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Not so sure what questions you should be asking after your CRNA school interview? It is essential to ask the RIGHT questions to leave a good LAST impression.
Today’s episode will tell you more about which questions you should and should NOT ask during your CRNA school interview. And why it is important to have these questions prepared beforehand.
Let’s dive in!
Episode Timestamps
02:44 – Preparing at least one or two questions for the interview panel is important
04:26 – Why asking about the turnover rate for faculty could be an interesting question
06:39 – Ask questions that would let them give their personal opinion about their CRNA program
07:39 – How you could creatively ask about the attrition rate in their CRNA program and the reasons behind it
10:20 – Ask about how their CRNA program promotes wellness for their students and residents
12:12 – Check if they are lecturing about emotional intelligence with their current students
13:22 – Know if their CRNA program provides workshops or sessions for the incoming cohort
Cheers to your success, future CRNA! We’re rooting for you!
Join the Free CSPA Community! Connect with a network of Aspiring CRNAs, Nurse Anesthesia Residents, practicing CRNAs and CRNA Program Faculty Mentors here: https://www.cspaedu.com/community
Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped 1,000s of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join
Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email
Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com
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Questions to Ask During A CRNA Interview
Welcome back to another episode of the CRNA School Prep Academy podcast. I’m your host Jenny Fennell, and thank you so much for joining me this week. So today we’re going to cover what are some questions that you should be asking the interview panel after your CRNA school interview.
As you may know, CSPA has two expert contributors, Richard Wilson and Dawn AuBuchon; they both haive well over 10 years’ experience as Assistant Program Director and Program Director, so they come to CSPA with a lot of insight over the last decade on guiding students to get into their programs and how to make them competitive candidates.
I’ve recently asked them this question because this gets asked a lot in our community and in mentorship sessions, so today I’m going to share some insights from them as far as what types of questions they like to get from students during the CRNA interview as far as questions at the end.
How Many Questions Should You Prepare?
Now, I also want to start this off with saying that you should have at least one question for the interview panel. I have heard program faculty say that they get to the very end of the interview, it might’ve been a really good interview, and then they ask their student, the interviewee, if they have any questions for them and they say no.
It kind of just leaves ’em feeling like, oh, come on. I want you to have something to ask me. So you should have at least one question prepared, if not at least two to ask them so you’re not freezing when they ask “So what questions do you have for me?”
Now, you don’t want to have a laundry list. I would encourage you to pick one or two questions, maybe a third question, but for the most part, I think two is probably where I think most students should call it quits, because again, they usually are on a time restriction when interviewing you, and they just don’t have time to answer five or six or 10 questions.
Do NOT Ask These Questions
You also want to be very, very careful that you’re not asking questions that you can easily find out through visiting their website. This is a big red flag for a lot of programs that just shows that you didn’t do your due diligence and really thoroughly read through their program and what their program’s all about.
There are also a lot of schools who will kind of do what I call kind of a meet and greet prior to the interview where you mix and mingle with students and the program faculty actually introduce the program and it hit a lot of questions that students typically have about their program.
So this tends to make it kind of tricky because then you may have had a question prepared, but if they went over that during that time, you clearly don’t want to be asking that question. Then it just shows that you didn’t listen.
And also sometimes programs do that on purpose to cut down on how many questions students have for them because like I said, they typically maybe have a one or two questions tops that you can ask them during the time frame that they have to interview.
Either way, I asked for guidance from both Richard and Dawn to see what they had to say about students asking questions at the end of the interview. They gave some great suggestions! Some of the questions that were recommended are turnover rate for faculty, which I found very interesting.
“What’s the Faculty Turnover Rate?”
I personally would never have thought to ask that question. But the reason why I think this question is really good is because if they have had a high turnover rate for faculty, and I hate to say this, but a lot of programs do, it could indicate some instability or potentially, how can I say this..If they have all this new faculty, it could make your time as a student even a little more challenging is probably a good way to put it, because they’re going to have some kinks to work out.
