Interview Tips for an OR Position - From the Hiring Manager.

I’ve been the interviewee many times and could give you countless tips from that standpoint, however today I’m going to share a little of what I’m looking for when interviewing candidates. More specifically, I’m going to explain some of the questions, the answers I hope to get, and other things that are apparent when the candidate answers the questions. An important thing to remember when interviewing a candidate is that they are also ‘interviewing’ you as a leader but also evaluating the facility. 

Most facilities have a set of basic interview questions to be asked, such as what interests you in this position? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How do you handle an important deadline? The list goes on. I will always start off by asking a candidate about themselves- I have read your resume, tell me about YOU as a person, not your career. We can teach you skills, but your personality tells me more than your work history. What next?

This question is usually answered very quickly due to it being expected, the typical answers I get are being flexible, easy to work with, well organized, effective communicator, efficient etc. These are all pretty necessary traits for working in the operating room. It is nice to know what a person believes is a strength and why they think it is a beneficial trait for a job in the operating room. While knowing your strengths is important, I’m more interested in if you are aware of what your weaknesses are.

Instead of asking ‘What are some of your weaknesses?’ I ask, ‘What are your greatest areas for improvement?’ The answers to this question tell me a lot. I’ve gotten answers like ‘dealing with lazy coworkers’, ‘conflict’, ‘asking for help’. I ask them to elaborate on their answer- why do you struggle with this? What do you do when in a situation dealing with this? How do you plan to overcome this? This puts them in a position to think about how they can improve these qualities, but also starts to set the expectation that if I am their leader I will expect them to work on improving these qualities. 

Let’s touch on conflict. I ask how they handle conflict and to give me examples. I ask how they’ve dealt with a difficult coworker in the past. I get a lot of information from the answers to these questions. Are they someone who shies away from conflict? There is a fine line between avoiding conflict and permitting unacceptable behaviors. Let’s say someone says something you don’t agree with or just rubs you the wrong way and you choose to avoid conflict by walking away. No harm. Now let’s say someone says they aren’t going to perform the final count because they are ‘sure they have everything’, walking away in this case to avoid conflict would be a huge mistake and have a big impact on patient safety and your integrity. 

Working in the operating room means you cannot be afraid to speak up. If you suspect something isn’t right, don’t ignore it. If you reviewed the patient’s chart and there is nothing but consults for a LEFT foot wound and the patient is scheduled for a RIGHT foot wound debridement… you better double check that before you bring that patient back to the operating room. If a surgeon is rushing you in a way it’s becoming unsafe for the patient- stand up for yourself and your patient. Having a backbone in surgery is extremely important. 

The answer should be somewhere along the lines of… ‘don’t take it personal’, ‘respond calmly’. There are tense situations in the operating room and let’s face it, surgeons yell. It’s typically not AT you, but it often can feel that way. Obviously, this is a question that would be asked for someone who has previous operating room experience. But it is a great ‘what if’ question as well. Along this same line is the question ‘how do you perform under pressure?’. Being under pressure is a very common occurrence in the operating room. Knowing that someone can remain calm during pressure is important. 

A question that I first thought was silly, but now I like the question ‘What are 2 or 3 things most important to you in a job?’ You could get the answers like money, insurance, benefits, etc. But the answers that impress me more are transparency, belonging, work life balance, etc. I want to know that the candidate wants to be happy at work and not only earn a paycheck. I also like to inform them that these things are also important to me. I like to ask if they have any goals for furthering their education and if they have any long-term goals. This is a good succession planning question. 

If the candidate has an employment history that has short lengths at multiple facilities, that’s a flag, not necessarily red, but something to dig into a little. Were they a traveler? Did they get extensions? (red flag if no). If so, those short time frames are expected. Do they job hop? Is it worth putting the training and effort into this candidate if they follow suit and job hop again? It’s also important to listen to their reasons for leaving previous jobs. 

A fun ‘question’ I’ve recently started asking surgical techs is asking them to walk me through how they count. If they start off by saying well first, I count my raytecs, then my laps, then my sharps, smalls. I stop them there. Great. Then I take it a step further and ask them to walk me through how they count their raytecs. This question gets me some weird looks, but the RIGHT answer is ‘I break the band then separate each raytec’ I usually stop them here and just say that’s exactly what I was looking for. You’ll know this tech has the basic technique down and hasn’t forgotten the basics. 

The last topic I discuss in interviews is culture and morale. I let the candidate know that we have worked really hard to create a good culture in the department and we will not allow anyone to tamper with the work we’ve done- their reaction to this tells you a lot. I will always protect the team from someone from the ‘outside’ coming in and destroying what we’ve built.