Creating a list of nursing appropriate skills for new graduate nurses who have never worked in the medical field can be tough. Fortunately, here’s a list of popular new grad nurse skills (that you’ve likely gained from past job experience) that employers will love to see on your resume!
Communication
Learning successful communication skills are key for new grad nurses. There will most definitely be a point in time where you’re going to have to ask for help from fellow nurses. Your employer wants to know whether or not you’re going comfortable and confident enough to ask.
Teamwork
As a new grad nurse, you are going to be working as part of a team to help treat your patients. For example, with your preceptor when you’re first hired and then with your fellow nursing peers, certified nursing assistants, doctors and so on. Being a team player is so important!
Your patient is going to code and you’re going to need help, or your co-workers’ patient is going to code and they’ll need help; either way, being able to step up and work as part of the team is vital in the medical field.
Leadership
I’m sure you’ve heard this one time and time again throughout nursing school, leadership! I don’t know about you, but I had to take a whole class on nursing leadership. No wonder employers want to see this quality in a potential new hire!
Works Well Under Stress
Often times there will be some sort of question regarding stress in a nursing interview. Whether it be, “How do you, or would you, handle the stress of the job?”, “How did you handle stress in nursing school?”, or “Recall a stressful situation and how you dealt with it.”
Make sure you think about a specific time when you encountered a stressful situation. How did you handle it? Could you have maybe handled it differently? If it happened again, could you handle it better in the future?
For specific interview questions, visit Common New Grad Nursing Interview Questions
Critical Thinking Skills
Being a new grad nurse, your potential employer isn’t going to expect that you have specific medical experience where you had to critically think in order to achieve a positive patient outcome. But they do expect you to have needed to critically think at some point prior to this job interview.
Good news! This new grad nurse skill can also be intertwined with the ability to work well under stress. I’m sure at some point in your life (maybe in clinical or at a previous job) something didn’t go as planned so you had to adapt. These changes you made show that you are able to critically think for everything to work out.
Cultural Competency
As a nurse you are going to be working with a wide range of people and therefore a diverse cultural population that you may not be accustomed to. Being aware of this and respectful of any cultural differences is extremely important. Think back to your clinicals. I’m sure you’ve had an experience where you took care of a patient with a different cultural background than yourself. How did you respect them and their background? In the future would you do it differently?
Patience
Taking care of five patients at a time can be very stressful. But being patient with yourself and your patients is necessary when providing high quality care. How can you find a way to be patient in a stressful setting?
Ability to Follow Rules
One time at an interview I was asked a question about this skill that really made me think. The question was, “Is there a time you can think of where it is okay to bend or break the rules?” This question stumped me at the time but looking back at it I think I answered it perfectly.
I said that it depends on what the rule is and on patient safety. For example, if insulin in required to be given at a certain time, then no it is not okay to break that rule. But if there is a rule that only two people can visit a dying patient at a time, and the patient has three family members that want to come see them, then I think management should be asked if the three family members can be with him/her in their final moments. Which would be considered a “rule break”. What do you think?
Organization
Every nurse organizes their shift differently and it will take some time and some different styles of organization to figure out what works best for you. Your employer simply wants to know that you have the capability to be organized and plan your care accordingly.
Adaptability
No matter how organized you are, your shift very rarely goes exactly how you want it to. Being able to adapt your care to your patients’ needs is extremely important.
Punctuality
Showing up to work on time for any job is important to your employer. And please make sure you’re on time to your interview. This shows your punctuality without having to even verbally state this specific quality. The proof is in the pudding right!
Professionalism
This is another new grad nurse skill like punctuality! It can be demonstrated in your interview without having to specifically be stated. Show up in appropriate interview attire, sit up straight, engage with you interviewer and you got it!
To help demonstrate professionalism in your interview, check out my post on What to Bring and What to Wear for Your Interview.
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