When I was in school, we had a program director retire. We had a new assistant director that also taught class, and I remember she came in with, she didn’t have notes, she didn’t have anything to go by because the previous professor would just really talk off the cuff and didn’t really necessarily have a lot of prepared notes. This newer person struggled during the time that we came into her course, and I know she worked so hard and she did a great job, but was it a little intermittently kind of challenging? Yeah, it was.
It made for a transition that kind of reflected a little more challenge on us, the student body. At the end of the day we all did great, we all went on to become CRNAs, it was fine, but it is something to kind of consider and think about- if they have a high turnover rate in faculty and could that signal some instability. And why is that?
If they have had longstanding faculty members, that’s a really good indication that the program is very stable. Like I said, the program that I went to, the director retired after, I don’t know how many years, probably well over 15, 20 years. It was a very long time. And even now, I mean for the most part, that program over the last 40 years has only been run by two people, which is amazing. So I think that’s a good thing.
Also suggested, what does your faculty enjoy most about the program, which I think is really interesting, and it kind of lets them give their own personal opinion, which I think is a great question to ask because it’s not something, again that you can find on their website. It will allow you to find out something maybe a little more unique that maybe only insiders would know about.
“Is Professional Development Supported?”
For example, another question is about support or encouragement for professional development. Do they support or encourage students to attend professional events through the a state associations, those types of things.
I think that’s really key too because some schools are really, really proactive with it and really make sure they get their students involved and other programs, it’s optional, it’s there, but essentially it’s a little more on the students to take initiative to do it versus the programs really saying, “You need to go do this” kind of thing. It just would be based on your own values, based on what you want out of your education. I think that’s a great question to ask.
Reasons for Attrition Rate
Another question is “What are the two most common reasons for attrition in your program?” I think that’s really awesome as well because, instead of saying, “Can you explain your attrition rate?” And yes, you guys, some schools have a significantly high attrition rates. Some schools that I know of have 35%. I mean, that’s very, very high. Some schools historically have a low attrition rate, maybe less than 10%, and then all of a sudden one year boom, they have 30%. So what happened? It leaves you wondering.
Now it’s not always a bad thing on the school, so don’t read into it. Don’t not apply to a school just because they have a high attrition rate, there could be a very good reason for that. I know with the year that, I mean 2020 was quite a year, right? That year programs had a very, almost all programs across the board had a little bit higher attrition rate.
But is it at the fault of the programs? No. I mean, granted, there was a lot of things going on transitioning to virtual, and sure that was an added challenge and stressor on the student body, but it could have also been the students having personal problems as well with everything going on that year.
Questions to Ask During Your CRNA School Interview: Some schools historically have a low attrition rate, maybe less than 10%, and then all of a sudden one year boom, they have 30%. So what happened? It leaves you wondering.
So it’s not always a negative reflection on the program, but it could indicate such. So it’s kind of important to kind of say, well, what are the two most common reasons that you feel like your attrition rate is 30% or whatever it is, 20%, and see what they say.
Sometimes you literally have students who get into CRNA school who then decide that it’s not for them, and that’s no fault of the program. If anything, that’s why I need to shadow a CRNA because I can’t imagine getting into schooling and deciding, oh, this is not what I want to do. That does happen.
I’ve had students who maybe have had medical problems or who got diagnosed with cancer or now have this major medical thing looming over them, or they decided to take a year off so they could start a family, or they did start a family and they decided to drop out. Whatever the reason is, it may not be anything wrong with the program. So I think it’s an important question to ask.
Wellness Opportunities
Another question that is suggested for the interview panel, Dr. AuBuchon says she likes creative questions, which I think is really cool. Ask about how the program encourages wellness for their students and residents. So yeah, I think this is a really great question because, well, first, wellness is really at the priority of what schools are realizing their students really need.
I mean, like I said, 2020 was a hard year. I think it kind of unraveled a lot of weak points in CRNA schooling, and a lot of that stems from not allowing students to really focus on their own wellness or not having students really prepared to focus on their wellness.
Like I mentioned in other episodes, that’s a really, really a vital step to making sure that you know what you need and making sure you’re still doing those things despite being really busy. But what are the schools doing to encourage wellness for their students?
I think it’s kind of interesting to know if they have, maybe they have some certain programs, some programs even have free counselors that you can go to, so might be kind of a cool way to find that out. Do they have a wellness leader for each cohort that plans wellness events for the students’ residents?
