I started working for a sub-acute LTC as the DSD last week. The DON and I hit it off because we have the same vision on what we need to do in order to solve the problems we current have.
Early this week, we posted an ad for RN charge nurse with no experience required. We feel it's best to have trainable nurses even though they lack experience. I was tasked to interview for the position as I will be the one training them for the first 36-hours.
Needless to say, I was flabbergasted with the array of applicants we had and now know why the some nurses eat their young.
- New
RN
grad said she's been working as a CNA and knows she can do the job because there's not much difference between being a charge nurse and CNA
- New
RN
grad said that she'll consider our offer, so I asked if she is being offered another position (as we need someone full time). She said she's expecting an offer any day now since she finished the online application earlier this week (and she was not kidding).
- Someone coming into the interview with a wrinkled nose and irked expression and said that she can smell the BM from the floor
- Someone who wrote "expert in IV medication preparation"; when asked what's their experience on it, she stated she's been a vet nurse and she's been doing those a lot.
- Someone who said they are not available for the first two weeks of April as they are going on a cruise
- Someone asking for the pay, end up telling me that new grad RNs in LA are paid $34/hr starting at the beginning of the interview.
- When asked about core measures, all of them couldn't deliver one intelligent answer.
and a lot more...
Looking back, I asked myself if I ever acted as arrogant and privileged as the ones I encountered. Most of the ones the new grads I interviewed have this air... like they have mastered a craft. Like I should be rolling out the red carpet for them.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I agree on everything but the "girl scout" stuff. Core measures, mission, all that is just marketing crap. Ask pathophysiology questions. Give any scenario... give some info and ask what they'd do, what they are thinking...
Also don't interview babies, or those who are in their 30's+ who have never had a professional working life. Interview people who have already had one career and provedthemselves in that. Ask for references from that first career, too. Second career folks understand what work is... and often had some healthcare experience during the quest for a nursing career because they know it's needed.
Would save you a lot of time.
I disagree with this. I had odd jobs as a teenager, but I was a "baby" when I graduated; I hadn't had another career previously, and I didn't have a previous job as an RN. Someone had to take a chance on me. Fortunately, I got the job in the specialty I wanted.
I knew what work was. I'd been a nurse's aide, ad I'd gone to a diploma program that taught us what work as an RN was.
That comment really irks me. It takes out a lot of people who want to be nurses and probably be great ones. And as far as the second-career statement, that could be looked at from another perspective. If you weren't satisfied with your previous career, how long will it take before you're unhappy with this one.
I do agree with this situation that the OP is asking for an awful lot. Three days of orientation isn't enough for seaside nurse, let alone a new one.
I think you also have to realize, you're getting the bottom of the barrel in applicants. At the end of my program not one person signed up to do a LTC integrated practicum or co-op. It's the last resort for all but about 1%. Nobody chooses to work in LTC it seems, it's what you do when no hospital will hire you. Many of them may resent having to apply for your job and I've had friends that worked in LTC. After years of it, they would say a sign of a bad nursing home is that it wreaks of BM. Think about how you're presenting your place of employment to them as well if you want a really great employee.
Bottom of the barrel? Really? Last resort? Seriously? It takes a special kind of nurse to work in LTC, and just because someone is determined to work L&D or ICU or ER or any hospital position does not automatically make them "top of the barrel."
While I do love to get more experienced nurses, in this tough economy I dare anyone who has been in the job market for a year or so and would not want work. Say what you want with a LTC, but when you have been applying for everything for a year and no luck. A job is better than no job.
I ask you this, can you honestly say that you are a nurse when you have never functioned as one? When you have never performed any duties of a nurse? When you never had the opportunity to pick up the phone and call a doctor? When you have to tell a family that their father has passed away? When you've never given medications outside of the clinical setting?
Also, I never said that the orientation is three days. It's a 2-month program. Plus, I don't interview graduate nurses that has just received their licenses. I want them to get the best experience they could have and I agree that is with the acute setting. That said, I selected candidates who had been in the job market for a year or so. People who do not qualify anymore to the new grad RN programs.
So when you have been in the market for a year, you now have a chance for a job and that's what you say to the one interviewing you? I should have made myself clearer.
