Senior Nursing Students - When do you apply for RN positions?

[kingvonnBSN2017, BSN]

Good afternoon nurses and students,

I am starting senior year of my BSN program in a few days. I have heard plenty of students obtaining RN positions months before they even graduated. How do you go about this and when do you start applying for RN positions as a senior nursing student?

I am pretty sure the offer would be conditional and official once you pass the NCLEX and get a license #. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Good afternoon nurses and students,

I am starting senior year of my BSN program in a few days. I have heard plenty of students obtaining RN positions months before they even graduated. How do you go about this and when do you start applying for RN positions as a senior nursing student?

I am pretty sure the offer would be conditional and official once you pass the NCLEX and get a license #. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

I started applying in my last semester of school, although that was 40 some years ago. Ask the students at your school who are getting the positions when they started applying. If you're a CNA, ask your manager when she would start taking applications. Talk to your professors and line up your letters of recommendation.

These days, almost everything is online. Check the websites for some of the hospitals you're interested in. There may be guidelines on the website.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Like Ruby Vee said, check out the websites for job postings. Some of the online applications won't allow the applicant to proceed without a valid license number entered in. In that case, you definitely don't want to put in a false number because the organization may not only toss your application as not meeting requirements but also put you on a do not hire list for falsifying information.

Be sure to see what guidelines are posted about new grad residencies as well. They may only accept applications at certain times (typically around the time they expect nursing school graduations) and applications may not be available year round. But don't necessarily limit yourself to only applying for residencies- many areas might consider a new grad applicant but not have a residency per se. My OR doesn't call the orientation a new grad residency because any nurse without OR experience will be in the same program, even if they've been an RN for 20+ years.

[kingvonnBSN2017, BSN]

Thank you for the advice guys! I'll talk to my professors and my manager where I work as a CNA when she would accept applications.

[jj224]

I took a few months to travel after graduation / NCLEX before I started applying in the fall.