New Grad moving to LA and having trouble with finding a JOB - any help

Have you tried just contacting hospitals directly? www.hospitalsoup.com has a search feature where you can get a list and contact info for every hospital in the city.

There are plenty of jobs here in LA; don't worry about it you will definitely find one. I went to a New Grad open house and they were doing on the spot interviews, which I think is actually the best way to go. There are several hospitals that have interview days and you just go in and interview. Maybe contact the hospitals you are looking at and ask them if they have it. I am sure that King/Drew hospital has two days per month. St. Joseph's in the city of Orange has interview days. Just call Human Resources. You will find a job.

Be forewarned that King/Drew has a not-so stellar rep out here.

Under no circumstances go any where near King/Drew, aka "Killer King".

UCLA and Cedars are the best in the LA area, Huntington Memorial in Pasadena, Torrance Memorial and Little Company of Mary in Torrance. If you've got your CA RN license and current BLS you should have no trouble getting a job, but you may have to wait until a new grad course opens in the hospital you want to get hired. (Some hospitals require you start with their new grad progam if you don't have experience)

In your original post you said you were looking for a med surg position. Is there a reason why you changed to home health? You also said you're not sure about what you're doing but that you're desperate to move. I'm not trying to discourage you but I think its important that you not do this in a hurry. Moving to other side of the country is a major decision, and LA can be a tough place if you're new there, don't know anybody, and have no clue about where to go or what to do.

You have access to the Internet so use it to do more research on hospitals in the area. Los Angeles is a pretty big place, and they're always looking for nurses over there. Where have you been looking? I just did a search on Yahoo Hotjobs for new grad nursing positions in the LA area and got 162 hits, and just about all of them have some type of internship program for new grad nurses. If you do a similar search on careerbuilder.com or Americas Job Bank you might get even more hits.

I'm a recent graduate myself, and I was told by almost everyone that it is a good idea to build up my clinical skills in a hospital first. I personally think this is good advice for every new grad RN. I would not take that home health position if I were you, and I strongly advise against moving to LA until you have a more solid game plan.

Try the following links

http://www.aftercollege.com
http://www.ajb.org
http://www.monster.com
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com

Amanda, I live in the greater Los Angeles area. There are hospitals aplenty here. You can get lists of the hospitals by either checking out the California Hospital Association web site for a list, or using the Yellow Pages of the MSN browser. Then get the websites or phone numbers for hospitals that sound like you'd be interested in and call them and ask to talk with their nurse recruiters. Most hospitals also have a job line which is a recording that lists all their open positions. L.A. is a very big place. Do you think you'd like to work in a large medical center like USC/LA County or UCLA or a community hospital (there are plenty of those around). There are also some hospitals known for having celebs as patients like St. Johns in Santa Monica and Cedars-Sinai. A lot of hospitals are so deparate to get RNs that they may interview you over the phone and make a job offer before you even actually move here. Someone mentioned Huntington Memorial in Pasadena which is next to Arcadia. Nice place. City of Hope National Medical Center (cancer hospital and research center) is in Duarte just a few miles from Pasadena. They have a very good reputation and they always get excellent marks for their patient care on patient surveys. It would be a good place to start since you want to get into hospice.

I have an RN friend who is a home health nurse for HCR/Manorcare (this company has LTC and home health agencies all over the country). She is paid a set fee for each visit to one of her patients rather than a salary. She's been complaining a bit lately about the stream of newly hired nurses that are coming and going. She says they are not staying longer than 3 months with the agency which makes me suspect that something is wrong, although my friend is very experienced and very confident in her job duties. You have to be a strong patient advocate for doing home health and be ready to see all kinds of things going on in people's homes.

The cost of living in L.A. is much more expensive than other American cities. This includes apartment rentals. A nice apartment will probably start at $1,000 and up. You need a car to get around although there is public transportation. Some of the freeways out here are like rush hour (bumper to bumper traffic) almost 24 hours a day. When you get here buy a book of maps called Thomas Guides. They have Orange County and L.A. County streets listed. It's a wonderful guide for finding your way around. I wouldn't move here without having some source of money in case you don't get a job right away (you are a new grad, right?)

Now I'm guessing from your handle "kissthestars" that you're interested in the movie and television business. If you have dreams of getting acting work then you probably need to be around the Hollywood area. Pasadena has a theatre district. That's the extend of my knowledge on that. My sister-in-law used to work down by the ABC Studios and used to get tickets to see all kinds of tapings of the sitcoms. They're not that hard to get and some of them are free. I haven't seen any movie stars around L.A. here, but when I lived in Palm Springs we saw them all the time.

Good luck to you.

Good luck! Hope you find your dream job.