
- I love to bake and cook, go hiking, visit with my nieces, nephew, or best friend
- I attempt not to over schedule myself and allow for some time for self care

What part of health care brings you the most stress?
- Right now as a new grad I think my constant need to do everything perfectly, brings me the most stress
- While working in the healthcare field I think what brings the most stress is lack of communication, if a team is not communicating well with each other things can come to a crashing halt and situation become more stressful

If Kaiser hired you today, what would you accomplish first?
- Making a positive impact
-

Think about a difficult boss or coworker. What made him or her difficult? How did you successfully interact with this person?
- Coworker- bad attitude

With ongoing changes in healthcare, how do you keep up to date with changes?
- Podcasts- Fresh RN, Mastering nursing,
- Webinars - AACN, AMA
- Journals sent from AACN, AMA
- Follow CDC, WHO, nurse teacher on twitter

In your opinion what makes you a great problem solver?
- Do not allow stress to crowd my judgement
- I am a good observer who can recall unique situations and learn from them
- I am not afraid to come up with a creative solution to a problem
- I am good at seeing potential solutions from multiple angels

What is your greatest weakness?
- not delegating

Why do you think you will be successful in this role with Kaiser?
- Motivated

Do you think it is possible to be a good team member, yet disagree with the leader?
- Yes

How do you balance life and work?
...

What do you do in your free time?
- Hiking
- Hang out with friends/family/dogs
- Movies
- Camping

What qualities do you have that make you a great nurse? (strengths)
-Compassionate
-Patient
-Creative/problem solver
-Loyal

Negative qualities
-Communication
-Lack of confidence/assertiveness
-difficulty delegating

How do you think you can make an impact on our unit?
-positive personality
-takes criticism well
-easily adaptable
-works well with many different personalities
-calming presence in stressful situations
-fresh perspective as a new nurse

What are your goals?
-Get CCRN
-Teach critical care nursing
-Take on some sort of leadership role, community projects

Questions to ask RUHS
-What are some of the biggest challenges New Grads have experienced here?
-What are the next steps in the interview process?
-How many spots are available for this position?
-I noticed your hospital does a lot of community outreach, are there opportunities for RNs to participate?

You saw another nurse do something wrong what would you do?
-ensure patient safety isnt jeopardized
-Ask the nurse about it
-go to the charge nurse

Mission statement
Improve the health and well-being of our patients and communities through our dedication to exceptional and compassionate care, education, and research.

Describe a goal for yourself and how you obtained it
-Getting into Nursing School
-Did not meet requirements for many programs
-Took prerequisites, raised GPA
-Volunteered in ER, and other places
-Applied to CBU, got denied
-Took classes to be MT, got job
-Retook PAX exam
-Reapplied and got in

Why RUHS?
-mission statement aligns with my nursing philosophy
-dedication to improve the health and well-being of this community
-friends that work here love it, great place for a new nurse to learn
-Good community outreach

things you search for in a hospital?
-Level 1 or 2 trauma center
-opportunities for growth
-oppurtunities to get involved
-teaching hospital-continuously learning new things

convince us why we should hire you?
-I will never tire of trying to do my very best at all times
-I take pride in my work ethic
-I enjoy collaborating with other team members to better the care of my patients
-I tend to get along with every type of person
-I am a loyal person, I don't have a job hopper mentality
-I would love to be a part of a hospital that dedicated to exceptional compassionate care
-As a newly licensed RN could provide a fresh perspective while collaborating with the unit

describe a challenging experience with many tasks and very little time to get those tasks done?
-nearly every shift around 5pm when MDs want to discharge patients

-prioritize tasks
-organize thoughts

a time when you performed a procedure you weren't comfortable with
-First time set up A-Line
-Made sure preceptor nurse knew I had not done this on my own before
-asked her to shadow me
-while gathering supplies looked up procedure video quickly
-talked through the procedure prior to beginning
-ensured everything was being done correctly by asking the nurse

difficult family of a patient what happened?
-Cursing mother of 19yr old

To keep your knowledge up to date what have you done?
-member of AACN and ANA listen to/watch webinars
-NCLEX questions app
-listen to podcasts
-take continuing educational classes
-I haven't gone to seminars yet, but excited to begin attending them

tell me about a time you had a conflict with someone
-Male patient did not want a woman, taking care of him

frequent changes, time you experienced change
-remodling
-changes to protocols

strengths
-leadership (training MA's)
-time management (Bixby schedule)

Clinical experience with many tasks with little time what did you do to get those tasks done?
-NICU story with preceptor short staffed
-prioritized tasks
-worked as a team

A time or situation when you performed a procedure you weren't comfortable with/where you were asked to take in a persons responsibility.
-always make sure patient safety is number one
-research the procedure
-ask experienced nurse to shadow the procedure
-collected supplies
-did patient teaching

Difficult family what happened what did you do. Outcome
-NICU dad was angry story
-dad was mad because he felt no nurse was showing his baby any attention. I acknowledged the dads concerns and took the time to listen to his concerns and he was able to calm down and the situation was deescalated.

What have you done to keep your knowledge yo yo date?
-practiced skills at bixby laser center
-wcu workshops
-read articles

Tell me about a time you had a conflict with someone what happened how was it solved.
-icu patient eye contact.

Frequent changes, time you experienced organizational changes
-happened a lot at Chino
-Protocols changed
-remodeling ER

Clinical experience pressure
-iv start on coding patient, ER rotation
-kept cool while trying the first one, didn't take
-great preceptor nurse helped
-handle stress in a calm manner and cope well under pressure

Conflict with coworker
-fellow NA refusing to assist me

How would you describe success
-being happy

-meeting my goals

Besides nursing what are you passionate about?
-family and friends
-Music
-baking/cooking
-gardening
-caring for animals

How do you stay uplifted and motivated
-amazing support system, best friend, family
-patients are strong motivators
-I'm a Christian

Time you had to give and take in a team situation
-caring for large pt, offered my assistance, because I knew I would need help with my patient all day
-Iso patients

If hired here where do you see yourself in 5 years
-Being a skilled and quality nurse for this facility
-CCRN
-Teaching clinicals
-Take on a leadership role in the ICU-charge nurse
-Working solely with heart patients
-love to teach CPR to community
-Living in Riverside, or Mo Val

Things to Remember About RUHS
-Level II Trauma Center
-Designated Stroke Center
-Good Community outreach

In the clinical setting what is one of your most complicated patients and the point of care you gave?
- a guy

Tell me a time you went out of your way of above and beyond to help someone
-cell phone charge

Tell me about a time you had to be proactive
-a time