Unit Manager Interview Preparation Guide

The job of a nurse requires stress tolerance, positive attitude and behavior and great care for detail. Nurse Managers have the ability to encourage all of these via praise, active listening, and occasional surprises ranging from time off to free tickets or chocolate bars. When necessary, the NM will have to identify employees that show lack of professionalism. To prevent this from happening, nurse managers can instruct staff in specially designed coaching and training. Give an example or two from your own experience.

Introduce yourself to the interviewer. Tell about yourself and your background as a registered nurse and as a manager of nurses. Give specific department names and provide brief elaborations as to what you did there: Intensive care room, emergency rooms and operation rooms where you received and distributed patients.

Nurse Managers assign nursing staff to each department in the health care unit: radiology, emergency, etc. They do this in coordination with the departments and their own knowledge of current nursing practices, taking into account the needs of the nurses and their schedule as well.

► Tell me about yourself.
► Why did you become a restaurant/hospitality manager, chef, etc.?
► What do you know about our restaurant/property/company?
► Have you been to any of our restaurants/properties? What did you think? What did you observe while you were there? Did you get a chance to interact with any of our managers or staff? What would you improve or change?
► What do you think sets us apart from our competitors?
► Why do you want to work for our hotel/club/restaurant/property?
► Who else are you interviewing with? How do we compare to them?
► Have you been offered any positions yet?
► What do you think is a chef's/manager's role? What qualities should they possess?
► How would you describe your management style? Your personality?
► What motivates you? How do you motivate others?
► What was the best company you ever worked for? The worst? The best boss you ever had? Your least favorite? Why?
► What are some of your greatest accomplishments?
► Tell me about your cost control abilities? What have you done to help or improve your financial results?
► How would your supervisor/fellow managers/employees describe you?
► Have you ever been involved in confrontation with a guest/employee/supervisor at work? How did you resolve it?
► How would you handle the following situation?….
► What are your career goals? Where do you see yourself in 3/5/10 years?
► What are you looking for in a job?
► What makes you an effective manager/chef?
► What are your strengths? Weakness? What are you doing to improve your weakness?
► What are some of you greatest achievements or successes? What are some of your worst failures?
► Why did you leave your last job? Why do you want to leave your current position?
► What do you like least about being a manager/chef?
► Give me an example when you…..
► What upsets you/tries your patience?
► How long do you think you will stay with our company?
► What makes you the best candidate for this position? What do you think you bring to the table?
► What questions do you have for me?

☛ Have you ever had to deal with conflicting deadlines?
☛ A team experience you found disappointing.
☛ How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your time?
☛ Has anything ever irritated you about people you've worked with?
☛ Give an example of a time you successfully worked on a team.

Find out everything you can about the company, its culture and its goals. Don't get trivial or negative answering Business unit manager interview questions. Ask a friend or relative of yours to help you practice answering Business unit manager interview questions.

☛ How did you react when faced with constant time pressure?
☛ What were the responsibilities of your last position?
☛ What would make you happy in a job?
☛ What do you think, would you be willing to travel for work?
☛ How have you changed in the last five years?

► Can you give some examples of your creativity?
► Who is the most difficult person you've ever worked with and why?
► What type of management style do you work with best?
► Can you describe a time when you had to intervene for a patient, what you did, and why? What was the outcome?
► How would you rate yourself in communicating with patients-and with families?
► Can you describe a situation in which you dealt with a difficult family member?
► How do you motivate patients?
► Can you describe a time you went beyond the call of duty?
► Can you describe a situation in which you thought that you were right and others were wrong-and what you did about it?
► Can you describe a situation in which you were supposed to work with a person you didn't like and how you handled it?
► Have you ever been in a situation in which a co-worker put a patient in jeopardy? If so, what did you do about it?
► What would you do if you were asked to float to a specialty area you weren't familiar with?
► Can you describe a time your work was criticized and how you handled it?
► How do you handle delegation issues with unlicensed assistive personnel?
► How would your co-workers describe you?
► How would you describe your role in a recent code?
► How do you handle stress?
► Have you ever been fired or asked to resign?
► What would a background check on you show?
► Would your previous employer recommend you?
► What would you do if you were caring for an alert patient who suddenly got acutely confused and disoriented?
► What would you do if you found an elderly patient on the floor in his room? How would you document it?
► Have you worked with many foreign nurses? If so, what did you do to help them?

☛ List five words that describe your character.
☛ Your greatest weakness in school or at work?
☛ Who has impacted you most in your career and how?
☛ What have you done to support diversity in your unit?
☛ Describe a time you were faced with stresses which tested your skills.

Study the specific job duties of the position desired. Never use any adjectives for these sort of Business unit manager interview questions. Find out everything you can about the company, its culture and its goals.

► How would you handle a situation in which you couldn't read a prescriber's orders?
► If you were offered your last job again today, would you take it? If you're returning to nursing after not working in the profession for a while:
► How long has it been since you worked as a nurse?
► What have you been doing since you've been out of nursing?
► How have you prepared to return to nursing?
► Did you take a refresher course? How did it help?
► How have you kept up with changes in the profession? If you're a student applying for your first position:
► What's your most important achievement as a student?
► When do you plan to take your NCLEX? Have you taken a course to prepare for it?
► Where did you get your clinical experience? What units?
► Did your clinical experience include putting in a urinary drainage catheter or starting an intravenous line access? Inserting or removing a nasogastric tube, or caring for a patient with one?
► What was your favorite clinical experience? Least favorite? Why?
► What types of charting systems have you used? What do you like about them? What do you dislike?
► What do you think is a reasonable orientation time?
► Have you worked with an electronic medication administration record? Bar coding?
► What new technology have you used in school, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs)?
► Are you on-line often? What are your favorite sites for reliable health care information?

☛ What would be your ideal working environment?
☛ Tell us about the last time you had to negotiate with someone.
☛ What do you consider your most significant accomplishment?
☛ What is a typical career path in this job function?
☛ When was the last time you were in a crises?