Top 7 Culture Fit Interview Questions in Nursing

Culture fit interview questions are designed to assess whether a nurse candidate’s values, standards, and attitude will contribute positively to your team. Asking candidates this type of question is an important part of the hiring process. Every unit within a healthcare facility has its own unique culture, which encompasses the habits and practices that define how teams work together. When hiring a new nurse, you ideally want someone who will strengthen your team’s culture, rather than detract from it.

Through learning more about a candidate’s personal values and goals, you can better determine how well they align with your team and the organization as a whole. In this article, we’ll explain how to ask cultural fit interview questions and provide seven examples that you can tailor to meet your needs. Each example question also contains a breakdown of what to listen for and ideas for follow-up questions that will help you gain even more insights about your applicants. Use our free, printable candidate evaluation form to help you stay organized.

With these questions mixed into your nursing interviews and tips on how to best evaluate responses, you’ll be able to identify top candidates who will not only fit in with your workplace, but also help your team thrive.

What Does Culture Fit Mean in Nursing?

Broadly speaking, culture fit refers to how well a nurse aligns with the mission and values that shape a facility’s culture. However, being a good cultural fit for a unit doesn’t mean that a nurse must fit into a uniform mold. Instead, it means that they bring in diverse perspectives (while respecting differing perspectives), positively contribute to team dynamics, and can effectively work toward shared goals.

The process of vetting through this lens is sometimes referred to as culture add, because you’re looking for a candidate who will be a positive addition to your unit or facility and bring a distinct voice to the healthcare team.

What Indicates That a Nurse Fits With an Organization?

There are many different nursing specialties, and what makes a nurse a good fit for an organization will largely depend on the type of unit they’re applying to. For instance, a school nurse may need to embody independence and educational values, whereas an operating room nurse may be expected to be assertive and a strong team player.

Beyond matching in terms of specialty, the nurse would also be in alignment with the organization’s shared, underlying principles, including:

• Core values
• Standards of patient care
• Standards of professionalism
• Approach to training and development

Why Should You Evaluate How a Nurse Fits With Your Workplace Culture?

Let’s say that you’re vetting two nursing candidates with relatively similar qualifications on paper. During the interview, one of them comes off very warm, compassionate, and eager to help their coworkers. The other is hyper-focused on negotiating pay rates and complains about one of their previous patients. In this situation, it’s fairly clear that one candidate has the potential to enhance your team’s culture, while the other might dampen it.

The bottom line is that workplace culture can largely influence how healthcare teams communicate and work together. Even if a nurse has exemplary clinical skills, they can negatively impact care if they have poor ethical standards or a pessimistic attitude. Especially in a collaborative profession like nursing, you want to make sure that a candidate can boost staff morale and contribute to your team’s success.

How to Prepare to Interview Candidates

Preparing to ask this type of interview question requires an understanding of what it is, exactly, that you will be evaluating. Your questions will be designed to assess the three C’s:

• Competence
• Character/Conscientiousness
• Chemistry

With interview questions for culture fit, there are no precise “right” or “wrong” answers, as there would be in a clinical question about how to best prioritize patient care tasks according to the ABCs, for instance. They’re not NCLEX-style questions. Without clear, correct answers, it can be tricky to glean insights. Here are three steps to help you prepare:

Take Stock of Your Organization’s Core Cultural Values

This may involve more than what’s expressed in your mission and values statements. For example, at a hospice facility with a faith-based mission, a core value may be holistic patient care, though it isn’t explicitly stated in agency materials.

Analyze Culture Gaps

Look for discrepancies between your organization’s ideals and what’s happening in reality. For example, a manager may identify that though her organization strives for a just culture, new nurses are hesitant to report errors due to fear of retribution from seasoned staff.

Be Sure to Avoid Equating Culture With Demographics

Be ready to catch yourself, if you think something like this: She’s from the North Shore, and went to B.U. just like Nija and Kerry so she’ll get along great with the team! Shift away from this type of flawed thinking by remembering the concept of culture add. You’re not looking for a carbon copy of existing team members, rather an individual who will expand and add to the team’s culture through positive contributions.

7 Cultural Fit Interview Questions for Nursing Professionals

Below are seven essential job fit interview questions for nurses that you can incorporate into your next hiring cycle.

1. What do you like most about working in healthcare?

This is an open-ended question that allows candidates to focus on what they value most about their job. Not only can you get a sense of their passion for the profession and working with patients, but also what type of attitude they might bring to your team.

