PICU Nurse Interview Questions
Go Back1. How do you reflect after dealing with a difficult and challenging patient situation?
2. Have you ever had an issue or disagreement with a physician or colleague's decision? How did you handle it?
3. Describe your typical relationship with the physicians you work with. What would your ideal physician relationships look like for you in our PICU?
4. As you may be aware, staff in the pediatric critical care setting have been historically known to experience "burn out" on the job. Why do you feel you will be able to handle the mental, physical, and emotional stress this job can bring?
5. What drew you to apply to our organization as a PICU nurse?
6. How much supervision do you feel you would need in your initial months on the job as a PICU nurse at our institution?
7. What makes you the ideal candidate to become our next PICU nurse?
8. How do you feel you've handled significant changes in your work as a nurse throughout your career?
9. What is your overall availability to work varying shifts as a new nurse in our PICU unit?
10. How have you gone about prioritizing your work in your current role when multiple patients and/or procedures demand your attention at once?
11. What has driven you throughout your career to be the best nurse you can be? How will this help our PICU patients if we were to hire you?
12. What is your preferred role in working as part of a larger team as a registered nurse?
13. Talk about the proudest moment you have experienced as part of a larger healthcare team. What role did you play in that effort?
14. What appeals to you in working as a PICU nurse and do you see this as a long-term career fit for you?
15. What do you feel is the biggest challenge you would face in joining our team as a PICU nurse?
16. What would you say is the greatest strength you would bring to our team as a PICU nurse?
17. What personality traits do you have that you feel would make you a great PICU nurse?
18. Talk about your experience working among a diverse team. How did you thrive in that environment?
19. What patient education skills would you bring to our team as a registered nurse?
20. What professional nursing organizations do you belong to, and are there any you would look to join as a PICU nurse?
21. Are you able to handle the physical requirements of working in our pediatric ICU?
22. How do you approach the documentation of patient records? Do you have specific strategies that you use?
23. You just finished preparing IV medications for a patient, and you thoroughly washed your hands before doing so. As you enter the patient's room with the medication, describe the first thing you do to prevent patient infection.
24. Talk about a time when you had to handle an irate patient or their family member on the job as an RN. How did you handle that situation and what were the results?
25. You are nearing the end of your 12-hour shift in our PICU and you are exhausted from caring for eight, high-acuity patients. As your colleague arrives to relieve you, tell me how you proceed.
26. If you were talking with a patient's parents during rounds and they told you they didn't understand the treatment plan that the physician told them, how would you respond in that situation?
27. As a PICU nurse with our organization, how would you handle a situation where a colleague calls you to ask you to document some patient notes that they had forgotten during their shift?
28. How have you typically responded to an emergency situations during your career as a registered nurse?
29. Tell me about a time you had to communicate bad news to a patient or family member. How did you effectively communicate that news?
30. Talk about the most stressful situation you've had to deal with in the workplace. What did you learn from that situation that you can bring to our team as a PICU nurse?
31. What are some action steps you could take to alleviate stress for a patient's family in our PICU?
32. Talk about a time you had to deal with an upset or sad patient or family member as an RN. How did you handle the situation?
33. What do you do to help keep yourself from becoming overwhelmed on the job when you have multiple patients or competing priorities?
34. Do you have any hands-on experience in hemodynamic monitoring that you would bring to our pediatric ICU?
35. Talk about the IV skills that you would you bring to our PICU nursing team. Will you be comfortable working on pediatric patients with this skill?