Tips for Securing Your Next Role

"Job Interview"-free AI image created at https://www.canva.com/

There is much talk about VUCA in our current healthcare industry. From one point of view, as a nurse manager, the healthcare business has volatility, married to day-to-day uncertainty and complexity, all topped by the ambiguity in delivering evidence-based practice to patients (Sherman, 2024). In short, it is everchanging, evolving, and moving at a pace and rhythm that is hard to keep up with.

One area of the VUCA challenge is keeping up with the uncertainty of staffing shortages that all healthcare systems face from daily operational needs. Additionally, employee absences, vacations, non-paid time off, and extended leaves of absence influence fluctuations in daily staffing to meet core needs. At a basic level, it is a supply and demand model, and backfilling when staff absences exceed the ability to deliver safe care with appropriate patient-to-provider ratios contributes to the challenge.

Operational efficiency and patient care are the normal state of affairs in any hospital. However, suppose you are a new grad nurse or an experienced veteran looking to be the solution to your next employer's staffing dilemma. In that case, the following are some tokens and tributes your next employer is looking for.

Competency

Let us distill the qualities and traits into three for focus: competencies, behavior, and teamwork. First, competency is congruent with clinical expertise. Fineout-Overholt et al. (2019) described the professional nurse's expertise as possessing the techniques, education, and proficiency combined with best practice knowledge to care for patients. As a hiring manager, articulating your career experience and discussing your abilities and competence in caring for patients can help fortify your opportunity and be the linchpin in securing your presence in the minds of the interviewing staff.

Attitude

Second, but no less critical, is behavior, undifferentiated from professionalism. Scholars have divulged and distilled concepts surrounding professionalism. Gathered from Hood (2018), elements of a professional include but are not limited to the following.

• Committed focus on patients
• Caring about the work that helps patients and team members
• Demonstrating empathy to patients
• Having self-confidence
• Acquiring and displaying competence
• Possessing technique
• Ability to communicate clearly
• Applying critical thinking skills
• Capacity to be resilient in uncertainty and change

Collaboration

Last is teamwork, or organizational citizenship. It is often understood as the ability to cooperate with others for a common purpose and to put oneself behind the mission. These character qualities, or the soft skills of personal relationships and communication, are as critical as your skills, abilities, and academic achievements. Character, attitude, and behavior are in high demand.

As highlighted by Jim Collins (2001), concepts of high-performing organizations boil down to who will do the organization's work rather than what must be done in an institution. It is often heard in organizational circles, "This is how company XYZ is?" or "This is the company's way of doing things!" An organization's heartbeat, rhythm, and culture are the people, not the tools, equipment, walls, and foundation.

No matter the task, having the best team members steers any organization in the right direction. A company may have a great mission statement, but what can be expected if the wrong people work for the company? This continues to be a subject of undying debate.

So, if you are searching for that next role, promotion, or simple change, remember to keep abreast of current trends and educational endeavors to keep your skills and career fitness up to speed. As mentioned, behavior and teamwork attributes are desirable and coveted. Although autonomy, self-determination, and independence are qualities that harmonize with most working professionals, working together, collaborating, and sharing organizational commitment is the currency of high-performing organizations.

References:

Collins, J. C. (2001). Good to great. Harper Collins Publishers Inc.

Fineout-Overholt, E., Long, L. E., & Gallagher-Ford, L. (2019). Integration of patient preferences and values and clinician expertise into evidence-based decision-making. In Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E (4th Eds.), Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare (pp. 219-232). Wolters Kluwer.

Hood, L. J. (2018). Leddy & Pepper's professional nursing (9th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. 

Sherman, R. O. (2024). Upskilling your nurse leaders. Nurse Leader, 22(5), 484–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2024.07.007