If you’re interviewing a candidate without prior healthcare work experience, you can ask: What do you like most about engaging with the public? In general, cultural interview questions for students can be rephrased to relate to prior volunteer experience, customer-service jobs, or even participation on athletic teams.

What to listen for:

• Genuine passion, interest, and drive to care for patients
• Realistic and positive attitudes toward what the job entails

Potential follow-up questions:

• What makes you excited to come to work every day?
• How would your former colleagues describe you?

2. What made you interested in working for our facility?

Evaluating a candidate’s understanding of your facility’s mission and values is important when asking culture fit interview questions — and answers should indicate that a candidate has done their research. Beyond pay and benefits, this question can help you determine whether a candidate truly resonates with what your facility is doing and can articulate why.

What to listen for:

• Knowledge of your facility or unit’s mission, values, and opportunities
• Clear alignment of both personal and organizational goals

Potential follow-up questions:

• What aspects of our facility’s mission and values resonate with you most?
• What does your ideal work environment look like?

3. How do you integrate ethical standards when delivering patient care?

This cultural interview question evaluates a candidate’s morals and their ability to provide patient-centered care. While the nuances of cultural fit can vary by unit and specialty, a commitment to meeting ethical standards is an essential part of any healthy work culture.

What to listen for:

• Qualities that center around the needs of the patient and care team
• Well-rounded answers that showcase strong ethics, compassion, and thoughtfulness

Potential follow-up questions:

• What does cultural competence mean to you?
• As a healthcare professional, how do you work to maintain ethical standards?

4. You notice that a fellow coworker is struggling to start an IV. What do you do?

The way that a nurse interacts with their coworkers can tell you a lot about how they will impact your unit’s culture. This interview question about culture poses a real-world scenario, which can give you a better sense of a candidate’s approach to teamwork and collaboration.

What to listen for:

• Ability to be encouraging, communicative, and provide support to colleagues
• Willingness to go above and beyond to help the team when necessary

Potential follow-up questions:

• How much autonomy do you prefer to have when working on the floor?
• What would you do if you noticed a team member was breaking care protocols?

5. Think of a nurse manager, leader, or mentor who helped you deliver your best care. What were some of their top qualities?

When preparing cultural fit interview questions, it’s also important to evaluate how a candidate meshes with the nursing leadership team. This question assesses whether a candidate would be able to succeed under your current style of management, and maybe even highlight new perspectives that could help strengthen it.

What to listen for:

• Thoughtful consideration of how leadership styles can influence care delivery
• Leadership traits that align with the candidate’s perception of quality care

Potential follow-up questions:

• How do you respond to criticism or feedback?
• How would you describe your own leadership style?

6. Tell me about a time you had a “near miss” when delivering nursing care. What was the situation, and what steps did you take afterward?

It’s inevitable that nurses will have near misses while practicing. Whether it’s a bed sheet tangled in a walker, or picking up the wrong insulin bottle, every nurse can think of an experience that could have led to disaster, if not caught.

Communicating these events can help nursing teams identify systemic flaws and avoid future incidents. The way a nurse answers this will give you insight into their moral standards around honesty and transparency versus hiding and appointing blame.

What to listen for:

• Honest and open communication when relaying what happened
• Awareness of the importance of prioritizing patient safety
• The ability to engage in teamwork to identify systemic flaws

Potential follow-up questions:

• With regards to the incident you just shared, was there a positive outcome or new solution that happened as a result?
• What would you do if a nurse coworker complained to you about broken equipment?

7. Describe a time when you were in disagreement with a member of the multidisciplinary team. How did you handle it?

Nurses typically deliver patient care alongside members of other disciplines, like physical therapists and social workers. A portion of your interview questions about culture should address the candidate’s past working relationships with coworkers from these other disciplines.

What to listen for:

• Respect for diverse areas of expertise
• Willingness to learn from other members of the care team

Potential follow-up questions:

• How do you advocate for patients during multidisciplinary rounds?
• What would you do if you felt a physician wasn’t listening to your input about a patient’s care plan?

Find Nurses Who Can Answer Your Culture Fit Interview Questions

Finding well-rounded candidates in a high-demand profession like nursing can be a challenge. Tired of sifting through applications that don’t meet your facility’s standards? Post to our nursing-focused job board today and reach the right candidates faster.