Job Interview Do’s and Don’ts

Whether you are a brand new or a seasoned DSP there will be times when you have to look for a job.

For the sake of space here, this article is assuming you have located employment opportunities online thru Indeed and other job boards, and have sent out resumes, made phone calls and have secured an interview at an agency or nursing home.

Now what?

Be prepared for group interviews. In human service fields these are a very common form of interviewing, and in many places that provide services to people with disabilities, group interviews have become the norm. Group interviews can mean several potential candidates all sitting at one table with a group of interviewers or just one interviewer.

First things first. Your appearance is absolutely vital in a successful interview. The old saying, “First Impressions can be the Last Impression” is very true.
You want to dress conservatively- you’re trying to sell YOURSELF so it’s very important to get this right.

 

You want to give a good first impression. You should dress neatly and appropriately:

No jeans and tee shirts; no short skirts and skimpy tank tops; underclothing mandatory
No open toed sandals or sneakers or Crocs
Limited jewelry and other accessories.  No perfumes.
Clean, wrinkle free clothing
Hair pulled up and kept out of your face
Fingernails neat, trimmed and CLEAN

 

While a suit is not called for in interviews for DSP work, a pair of black slacks and a blouse would be appropriate. A really nice pair of black or dark blue jeans might be alright if they are paired with a shirt that is buttoned and well fitting. Stay away from low waist style pants; stay away from dark colored underclothing as well. If possible, underclothes should not be visible to anyone.  For the guys, a pair of black slacks and a white shirt with tie would be appropriate. There is no other way to put it: wrinkles are equated with laziness. Iron your interview outfit!  No sneakers please.

Clean shoes that compliment the outfit and fit well are always good choices. I advice against wearing those Crocs to interviews; they are comfortable to wear at work but entirely not professional for seeking work. Sneakers are not recommended for job seeking activities of any sort.

The wearing of jewelry is a matter of personal preference. It’s a choice we all make. Other than wedding bands, most of us can go without wearing most other pieces. Keep in mind a simple bracelet and necklace are fine; stud earrings too…but ditch the spike pendants and eyebrow and nose rings. Take them out. An interview for a human service job is no place to express individuality. A harsh truth.  Nose rings and eyebrow spikes tend  to distract people and this is the last thing you want during an interview. Also, remember that the work DSP’s do often leads to situations where jewelry can get lost or damaged (along with the earlobe or nose). Unintentionally, hiring managers will hire the candidate with the least amount of jewelry and tattoos  over those who chose to expose their individuality.

Fingernails are what clients see first- trust me. So do interviewers. You want neat, trim nails that are CLEAN. You don’t want polished, glossy shiny nails. You don’t want acrylic nails either. Okay you might want them, but infection control experts tell us germs love the long fake nails.

Now that we’ve covered WHAT NOT TO WEAR portion of the interview, lets move on to the other things:

Arrive EARLY. NEVER LATE.
If this means you have to leave your home an hour beforehand, then do it. It’s best to plan for accidents and other traffic problems. It’s best to be prepared for this and time your arrival for the interview a good 30 minutes before. Sit in your car and wait if you must. Enter the facility 15 minutes before the scheduled appointment.

Treat everyone you encounter with professionalism and kindness. That receptionist or secretary or maintenance man may offer his or her opinion of you to the boss. It will count.

Don’t let the employer’s casual approach cause you to drop your manners or professionalism. You should maintain a professional image. Don’t address the interviewer by his or her first name unless you are invited to.

Don’t chew gum or smell like smoke. In fact don’t smoke for a couple hours (at LEAST!) before the interview. Keep your cell phone in your car or purse. You don’t need to check for calls/texts at this important time!

Sit straight, smile as often as you can, maintain eye contact but don’t stare the interviewer down.  Lean forward but not invading the interviewer’s space. Sit still in your seat; avoid fidgeting and slouching. Be aware of your body language.

Don’t be shy or self-effacing. You want to be enthusiastic, confident and energetic, but not aggressive, pushy or egotistic. Usually just being yourself is sufficient.

Relax.

Don’t ever BAD MOUTH previous employers or bosses. Word travels fast between facilities. This can be tough if we have worked for an agency and you left on not-so-good terms. Be honest about this if is applies to you.

Questions and The Right Answers
Expect to be asked many questions. Expect to be politely scrutinized.

