I cant take it anymore. Frustrated and depressed

[Woman_in_love]

Hi everyone!

I found one thread here that is so similar to my own situation.

I am sorry if my post is going to be a little bit long. I simply need to vent and tell everything i am going through.

I am an Israeli trained nurse (I have 6 months of experience as RN from Israel-med-surgical unit and additional 6 months of experience of work in hospital as nursing student, not quite RN yet)

In August i received my RN license here, in Arkansas.

I applied for few positions in my local hospital, one of them said experience is PREFERRED, another required med-surgical experience.

Not only that i didnt receive any calls whatsoever from the hospital, but also it took me like few weeks to know that one clinical director didnt want me because i dont have enough experience( i learned it from nurse recruiter and not from him directly!) and another said that i practically speaking have only 6months of med-surg experience and they wanted 1 year at least.

Ok, i had no choice but to apply for a job in another city!!! Had to compromise and to be ready to drive 80 miles a day.

Applied in Childrens' Hospital which luckily had few nice positions for Level I nurses(no experience at all or limited experience). I applied for 5 DIFFERENT UNITS!

Same story again, no calls, no mails, nothing.

Whats going on? I thought the U.S. needs nurses?

I am about to cry out here in frustration.

My husband is a full time college student, works part time job in Wal-Mart. Poor guy has no time for himself, to enjoy life you know and of course we dont have any money.

I cant take this anymore i need a job URGENTLY!!!!!

Are all hospitals like that? Do all of them just ignore you for weeks? Why post their ads if they actually dont care about hiring nurses?

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

Things are different in the south. Hospitals where I live have sent recruitment fliers in the mail, and when I or my nurse-friends call them, they tell us they have a hiring freeze.

I don't know what the deal is, but this has happened several times where I live.

[Woman_in_love]

Yeah, well it seems like EVERY hospital does the same thing.

I have to make several calls just to find out whether my application have been transferred or not. Its so much struggle and waiting and i cant understand why. Do they want new people or not. I've got a feeling they dont.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

At the time I was living in an eastern city about 5 years ago, the hospitals were being very picky and only hiring BSNs. I believe it was because there were two nearby state universities cranking out BSNs so that the market was flooded with them. Hospitals will almost always take a BSN over an ADN nurse unless the ADN nurse has hospital experience (on the job, not as a student).

Have you tried checking the nursing homes? Most nursing homes are happy to have RNs on their staff. Since you are from Israel, have you checked with your rabbi? The Jewish often have a nursing home for their own people where they observe kosher ways. They would be thrilled to have you on staff (assuming there is such a facility), I am sure.

[Woman_in_love]

Hi there and thanks.

I am from Israel but i am not jewish and not a religious person.

I am BSN.

I am interested in hospitals rather than nursing homes.

I already dont know what to think. I really need to start a job and gain some more experience. As i said i applied to quite a few units and again no answer:(

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Just a thought, but how about trying an employment agency? They may have an interesting job for a BSN. It may not be in a hospital setting. It might be more toward an office kind of job, but it might be quite interesting. Also, you should check the listings of city, county, state and federal job openings as these places use RNs in a number of government facilities. They wouldn't be advertising in the newspapers. Just for the heck of it, check out the local Red Cross. They hire RNs for blood collection and other things related to the collection of blood products for the blood banks. They pay well.

[rdkj]

Check out Dallas, Texas!!! Alot of their hospitals hire "new grads", often with sign-on bonuses and relocation allowances. I think you said you lived in Arkansas???? get out of there.......they don't pay squat and there is lots of money in Dallas for nurses. I spent the last four years there and just recently moved back to the NW, and I can tell you, i'm ready to move back to Dallas. the only thing keeping me here is my family and my oldest daughter is graduating high school next year...then i'm outta here. No offense intended, but you will definately fit in much better in the Dallas area. It is highly diversified and you won't find as much "discrimination" in skin color, as people from all over the world live there. My two best friends are from Kenya, (he's black) and one from Russia (she's white). I'm also white. even though the american revolution has come and gone, and slavery has ended, it still exists in the south. Arkansas is not the place for you. Move on. Dallas will welcome you with open arms, and there are many jobs there.

[blessed02]

It's all about location- there are many jobs in the North east area and they pay well too.

Stay strong-Hope you find something soon.

[Woman_in_love]

Me and my husband are thinking about moving to another state, like California, but unfortunately we cannot do it now. We would love so much to move out of here but he has to graduate first.

We also have a leasing agreement untill September.

Besides, in order to move somewhere you need to have some money for the first time there and we dont.

[smarge117, ASN, BSN, RN]

I don't know about Arkansas, but I live in Northern Virginia and had a similar problem over the past couple of months. I'm a new grad (may) and applied online to the 'big' hospital system in the area and waited... nothing... called the recruiter and left messages... nothing. Finally I called the floors I was interested in, asked for the nursing desk, asked for the name and number of the Patient Care Director of the floor and called them directly (mostly left messages). One called me back within the hour. She put a fire under the nurse recruiter and I've been interviewing and having shadow days on a couple of units.

Don't give up hope, be proactive. If you have to go in as a 'new grad' do it, the way I see it you're going to be a nurse for a long time, another year as a 'new grad' is nothing in the big picture.

Good luck!!