Cone Health Nurse Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process here was absolutely terrible and the most unprofessional I've ever encountered. They completely disrespected my time and treated me like I had none to spare. They strung me along for almost two months for a job that had already been decided for an internal candidate. I had two interviews, then met the whole team. They had me come in to shadow the team, which took two and a half weeks to schedule because they claimed they wanted me to fully experience the role. I turned down other job offers because I was really excited about this one and they made it seem like I was going to get an offer. I went in on the scheduled day and shadowed several team members for about four hours. Then they said I'd hear back in 1-2 weeks. After two weeks, I called to check on a decision. They told me they decided to go with an internal candidate, had already offered them the job, and were just waiting for that person to decide. Since that person accepted, I was out. So essentially, they had me interview a bunch and do four hours of unpaid training for a job I was never really considered for. I get interviewing multiple people, but making someone wait so long just to give your preferred candidate more time to think about it is unprofessional and rude. If you interview here, know they like internal candidates and will waste your time if it's convenient for them.

I applied online and heard back with an email to set up a phone interview within a week. During the phone interview, they asked about my favorite and least favorite clinical rotations, a time I dealt with a difficult patient, a time I helped a coworker, any community service I'd done, which academy I was interested in and why, and why I'd be a good fit. I also scheduled a face-to-face interview during the phone call. The in-person interview was quick, under 15 minutes, and the interviewers were really nice and made me feel at ease. I got the offer within 3 days, and some others heard back saying they weren't selected.

My best advice for any nurse interviewing at Cone Health is to negotiate your salary. I actually turned down their offer twice, but on the third try, they significantly increased it beyond what I had initially considered. While they might state a fixed rate based on years of experience, don't accept it at face value. Cone is currently offering a substantial sign-on bonus, and there's a good reason for that – they're in great need of nurses, so you should definitely leverage this situation! Honestly, Cone has been the most challenging health system I've worked for in nearly 30 years of nursing, so that higher pay is really your compensation for dealing with a lot of difficulties and negativity.