How did you get your first nursing position

Worked there for a year as a student nurse and was an automatic hire after graduation.

right now the economy is rough and you cant count on the hospital recruiters reaching out to you,you have to be persistent,go that extra mile to appear marketable,be patient,pray,be confident...get your CPR card,maybe ECG class,volunteering,make sure your gpa in good standing,basically take things in your own hands.

That is so true. In 1978 when I graduated nurses were needed everywhere. Every hospital gave these huge recruitment banquets. Later on in the 80's when I was in management, we had recruitment fairs a few times a year and went as far as Canada (from Texas) to try to recruit a nurse. We were hurting for staff. It was bad. I went through one period of time where I had no full time nurses on the night shift in the ED I managed. I had no one to be in charge. I had a lot of nurses that I knew working there through the agency however and I made a deal with them to act as charge nurse until I could get some staff hired and trained for that shift. It was rough.

I definitely agree with the previous posters, if you are interested in a position make sure the recruiter and/or nurse manager knows it. I did my preceptorship in L&D/PP/Nursery, because that's the area I wanted to find a job in and hoped that would count as some "experience." I was very fortunate and had a friend in my class that had a friend at the hospital I wanted to work at tell her there was an open position on the mother/baby floor. I called the HR recruiter (the position wasn't posted to outsiders yet), and she had me schedule an interview. I met with one of my nursing teachers (she used to be a nurse manager) and we went over practice questions (kind of a relaxed mock interview) and I googled a lot of questions and typed out situations that went with them... that way for the behavioral questions they were fresh in my mind (it's hard to remember all the situations throughout school). Here I am my 4th week on the floor! Keeping in touch with the nurse recruiter is a great way to know what positions are open and let them know you are interested in working there! Good luck!

I was a RN, just got my license and nobody would hire me without experience. So I started working agency as a CNA, got a temp assignment as a CNA at a doctor's office, got hired fulltime there and quit agency. they knew i was a RN and just making CNA pay, so after a few months of really trying to impress them, the office manager and physicians talked to hr over at the hospital and got me in on med/surg as my first RN position. i would have eventually gotten an ER position, i think, because i was the 'pet' of one of the ER docs in the office. I took ACLS and did so good on my test that I became legend in the hospital, and really impressed the ER doc. It was just taking a little longer than the med/surg position.

I too was hired onto the unit where I did my senior preceptorship (last semester of nursing school in my accelerated program). Many of my classmates were as well. Part of the preceptorship was a management clinical with the unit manager, so I got in good with her and within 2 weeks she offerred me a job after graduation!

you guys are so lucky