How to hire a psychiatric nurse

How to hire a psychiatric nurse, step by step

Here's a step-by-step psychiatric nurse hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a psychiatric nurse job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new psychiatric nurse
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a psychiatric nurse do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your psychiatric nurse job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a psychiatric nurse for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a psychiatric nurse to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a psychiatric nurse that fits the bill.

   Here's a comparison of psychiatric nurse salaries for various roles:

   Type of Psychiatric Nurse	Description	Hourly rate
   Psychiatric Nurse	Registered nurses (RNs) provide and coordinate patient care, educate patients and the public about various health conditions, and provide advice and emotional support to patients and their family members.	$20-47
   Nurse Coordinator	A nurse coordinator is primarily in charge of overseeing all nurses and their activities in a hospital or clinic. Their responsibilities include managing and rotating schedules, assessing nurse performance, organizing nursing programs, and developing strategies to optimize procedures... Show more	$29-49
   Nurse Clinician	A nurse clinician is a health expert who provides care and assistance to patients in hospitals, clinics, or similar establishments. Among their responsibilities include preparing equipment and documents, administering medication, monitoring the patient's condition, maintaining charts, and regularly reporting to physicians... Show more	$23-42

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Patients
   • Mental Illness
   • CPR
   • Therapeutic Interventions
   • Psychiatric Care
   • IV
   • Direct Patient Care
   • Chemical Dependency
   • Crisis Intervention
   • Administer Medications
   • CPI
   • Transcription
   • Resuscitation
   • Vital Signs

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Organize and manage regular clinics involving external physicians, including ophthalmology, ENT, Med/Surg, orthopedics, and podiatry professionals.
   • Staff register nurse, acute medical rehabilitation unit.
   • Perform emergency triage differentiating psychiatric versus medical conditions.
   • Perform triage assessment, psychiatric evaluations, medication administration, psychotherapy and case management.
   • Provide comprehensive medical-psychiatric care to patients via assessment, planning, evaluation and supervision of therapeutic interactions.
   • Provide therapeutic communication and psychiatric rehabilitation with residents to assist with their recovery to return to the community.

   More psychiatric nurse duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your psychiatric nurse job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A psychiatric nurse can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, psychiatric nurses' average salary in oklahoma is 52% less than in rhode island.
   • Seniority. Entry-level psychiatric nurses 58% less than senior-level psychiatric nurses.
   • Certifications. A psychiatric nurse with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a psychiatric nurse's salary.

   Average psychiatric nurse salary

   $64,922yearly

   $31.21 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level psychiatric nurse salary

   $42,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 30, 2026

   Average psychiatric nurse salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$101,755	$49
   2	New Jersey	$85,179	$41
   3	Massachusetts	$84,323	$41
   4	New York	$80,732	$39
   5	Oregon	$77,257	$37
   6	Texas	$75,357	$36
   7	Nevada	$72,326	$35
   8	Arizona	$69,595	$33
   9	Pennsylvania	$68,594	$33
   10	Washington	$67,334	$32
   11	Virginia	$66,959	$32
   12	Maine	$66,954	$32
   13	Ohio	$65,173	$31
   14	Colorado	$61,216	$29
   15	Tennessee	$56,765	$27
   16	Missouri	$56,081	$27

   Average psychiatric nurse salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Highland General Hospital	$128,278	$61.67
   2	Alameda Health System	$122,021	$58.66	13
   3	HealthTrust	$82,596	$39.71	389
   4	Softpath System	$82,581	$39.70
   5	Hca Hospital Services Of San Diego	$77,833	$37.42	17
   6	KPG	$77,537	$37.28
   7	American Mobile Healthcare	$73,497	$35.34	2
   8	All Medical Personnel	$72,487	$34.85	309
   9	West Hawaii Community Health Center	$70,125	$33.71
   10	Wexford Health Sources	$69,825	$33.57	79
   11	Clinical Management Consultants	$68,928	$33.14
   12	CFG Health Systems	$68,669	$33.01	57
   13	New York State Restaurant Association	$67,547	$32.47
   14	Mount Nittany Medical Center	$64,942	$31.22	170
   15	Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers	$64,876	$31.19
   16	Recovery Innovations	$64,527	$31.02
   17	Medstar Health	$64,002	$30.77	144
   18	HealthRIGHT 360	$63,790	$30.67	31
   19	Ansible by Red Hat	$63,728	$30.64	55
   20	Horizon House	$62,864	$30.22	28

4. Writing a psychiatric nurse job description

   A job description for a psychiatric nurse role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a psychiatric nurse job description:

   Psychiatric nurse job description example

   If you are an existing employee of South Shore Health then please apply through the internal career site.
   
   Facility:
   LOC0001 - 55 Fogg Road55 Fogg
   Road
   Weymouth,
   MA 02190
   
   Department Name:
   SSH Emergency Department APC PB
   
   Status:
   Part time
   
   Budgeted Hours:
   0
   
   Shift:
   Day/Eve Rotation (United States of America)
   
   Under the general supervision of a supervising Psychiatrist, and in collaboration with the Exec. Dir., APCs, evaluates and implements treatment regimes for designated psychiatric patient population.
   
   1. Takes initial history, perform physical assessments, prepares psychosocial evaluation and care plans, including management of risk.a. Consults with physicians, psychiatrist and other clinical staff members as necessary.b. Diagnoses health and developmental problems.2. Provides services to specific patient population.a. Provides advanced practice nursing care to patients suffering from acute or chronic mental health problems, managing therapeutic regimes according to protocols.b. Identifies risk factors and implements appropriate prevention and intervention.c. Provides psychotherapeutic intervention, including crisis intervention, and health teaching to clients.d. Identifies patient teaching needs and plans for education process.e. Coordinates referrals and facilitates transfers.f. Provides psychopharmacologic/intervention services.3. Assists in the development of protocols for specific psychiatric patient population.a. Works collaboratively with selected disciplines to develop integrated care plans for the psychiatric patient population throughout the continuum.b. Acts as clinical resource to other nursing staff in area of specialization.c. Plans and participates in staff education programs.d. Provides consultative liaison services.4. Is knowledgeable of, and utilizes appropriate community resources.a. Participates in community outreach as appropriate to describe mental health program.b. Coordinates the delivery of care with other clinical staff, consulting and collaborating as appropriate.c. Establishes and maintains strong working relationships with providers of psychiatric and mental health services, including South Shore Hospital's psychiatric staff.5. Maintains standards for certification in specialty role and certification.6. Performs all required responsibilities/duties addressing the ages of the patients served if responsible for the assessment, treatment, or care of patients.Requires BSN, Masters Degree in psychiatric nursing/related field.Current certification in specialty through American Nurses Association with authorization to practice in the expanded role.License to practice in Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the expanded role.Minimum Work ExperienceMinimal four (4) to five (5) years of acute psychiatric nursing and crisis evaluation/intervention.
   varied
   
   Responsibilities if Required:
   
   Education if Required:
   
   License/Registration/Certification Requirements:

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find psychiatric nurses for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any psychiatric nurses they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level psychiatric nurses with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your psychiatric nurse job on Zippia to find and recruit psychiatric nurse candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as healthcarejobsite, health jobs nationwide, hospitalcareers, medreps.com.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit psychiatric nurses, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new psychiatric nurse

   Once you've decided on a perfect psychiatric nurse candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new psychiatric nurse first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a psychiatric nurse?