Nursing Sample Interview Questions
Nursing Sample Interview Questions is a Villanova Career Center resource designed to help nursing students prepare for externship and full-time nursing interviews. The questions are based on feedback from recent nursing graduates and reflect real questions students have been asked during their job searches.
Students can use this resource to practice answering both behavioral and general interview questions. It is especially helpful for preparing examples from clinical rotations, patient care experiences, teamwork, communication, evidence-based practice, and challenging nursing situations.
Behavioral and Situational Questions include topics such as:
- Going above and beyond for a patient
- Handling a challenging clinical experience
- Working with a difficult patient
- Responding to an emergency in clinical or work
- Solving a problem in a clinical or nursing role
- Building rapport with a patient who could not communicate
- Advocating for a patient or speaking up for proper care
- Using research-based evidence to improve patient care
- Reflecting on a meaningful nursing experience
- Handling a patient who does not want to follow the plan of care
- Caring for patients from different cultural backgrounds
- Responding when something seems wrong in a patient’s room
- Delegating tasks to a Tech or Nursing Assistant
- Handling unclear policies
- Responding to upset family members
- Balancing emotional patient support with other patient responsibilities
- Navigating family decision-making and patient preferences in care
General Questions include topics such as:
- Why nursing?
- Why this hospital, city, or health system?
- Why this unit or specialty, such as Oncology, Pediatrics, or ICU?
- Personal nursing philosophy
- Patient-centered care
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Favorite and least favorite parts of nursing
- Favorite clinical rotations
- How clinical, externship, volunteer, or other experiences relate to the position
- Departments or units of interest
- Strengths and areas for improvement
- Prior experiences that will help the student succeed as a professional nurse
- Challenges in a specific department or unit
- Important traits nurses should have
- Customer service and patient care
- Wound dressing documentation and assessment
- Preferred or expected work hours
- Prioritizing patients
- Challenges in nursing school
- Interest in specific patient populations
- Handling negative comments among nurses
- Joining teams or pursuing interests outside the unit
- Responding to unhappy patients
- Identifying traits of good and bad clinical instructors
Students are encouraged to use these questions alongside the Career Center’s general interviewing resources and to practice with professional nurses, peers, and Career Center counselors.