  • When did you leave your last job and why?
  • How long have you been out of work?
  • What did you like most and least about your last job?
  • Do you prefer working independently or as part of a team?
  • Why do you want to work here?
  • What do you expect to experience in this job that you did not experience in your past jobs?
  • Are you prepared to work hands on with disabled clients who require personal care, including bathing, feeding, dressing and diaper changing?
  • Are you prepared to work hands on with clients who have challenging behaviors such as hitting, biting, throwing objects, kicking, pulling hair?
    How do you handle upset guardians and families?
  • How do you feel about evening work? Weekend work? Holiday work?
    Why should we hire you?
  • Are you considering other positions at this time?
  • How does this job compare with them?

 

 

Listen carefully. If you feel the question is unclear, ask for clarification. Pause before answering to consider all facts that may substantiate your response. Always offer positive information; avoid negativity at all times. Get directly to the point. Ask if listener would like you to go into great detail before you do. Discuss only the facts needed to respond to the question.

Focus and re-focus attention on your successes.

Remember, the goal is not to have the right answers so much as it is to convince the interviewer that you are the right person. Be truthful, but try not to offer unsolicited information.

 

Some questions YOU might want to consider asking, when the interviewer asks you for your questions: Besides the usual questions about pay, hours, benefits and other tangibles, consider these questions:

  • Could you explain your organizational structure?
  • Can you discuss your take on the company’s Mission Statement? Workplace Values? How does the DSP fit in?
  • How would you characterize the management philosophy of this organization?
  • What is the rate of turnover for DSP’s? If high, ask why. Then ask what you can do to make this better.
  • What condition is morale in on the unit you might be assigned to work?
  • How long have some of your best DSP’s been employed by this facility?
  • How do you define the “best DSP”? What is this title based on?
  • Are there opportunities for advancement for DSP’s? A career ladder, for example.
  • What does the facility offer for continuing education opportunities?
  • Why should I accept a job offer from you?
  • Why do you work for this facility?

…these are tough questions and perhaps only seasoned DSP’s would feel comfortable asking them. To me these questions are worthy of being asked, and answers should be frank and honest. A negative response, as in “I don’t know” or “Why are you concerned with such things” would lead me to believe this facility doesn’t respect the front line staff who are employed there.

Most of us work because we have to. We need a paycheck. But we love to help people so we choose this special line of work-human services. The hands on care giver is the least respected, lowest paid person in the health care field. The one thing we can do for ourselves is work for facilities that indeed respect US through actions and words and policies. Since most of us spend a great deal of our time at work, why not work for the facility that treats us best? We can find this place through the right people and by asking the right questions. We can raise the standards we’re willing to work by!

7 Habits Of Highly INeffective DSPs

Today, we’re listing up 7 habits of highly INeffective DSP’s. If you recognize yourself, change your habits.

  1. She calls out often; or is late; or leaves early. A DSP cannot be effective when they are not at work.
  2. She is inflexible. She won’t alter her assignment to make things fair to all; she refuses to take on extra clients without a battle; she refuses to change her routine for the clients’ benefit.
  3. Teamwork: She either belongs to a clique or is a loner. The clique is negative and spends much time backstabbing other workers. The loner never smiles or offers to assist others. She isn’t helpful with new DSPs.
  4. She is on the phone. A lot. She makes calls when the boss isn’t watching, or even when the boss is watching. She feels entitled to have her phone on at all times.
  5. She spend a lot of “down” time in the office. Sitting. Doing her nails or braiding her hair, ignoring requests for help. Yet she has no problem gabbing with staff from other departments.
    She’s a gossip queen and a rumor monger. She seeks out others to spread stories and tales true and untrue.
  6. She never volunteers for anything. She avoids putting any extra effort or thought into situations that require it. Clients don’t dislike her, but they don’t favor her either. She doesn’t bring on smiles to those she encounters at work.

7 Habits Of Highly Effective DSPs

For years I have seen the books and articles titled, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People…so I thought I would come up with a list for DSPs.

