Coventry Nursing Interview Questions & Tips

University of Coventry Nursing Interview Tips & Questions

Key Information

You will need BCC at A Level, with no specific subjects being preferred. However, General Studies is not accepted. You may have the equivalent in BTEC or IB. At GCSE, you must have 5 GCSEs graded at C or higher, to include English Language, Mathematics, and a Science. You must have your degree certificates ready to show at the interview.

Applicants who rank well in the academic scoring are invited to attend a ‘selection event’ which will provide detailed information about the course, and assess your aptitude through an interview and a short written exam. Coventry explains that their assessment - including the interview - uses a values based recruitment approach. This means that they are specifically looking for candidates with the appropriate values to work in an MDT (multi disciplinary team) with the goal of delivering excellent patient care.

Coventry is ranked in the top 5 universities for Nursing in the UK according to the Guardian University Guide 2020. Coventry places an emphasis on using the latest technology to role play, and on the use of scenarios to aid learning. They state that this approach helps to contextualise the information that you learn.

Students at Coventry benefit from mock wards that let you study a patient’s full journey from admission to discharge, a mock ambulance, and a clinical skills centre that has up-to-date equipment and simulators. There is also a full-size mock operating theatre, containing scrub sinks and theatre lights.

Coventry’s course is designed as a spiral - meaning that the core competencies you develop are built up and added to throughout the degree. The ‘core’ of the spiral is patient assessment. There is an emphasis on inter-professional learning, meaning that you will have the opportunity to interact with, learn from, and learn with other health and social care students. This is a great chance to understand the working environment that you will be a part of in future.

Nursing Interview Question Bank

Nursing Interview Techniques

What do Coventry Look for?

Coventry explain that they particularly seek evidence of caring experience - be it paid or voluntary. You should have a range of experience to draw upon, and be clear on how this experience has informed your desire to become a nurse.

Coventry believes their graduates should be ‘effective communicators’ who are ‘compassionate… and have the capacity to be emotionally resilient.’ They will also be able to take leadership roles, and work fairly autonomously. This means that you should ensure your communication skills and leadership are well evidenced through your personal statement and answers at interview. Consider roles that you have taken, and experiences that you have had, and how to best describe them.

What do previous students say?

Previous students explain that you will sit a 20 minute written exam before your interview itself. Normally this might involve writing an answer to a basic question like, ‘Why do you want to study Nursing at Coventry University?" Only your ability to write coherently is analysed, not your answer itself. Coventry seem to rely heavily on scenario questions, especially those that feature ethical or professional quandaries. The assessors will be looking for the correct attitude, and the reasoning behind your answers.,

Example Questions for Coventry Nursing Interviews

Do you think that your work experience has given you a good overview of Nursing as a whole?
Tell us about your unpaid caring experience.
Tell us how the nurses that you shadowed could have done better.
Why do you think that we require a range of work experience in our students?
What impressed you in particular about the nurses that you shadowed?
How did you try to undertake a range of different work experience?
Why is communication important to a nurse?
Tell us about the team that nurses work in.
Are you a good leader?
Tell us about a team that you have led in the past.
Imagine that your supervisor repeatedly shows up to work drunk. What do you do?
Imagine that you catch your friend reading confidential patient notes on a placement. What do you do?
Imagine that one of your patients subjects you to repeated verbal abuse. What do you do?
Imagine that one of your fellow students has got in trouble with the police, but refuses to tell the university about this. What do you do?

University of Coventry Nursing Interview Tips & Questions

​Further Reading....

Further Reading....