Most Common PSW Job Interview Questions

Did you recently get invited to a PSW job interview? Yes? Congratulations! You should know that getting an interview invitation is the first step towards developing a successful career in any field. Interviews are essential to the recruitment process, so you should expect to get interviewed several times throughout your career as you move up the ladder. Now, to help you prepare for the occasion, we have prepared a list of PSW interview questions that will certainly come in handy. Keep reading to find out more.

PSW Job Interview Questions

When it comes to PSW job interviews, the questions you'll be asked usually belong to one of these three categories: situational, technical, and behavioral. This differentiation is important because each type of question requires you to structure answers in a certain way to show the interviewer that you do possess the experience, qualifications, and skills they are looking for.

Common Situational PSW Job Interview Questions:

1. One of your patients/residents/clients falls to the ground from their bed or while trying to walk, how would you help?
2. One of your patients/residents/clients refuses to eat, what would you do?
3. How would you deal with an aggressive patient/resident/client?
4. What would be your approach if that aggressive patient is usually calm and content, but his/her behaviour changed all of a sudden?
5. In a nursing home setting, how would you manage a situation of a resident requiring your assistance while you’re attending to another resident?

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These PSW job interview questions are intended to get a general idea of your experience and problem-solving skills. In every case, you need to make sure to demonstrate you are an empathetic and caring healthcare worker that doesn’t panic when faced with difficult situations, and instead finds effective solutions to these common situations, while always putting the wellbeing of patients first.

Some of these situations (like the hypothetical fall of a patient or when a patient refuses to eat) also require you to get other members of the team involved to provide the appropriate checkups and medical attention, if necessary. Expressing this to the interviewer will show that you are a good team player who knows when to ask for help and is not trying to do more than you realistically can within the scope of your work and expertise.

In the case of attending to multiple patients at once, it is important that you deliver a clear and practical answer about how you would address this, especially because this often happens in nursing home settings and employers are expecting you to know what to do without hesitation.

The right answer here would be to assure the interviewer that you would finish working with your current patient and then would go straight to the other patient, but in the meantime, you would try to get another PSW to check on him or her in case there is a pressing matter that requires immediate attention. Above all, the most important idea you need to communicate is that you would never abandon a patient or a task before completing it first, and then you would proceed with what’s next.

Another difficult situation is dealing with an aggressive patient or a patient with an aggressive mood swing. In these cases, you need to assure the interviewer that you are able to remain calm, assess the situation, and figure out the best way to help them calm down, especially if you are dealing with a senior patient that has been diagnosed with dementia.

Common Technical PSW Job Interview Questions:

1. What’s the common procedure to perform a patient’s transfer using a Hoyer or a mechanical lift?
2. Describe how you would safely carry out a transfer from a wheelchair to a toilet.
3. Are you familiar with Ontario’s Bill of Rights for people living in Long Term Care?  Can you mention some of its rights?
4. Tell me about your education. What other courses or certifications do you have related to your PSW training?
   

Your answer to these questions will allow the interviewer to evaluate your technical knowledge in the field. For this reason, when answering you need to come across as professional, confident, respectful of your patients, detail-oriented, and committed to your career. These questions will also let the interviewer assess your communication skills, which are essential for performing successfully as a PSW.

Additionally, when being asked questions about the specific courses and certifications you have completed, you must be clear, straightforward, and transparent with the interviewer, even volunteering some extra information like when and where you received these classes and whether or not these certifications are up to date. Doing this will save you from unfortunate misunderstandings down the line.

Common Behavioral PSW Job Interview Questions:

Finally, as in any other job interview, some of the PSW job interview questions you will be asked will revolve around your behaviour and personality. These are the questions that will help the interviewer decide if you are actually a good fit for their company in the team. Some of the questions you might get are:

1. Are you a good team player? Why would you say so?
2. What are your techniques to handle stress in work settings?
3. What would you say are your most notable strengths and weaknesses as a worker?
4. What are your immediate professional goals?
5. Why would you like to work for our company?

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And there you have them, the most common PSW job interview questions you might encounter in your job search. Knowing them beforehand will help you prepare, practice in front of a mirror, and get to your interview more relaxed and confident of your own qualifications.

If you think we missed any PSW job interview questions, please let us know in the comment section below.

Good luck!