  1. She is proactive. Proactive DSPs use their resourcefulness and initiative to find solutions rather than just reporting problems and waiting for other people to solve them.
  2. She has a personal mission statement. This is based upon personal morals and values- and it is almost always used as a stepping stone to make choices and decisions.
  3. She knows how to balance her time between clients. The DSP can set priorities based upon clients needs vs. wants. She recognizes when a needy client truly requires some TLC and when something else is going on.
  4. She isn’t interested in being in CONTROL. The DSP seeks a win/win relationship with her clients, but realizes this isn’t always possible. She will go out of her way to allow the client to maintain control with as many choices as possible. The client’s dignity and individuality is always respected.
  5. She listens to her residents. And uses effective communication skills to make sure she understands what is being said. The CNA knows some times a resident doesn’t understand her, so she goes out of her way to make sure she is understood.
  6. She works WITH the client to overcome conflicts and misunderstandings. Instead of being defensive, the DSP will admit to her faults in the problem, and will seek to improve and correct these issues.
  7. She knows when to step away. She knows she’s getting burnt out and is in need of a vacation, or a change in assignment.

The Nursing Process, And The CNA

In my experience working as a CNA in a nursing home, I rarely heard the term “Nursing Process”; I often heard about care plans- but that was about as descriptive as things would get. I remember asking a nurse- “Just what is a care plan, anyway?”- and she didn’t know how to answer me! So I have spent a long time researching this elusive term- “Nursing Process”- and trying to figure out exactly where the CNA fits in with it.

First, the medical team is broken into several layers. At the top is the patient- who has an illness, or condition requiring on going care. The Doctors are next- we all know they are well educated and have spent years learning how to diagnose and treat problems, illnesses, disease ect. Doctors are the only person within the medical team who can actually diagnose. Nurse Practitioners- in reality- cannot DX anything without checking with the MD. Physician Assistants often will see a patient and diagnose simple problems such as ear infections, but an MD will always go over the PA’s notes to make sure nothing has been missed. Same with Nurse Practitioners- the MD will oversee their work as well.

So this brings us to the next point: A patient, client, resident is admitted to a nursing unit. This can be in a hospital, nursing home, rehab center, even to the patient’s own home. Nurses are called upon to perform several steps to assist with the healthful and positive outcomes for these patients. The nursing process is a relatively new thing; in the 1960′s team based nursing came into fashion, but nurses had no way to let other team members know what to do with patients.
A process, based upon what scientists use, was developed. Over the years this process has been refined to what we know today.

 

 

The nursing process is divided into five steps.
1) Assessment
2) Nursing Diagnoses
3) Planning
4) Intervention
5) Evaluation

Where does the work of the CNA fall here, you may ask yourself? Let’s see if we can find some pretty common things CNA’s are asked to do, that are a part of helping the nurses with this process. It is assumed here that the patient/resident/client has a top level diagnoses from an MD, and a treatment plan is in place from the MD. This plan would include medications, treatments, special diets, procedures ordered by a doctor.

 

 


Step One: Assessment
Assessment involves continuous data collection to identify a patient’s actual and potential health problems. This data should be as objective as possible, and nurses should be as non-judgmental as possible as well. To perform the assessment, nurses should:
· Get Nursing History from patient
· Perform a physical examination
· Review lab and medical information

The nursing history is mostly subjective data. Often, the patient’s perception of his health problems makes up a large portion of the health history. Nurses should find out how the patient coped with a similar illness, what interventions worked, didn’t work ect.

A physical exam is the next step. This is where the CNA often assists the nurse. When we are asked to get heights and weights, vital signs, record food/fluid intake and output, it is almost always for the purpose of assessment. Although CNA’s do not make assessments, nurses depend upon us to report timely and accurate data. Things we see, smell, hear, feel and touch should be reported.

Nurses should perform a thorough exam by doing the following:
· Body Inspection- observation of patient- direct and indirect
· Palpation- feeling body regions for masses, smoothness, muscle tone
· Percussion-using fingers in a tapping motion to feel for abnormal sounds over body regions
· Auscultation- listening for sounds over body regions such as lungs, bowels…

Nurses are taught skills to perform a physical assessment in their schools.

Step Two: Nursing Diagnoses
Nurses are licensed to identify and treat certain human reactions and potential health problems associated with the illness, disease ect.
As we see, nurses have a huge responsibility when it comes to giving accurate diagnoses of a health/potential health problem. All the care given is based upon the proper Dx, the proper plan of care being written and the right interventions.
Based upon all the data collected- both subjective and objective, the nurse next will form a nursing diagnoses drawing from the above list of possible problems.

