Getting invited to an interview is a nerve-racking but exciting experience: you’re one step closer to your ideal paramedic role.
No matter your experience level or qualifications, it’s often the interview that sways recruiters’ minds and leads to a job offer. So to increase your chances of success, practice these common paramedic interview questions ahead of time.
Common Paramedic Interview Questions You Should Prepare For
Why Should We Hire You?
This question allows you to lead with your best selling points, but its open-ended nature often leaves job-seekers nervous and unsure. To help you, review the job listing as well as the health service’s website and social media accounts to work out exactly what they’re looking for.
For example, you could say:
I’m a compassionate paramedic who has worked for three years in an inner-city location like this one. I perform well under pressure and have ACLS, PALS, NRP and BLS certifications. I also appreciated the emphasis given to continuous learning in the job listing, because I embrace every opportunity to develop my skills. In fact, next week I’m doing an IABP course.
Other versions of this question include: Tell us about yourself. What are your strengths? What skills are important for a paramedic? Why are you a good paramedic? Why do you want this role?
What’s Your Biggest Weakness?
Paramedics often dislike this question and try to give a false answer, like “caring too much about protocols.” It’s understandable: you want to tell your interviewer about your best attributes, not your weakest ones. However, this is a surefire way to fail this question because the interviewer is looking for self-awareness rather than perfection.
Instead, treat this question as a chance to show how much you’ve improved, using the STAR — Situation, Task, Action, Result — model. For example:
“My biggest weakness is that I feel nervous when challenging more experienced paramedics, for example when they don’t want to follow protocol (situation). I know it’s important to do so, because following protocol ensures patient safety, so I really wanted to feel more confident with this (task).
“I made a list of assertive yet polite ways to express disagreement and rehearsed saying them before shifts (action). The other day, I was partnered with an experienced paramedic who wanted to ignore a frequent flyer, and I was surprised by how calmly I was able to challenge them and insist on going to the call. My partner was annoyed at the moment, but later on, they told me that I’d done the right thing (result).”
You might also be asked: How are you working to improve as a paramedic? Tell me about a mistake you made at work, and how you handled it.
How Would You Respond to a Patient Experiencing… an Epileptic Seizure, Drug Overdose, Heart Attack, Etc.?
These are simple procedural questions designed to check your knowledge level. The good news is that you shouldn’t find them difficult. The bad news is that in an interview, you may get nervous and forget basic information. Come prepared with some fillers to buy you time (That’s a good question; Well, my first priority would be…).
If you have experienced these situations recently, you could also explain how you handled them, as well as what you might do differently next time. Use the STAR technique to help you structure this.
Similar questions include how to use equipment or what you would do if a patient exhibited certain symptoms.
What Would You Do If You Were First on Scene for a Multiple-Casualty Incident?
This question is designed to test your understanding of protocols as well as your ability to prioritize. Again, if you have experience with this, you can explain what you did and learned instead of talking in hypotheticals. Alternatively, your answer should be something like this:
"My first priority would be initiating the primary triaging and tagging of all casualties until more responders arrived and a triage officer was appointed. After the primary triage, I would begin the secondary triage and treatment of any patients in a critical state, followed by those in urgent and then minor states.
When other responders arrived, I would work with them to ensure someone was also regularly re-triaging urgent and minor casualties in case their condition worsened."
Other common protocol-based questions include: How would you handle multi-agency calls, such as crime scenes? What would you do if you suspected domestic or child abuse? How would you respond to a “frequent-flyer” call? What would you do if you and your partner disagreed about the best course of action?
Tell Me About a Call You Struggled With
Most of the time, interviewers ask questions that begin with “tell me about” to learn about your work style. It’s not so much about what happened but how you handled it and what you learned. Use the STAR technique to help you demonstrate this.
For example: "One call I really struggled with was a traffic incident involving a child with learning difficulties. They were scared, they wanted their parents and I struggled to communicate with them (situation). I needed to treat them, but to do so, I needed to calm them down and make sure they understood what was happening (action)."
"I used a steady voice and explained things with simple language (action). Eventually, I was able to treat them (result). However, I wasn’t satisfied with how I handled it, so afterward, I asked my mentor for advice and did a course on treating people with learning difficulties to make sure I was better prepared the next time (what you learned from it)."
Similar questions include: Tell me about a time you disagreed with a fellow paramedic. Tell me about your proudest moment.
How Do You Decompress After a Tough Shift?
Being a paramedic is a rewarding but difficult job. It’s often emotionally draining and physically exhausting, as you deal with the loss of patient life, high-stress situations and challenging manual tasks.
Interviewers will want to know that you have the mental resilience and emotional intelligence to recognize when you need to decompress — as well as the tools to do it in a healthy and productive way.
A good answer would be: "After a tough shift, I know the importance of decompressing. I like to do some yoga or meditation. Plus, I make sure to lead a healthy lifestyle, including getting plenty of sleep, to improve my mental well-being."
Stand Out from the Crowd with an Eye-Catching Paramedic Resume
The first step to acing an interview is impressing the recruiter or hiring manager with your resume.
Unfortunately, recruiters see hundreds of resumes, and they often discard them after just seconds. Your resume needs to immediately capture their attention and demonstrate that you’re the ideal candidate for the job.
Here at Rocket Resume, we’ve got a wide choice of paramedic resume templates that will help you. Each one comes with recruiter-suggested phrasing and is fully customizable to your experience level, education and more. Plus, they’re ATS machine-readable.
Build your resume in just 10 minutes so you can increase your chances of getting invited to interviews.