Probably one of the toughest challenges you face as a nurse leader is deciding whom to hire. Reviewing qualifications, finding a balance between experience and education, and hoping the candidate has the right personality to fit with the team is difficult. However, if you add to this a 15- to 20-minute time constraint without the use of visual cues, finding the right travel nurse seems not only daunting, but nearly impossible.

Not so, according to Susan Stoner, assistant nurse manager, Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington, Vt., whose 31 years of interviewing staff and travel nurses help her strategically staff a distinctively large acute cardiology department.

"Our unit is extremely unique," she says. "We're a 50-bed cardiology unit without surgical patients. We do have some other medical patients, but we're highly concentrated in the cardiology area. I find that many travel nurses that work around the country get in units where there are neurosurgery patients, urology patients, renal patients, medical patients, and surgical patients, who are all there because they need a monitor; however, the unit's not concentrating on the cardiology aspect."

Using the profiles offered by travel nurse staffing companies is the first step for nurse leaders tackling the job of finding a compatible candidate.

"With travel nurses, I try to gauge my questions according to what I see on their profile," says Stoner. "Because we're a telemetry cardiac unit, many travelers have telemetry listed on their profile. But I often delve into what type of unit they're familiar with, because there are many different types of telemetry units, with different types of patients, from surgical patients to medical patients."

Stoner often falls back on her numerous prior interviewing experiences. She finds the knack of viewing the interview from both her perspective and that of the candidate to be an invaluable asset.

After perusing the profile, selecting a candidate to interview, and introducing the candidate to the position and geographic location through the interview, it's time to turn the floor over to the candidate. This is where Stoner gleans more information about the candidate's qualifications and personality traits.

"The kinds of questions I anticipate are about team-work, cooperation, and caring for the patients; who's on board; who's assisting with different tasks; and whether it's a teaching institution or community hospital," Stoner says. "I also anticipate being asked how long I've been here and what my experience has been, so they can be assured I'm quite familiar with the institution."

Don't forget to determine the size of the hospital and unit at which the candidate previously worked. "A 50-bed unit like ours is quite large," Stoner says. "We're the largest unit in this hospital. I don't know of a lot of cardiology units that are that large and totally cardiology-based. Candidates are kind of surprised by the number of beds we monitor, so I ask if they feel equipped to handle it. I also ask if they were at a teaching hospital."

It's most important for you to make an assessment of honesty-on your part and on the part of the interviewee. Don't focus solely on getting a nurse into a much-needed staff position. Justifying a lacking candidate to fill the vacancy not only leads to putting a travel nurse out of a position, it also creates a dysfunctional unit out of what could have been a well-tuned group.

"If the skills travel nurses tell me about don't match what's on their profiles, I ask quite a few questions," says Stoner. "If I take on nurses who profess to have skills they're actually lacking, they're not able to function here. I've interviewed people who've opted not to come after completing an entire interview because the job sounded too intensive. I think I convey the message about this setting's intensity. I explain how many discharges we have per day and how many admissions we take in, which can be quite overwhelming to people who may have worked on smaller units."

At that point, it's back to the staffing company to search for candidates who can better fit the job description. The process may sound cyclical, but, to Stoner, it's well worth the wait.

"I've not yet hired a traveler who didn't have the necessary skills," she says. "Some of them really grew their skills: Maybe they were weak in one area with pacemakers and, during their stint here, they learned a lot. It's worked out very well for both sides."