Tips for Practice Nurses

By James Sargisson

An interview can be a highly stressful situation. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, how good you look on paper, or even how well you know the partners or practice manager; because the interview is your opportunity to impress and prove that you are the best candidate for the job.

How well you perform in a thirty-, sixty- or ninety-minute window will make all the difference between a yes, or a no. Therefore, it goes without saying that preparation is paramount to your success and ultimately, you being offered the job. So, here are five easy and quick top tips to excelling in your interview as a Practice Nurse:

1. Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

• Ensure you’ve spent adequate time researching the practice online and using the information that you have at your disposal
• Research the practice on their website, their LinkedIn page, check for any news stories that could be worth discussing in the meeting. Make sure to research the staff as this could be your future team!
• This is very important because it will not only give insight into the practice and give you plenty of information for the meeting but will also demonstrate to your interviewers that you’ve done your homework!

2. Read and understand the job description thoroughly

• Every job description should provide plenty of detail about your day-to-day responsibilities. Make sure you’ve read the brief back to front!
• It’s important to understand the brief fully, so you can demonstrate why your experience makes you the right fit for the job

3. Know your CV!

• There is no doubt that you’ll be quizzed on your experience, particularly your clinical background
• Not remembering or knowing certain aspects of your career can be extremely damaging during an interview! So make sure you know your history, skills and knowledge gained from previous jobs extremely well!
• A good tip for remembering – make a few bullet points for each job on what your main duties were, appointment times, etc. You won’t need to remember every last detail, just enough so your interviewers have a good idea of what you were doing in each job

4. The STAR Method

• One section of an interview, which could come up, will involve clinical scenario-based questions: This means that in terms of the format, they’ll outline a clinical scenario, usually around a routine patient-related issue, and ask what your approach would be/has been, in terms of a solution.
• It’s important to reflect on your experience and format your answers using the STAR method:
  • Situation = give the interviewer a context by describing the situation
  • Task = what did you need to do?
  • Action = what were your specific actions?
  • Result = the end result (make sure it shows you in a good light, even if the overall outcome was not a success!)
• It can be easy to go off topic or provide too much detail about the situation, when the interviewer really wants to know how you acted. Proportionally, you should dedicate most of your response to the Action part and remember, always give specific evidence where you can.
• REMEMBER – they’re only asking you questions you’ll know the answer to, it’s about how your structure your response that counts!

5. Don’t panic! Overdoing things can be very counterproductive

• This is arguably the most important tip! Always remember that this will be more like a pleasant conversation as opposed to a grilling (It’s not The Apprentice and you won’t have Claude Littner interviewing you!).
• Don’t spend too long researching, don’t write page after page of notes and don’t stay up all night preparing! A couple of hours the night before and a few more in the morning is all you’ll need, just remember to prepare properly, with sufficient time allocated to your revision and you’ll be fine!

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