That’s not very common, I would say, to have a program have a focus on having a wellness leader within their program. I think that’s a really great idea. And so it’s a really neat thing to bring up and ask about. Even if they don’t have an answer to that question, they could be like, “Oh, we don’t. But that’s a really great idea.” And then you maybe take the lead for that.
You can come in their program and you can be the wellness leader. You see how you can kind of spin that a little bit. You can share that you’re really passionate about that and how you would love to help that kind of program exist in their program. So I think that’s a really great and unique question.
Questions About The CRNA Curriculum
Another question to ask: Do the current students learn about emotional intelligence? I think that’s really cool too, because again, I went to school back in 2012, 2014, and EI definitely was not taught, but I know my kindergarteners are taught this now! I mean, it should be part of a curriculum, and I think it’s really important.
I’ve mentioned to so many times that mindset’s a huge game changer for CRNA school. If you can go into CRNA school with the right mindset, you’re going to be so much happier and do so much better. So emotional intelligence is part of mindset, and it’s also will ease your time in the clinical realm because if you have the understanding of what emotional intelligence is and how you can be more aware of maybe your own emotional intelligence, it’ll allow you to communicate better.
It’ll allow you to read the room better, it’ll allow you to show up better. It’ll allow you to have better relationships, not just in clinical, but personal relationships too. So it’s a really, really important factor in just overall satisfaction and success in your life. So I think it’d be really cool, even if it was just one lecture on emotional intelligence, I think that’s a really cool thing to ask if their program focuses on at all.
Another example: does the program provide a class or workshop on the business of anesthesia? This is really cool too. I know a lot of programs are now focusing on this a little bit, at least the programs I’m aware of. But again, this is something that when I was a student, was not focused on really, we did some legal stuff, but that was really it. We didn’t really go over a lot of the business of anesthesia. So I think that’s a really cool question and something unique.
Big shout out to Jeff Molter, who is a CRNA, who is a regional director of the AANA and he teaches the business of anesthesia. He is phenomenal. His lecture will knock your socks off. It’s so insightful. So I know he speaks at a lot of programs across the country on this topic, but again, I think understanding whether your school values that, and I think as a CRNA, I think you should have some understanding on your worth and what you bring to the table as a provider.
Another question is what type of pre-matriculation workshops or sessions are provided to the incoming cohort? For example, like a writing workshop or a support person seminar? So some programs actually kind of have, I know the best comparison I can think of is little sibs where you have a big siblings, little siblings, where essentially you have some upperclassmen who kind of take an underclassmen under their wing. The kind of buddy-buddy system kind of thing. I think that’s a really cool thing that some programs do for their students.
Or having little mix and mingle sessions with upperclassmen for that. And also workshops for the writing, because I’ve mentioned this before, that a lot of students come into CRNA school and maybe you’re rusty in that area because you don’t have a lot of writing to do in your time as a nursing student.
So I think having a writing workshop or just setting the expectation of what they expect from you is a really, really great way to start a program. We actually do this inside of our NAR Boot Camp that we have, the Nurse Anesthesia Resident Boot Camp. We actually do do scholarly writing in that bootcamp because we do see this as a weakness in an area that schools are essentially letting us know, yes, if students struggle, this is what they struggle with. And writing is one of them.
So these questions are all really great things to consider. Of course, if you have something else that you already had in mind, I’m not saying don’t go with your question, that’s perfectly fine, but I hope this kind of gave you guys some good insight on something different, something unique to ask the programs so that way if you go to a mix and mingle event prior to your interview and they answer all your other questions, you at least now have a different ideas to pull from.
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, cheers to your future. Be sure again to grab the interview study guide below so you can start preparing for your interview. Stay strong and I’ll see you next week!
Important Links
FREE! CRNA School Interview Prep Guide: https://www.cspaedu.com/irptwqbx
Join the Free CSPA Community! Connect with a network of Aspiring CRNAs, Nurse Anesthesia Residents, practicing CRNAs and CRNA Program Faculty Mentors here: https://www.cspaedu.com/community
Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped 1,000s of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join
Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email
Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com
