Sacramento New Grad RNs.... Are You Having A Difficult Time Landing A Job?

Yep! The job market is terrible right now.

Why? No jobs or hospital not wanting to hire new grads.

So yes, not very many jobs available for new grads--considering that about there are at least 90 new graduates this December. Most of the new grad jobs seem to be earmarked for people who worked as interns or externs in that unit, or sometimes had a senior preceptorship. Obviously this is good news for those people, who wouldn't be getting offers to stay on the unit if they hadn't done a good job, but people who did not work during nursing school are having a harder time. I've heard there are dozens of applications for every new grad position.

Since the Bay Area facilities offer some of the highest pay rates in the nation, that's where everyone wants to work. Nurses are going to be drawn to the part of the state that pays the most money. Why work in Los Angeles for a new grad pay rate of $30 hourly, when a similar facility in Oakland is offering $42 hourly to new nurses? Since there's an overage of nurses in the Bay Area, fewer positions for new grads emerge. Since there's a shortage of nurses in Southern CA, more positions for new grads will be available.

It's all about the basic laws of supply and demand.

One of my classmates here in Reno, NV landed a job at Sutter Roseville and is moving that way.

The glut is coming, mark my words. Or maybe it's already here.

I would counsel folks who are getting ready to incur enormous debt to figure out where they're planning to end up. I hear people saying, "Oh, the debt's OK. I'll get into a tuition reimbursement program." At least in this area, I think we're producing many more new graduates than we can absorb.

I would also urge everybody to work as hard as you can in school to earn the best grades and the best reputation possible. It's going to be competitive and you need every advantage that you can get.

Well, I got good grades and even some awards and honors--as far as I can tell, they haven't helped me. What would have helped more was working as an intern or extern during school. There just aren't many jobs posted right now--most of them specify that they want someone who's been working for them.