Building Collaborative Teams: Teaching Graduate Students Strategies for Effective Hiring

Master’s level nurses will assume leadership positions that require the development of collaborative teams to meet quality outcomes in clinical and academic settings.  Some of the leadership skills essential to team building include communication, collaboration, negotiation, and coordination (American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), 2011).  A key component to building an effective team includes employing qualified personnel by recruiting the most appropriate candidate for the position.  Yet, often potential employees are hired because of the need to rapidly fill an empty position (Roussel, 2013).  Cottrell’s leadership principles suggest that leaders should “hire tough” to manage easy and avoid potential problems even if this process requires more time (Cottrell, 2002).  Although faculty serve on search committees they may lack experience recruiting appropriate personnel or assisting with this decision making process. 

This presentation will describe a learning activity that was implemented in a graduate nursing leadership course to address effective skills for hiring.  Students were given case scenarios of potential candidates and asked to rank them based on the information provided.  The students served on fictitious search committees and worked in groups to determine the best candidates for the positions.  Students identified strengths and weaknesses for each candidate and used a variety of skills including communication, collaboration, negotiation, and decision making skills to reach consensus on ranking the candidates.  Each group shared their rankings with the entire class and further discussed the candidates to reach final agreement. 

An overview of the learning activity, how it assisted students to understand principles of effective recruitment and hiring will be discussed in the presentation.  The presentation will also describe how the activity promoted leadership skills necessary to build collaborative teams and reach consensus. 

American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2011).  The essentials of master's education in nursing.  Author.

Cottrell, D.  (2002).  Monday morning leadership.  Dallas, TX: Cornerstone Leadership Institute.

Roussel, L.  (2013).  Management and leadership for nurse administrators (6th ed).  Mobile, AL: Jones & Bartlett Learning.