The recruiter said the unit is supportive. How do you check that?
Beau nights in the EDThe question
Supportive, family atmosphere, great teamwork. Every posting says it and every recruiter repeats it, and none of it survived contact with my first job.
What I do now is ask about the last person who left the unit and why. You learn a lot from how long the pause is.
What else actually works? Looking for questions that get past the script, not ways to catch people out.
The conversation
2 replies- Skyler on days nowRN, 2 years in, days now
Ask how long the charge nurses have been there. Turnover at the top of a unit tells you more than turnover at the bottom, and nobody has a prepared answer for it.
The other one is asking who you would call at three in the morning with a question. A supportive unit answers with a name in about two seconds.
- Theo on step downRN, step down, week six of orientation
Ask for ten minutes on the unit, unscheduled if they will allow it. I did, and the thing that decided me was not anything anybody said. It was that two people looked up and said hello to a stranger in the corridor.
You can rehearse an interview answer. That is harder to stage.
What would you tell them?
Answer from what you have seen. It posts without your name.