It is these terms in the list that we will often see when we look at a care plan. It isn’t something that comes lightly for nurses- this is one of the big reasons they need a college degree. Assessment is a big part of being a nurse, and it is an even bigger part of what we, CNA’s, do. It is absolutely vital that we report back accurate information. The care a patient gets, and hence the outcome of his health, depends upon good sound information.

Step Three: Care Planning
The Care Plan is a term we should all be familiar with. We all should know that the care plan is the bible for nursing care of patients, but what else should we know about this document? It is a legal document promising care being delivered as written; the nurse can get into huge amounts of trouble if her care plan isn’t followed. The care plan is designed to assist team members in delivering high quality, consistent care that is needed. Time spent performing tasks and care that is not needed results in wastes of money, resources. Effective care plans take into account unit staffing patterns, patient wishes and abilities, and should reflect who the patient is. A good nurse will seek the opinion of the CNA when writing the care plan. CNA’s can offer invaluable insights into the patient’s abilities and desires. All facilities should encourage CNA participation in care plan conferences.

Cookie cutter care plans are easily recognizable:
· They have the same nursing Dx
· They have the same interventions for all patients (seen often in nursing homes, where all residents have been known to be on a two hour bladder program)
· They don’t work!

A good care plan will be specific, realistic, clear and brief. It doesn’t need to be a long novel.
Anyone who is expected to deliver care from a care plan should be able to read the plan and understand it, including the patient when applicable, as well as the patient’s family.

Step Four: Interventions
This is where the CNA really comes into play! Often, the interventions are WHAT we do. All that turning, repositioning, toileting- are all interventions listed in the care plan. Also, a great amount of the documenting we do is designed to assist the nurse with evaluating these interventions. So it really makes sense to document accurately- in time- if an intervention IS NOT working, it will be noted (and perhaps removed from future care plans). Interventions can be anything from special baths to back rubs to repositioning, to toileting, to using special creams and lotions, to offering certain supplements. Often, an intervention must have an MD order along with it. This is kind of strange I think- if nurses are allowed to formulate their own Dx then they shouldn’t need an MD’s order to carry out some of the treatments to reach the goals. The most important part a CNA can play in this intervention stage is to accurately report all reactions to the interventions. Be as specific and objective as possible.

Step Five: Evaluation
This is the final step in the nursing process. This is the time when nurses look at their care plans and check to see if the plan has “worked” in solving the patients’ health issues, concerns, ect. As stated before, a good plan will work and a poor plan will not. Nurses will check to see if the interventions have been effective- they look at subjective as well as objective data. This is when they will see your good documentation! For example, if a patient were incontinent, and the patient wasn’t so until recent illness, the nurse might try a timed program approach to help the patient gain control again. IF the initial voiding assessments, done by the CNA, were not accurate (i.e.- CNA just wrote in times she guessed patient voided)- and the nurse put the resident on a two-hour program…when patient actually needed to go every hour- you can see how this intervention would fail.

The nursing process doesn’t end here- it continues until the patient is discharged or passes on or whatever. Sometimes a patient goes home with a care plan, and this is especially challenging for staff. If the nurse never saw the home environment, then chances are good that the care plan won’t work. Usually home health nurses do the plans for this population.

Some thoughts to Ponder…
As I said in the beginning of this page, I never knew what the nursing process was. I still have my books from my CNA classes, and I have several newer additions. It wasn’t until very recently that CNA’s were taught this process. This is too bad. I fear there are too many CNA’s out there who do not have a clue how important their work is. All the work, the documenting- would certainly take on a new meaning if CNA’s really understood their role, within the nursing process, as a whole. It would make a good in-service for any facility to offer: Nursing Process- What Is it?

Even of greater concern for me is the apparent lack of concern on the part of nurses who are charged with this process. Never mind those who don’t seem to know what it is, but what about those who DO know, yet follow their own approaches to deliver care. Hmm. I challenge all CNA’s to hold their nurses up to the standard when it comes to the Nursing Process. After all, if our work is to have any meaning at all, then the Process should be the standard. When a new patient is admitted onto a unit you work on, watch to see if a complete physical assessment is done by the nurse; see if any of the things you are asked to do may have a part in the assessment. Ask questions. Expect answers that make sense to you. A lot is at stake here, the patient’s well being. See if all your good documenting is worthwhile. Ask the nurses what will become of the notes you have written- those flow sheets should become a tool, not some paper put into a chart.

See if the system really works, or if it is just another process that is meaningless.