I inserted an excerpt from the resume I was talking about.
That resume excerpt is absurd. I try to laugh but only tears come out. I take it that one is from the vet tech?
I wonder if she developed that on her own, or if her school's folks who help with resume writing came up with that. If it's the latter, I feel sorry for her, as I bet dollars to doughnuts that her arrogant (or clueless) resume is certainly part of why she's having a hard time finding a job. If she did a better job of tailoring her resume to the positions she's applying for, and emphasized how she can translate her vet tech experience into human nursing rather than implying they're equivalent, she'd probably (on paper) be a very competitive candidate.
Yep, that probably has to be the vet nurse. The word necropsy and the addition of dental procedures pretty much gives that away. It's too bad because she could easily translate her clinical veterinary skills into skills that would be very much desirable as a "human" nurse.
Again, I think something that is being overlooked is that the role/job description for a charge nurse in LTC/SNF is often very different from the hospital role/job description.
You may not realize it but you managed to insult LTC RNs and believe it or not some RNs do specialize in geriatric care. The reason LTC is not liked both in nursing school or in the nursing world is it is hard back breaking work and you better have good assessment skills and or learn them because you have no lab, xray or ward secretary you are the whole show and the resident load is intense.
I started out in hospitals in tele and I took my first LTC job because I moved to a smaller town after my significant other's death and thats all that was available. I learned great time managment skills and have excellent assessment skills from being an LTC nurse. I do more management work now in my current position but my years as an LTC honed my clinical skills as well. You have a broad range of disease processes and tasks as well.
Also saying that medical office assistants catch on faster and want less pay and RNs have big egos. To be a nurse you do go to college and have at a minimum two years of clinical time with an ADN degree and you do pass an NCLEX exam. RNs used to be in all physician offices and still are in some specialist offices even today.
Medical assistants do a fair job for what they know but physicians hire them on the basis of that they are cheaper. (Physicians I know personally have told me this.) Nurses know much more even out of the gate being a graduate nurse in pathophysiology, medications, dosage, etc.
After working LTC as an RN hospital work is a cake walk and working in a physician office would be boring for an RN.
I disagree with this. I had odd jobs as a teenager, but I was a "baby" when I graduated; I hadn't had another career previously, and I didn't have a previous job as an RN. Someone had to take a chance on me. Fortunately, I got the job in the specialty I wanted.
I knew what work was. I'd been a nurse's aide, ad I'd gone to a diploma program that taught us what work as an RN was.
That comment really irks me. It takes out a lot of people who want to be nurses and probably be great ones. And as far as the second-career statement, that could be looked at from another perspective. If you weren't satisfied with your previous career, how long will it take before you're unhappy with this one.
I do agree with this situation that the OP is asking for an awful lot. Three days of orientation isn't enough for seaside nurse, let alone a new one.
OCRN63, that was a different time and place that brought you up, if you get my drift. That time and place is gone forever.
Took me 22 years before I got out of my previous career. I've got a kicker resume from it and references that go to bat for me too. Do not fear the accomplished, we easily see who has achieved in nursing, what we've achieved in our previous field. We respect that, the babies don't - they can't.
The first time I read this it somehow escaped me that the interview was to fill a charge position.
After re-reading more carefully, I urge the OP and management s/he works with to reconsider hiring a new nurse with no experience for this position. New nurses need to hone their skills, emotional boundaries, and instincts. They have no business directing the activities of others, or serving in a resource role, when their own abilities have not yet been proven.
Yes, please.
Our RN charge nurse is FRESH out of college, and while she's very sweet, she's a bit of a dingus, and not much help.
Your ad ASKED for no experience and by golly, you certainly did get what you asked for!!! There certainly seems to be a touch of entitlement with a couple, but personally I think not being able to start due to a planned/paid for vacation is not that out of the water.
OCNRN63, RN
5,979 Posts
I disagree with this. I had odd jobs as a teenager, but I was a "baby" when I graduated; I hadn't had another career previously, and I didn't have a previous job as an RN. Someone had to take a chance on me. Fortunately, I got the job in the specialty I wanted.
I knew what work was. I'd been a nurse's aide, ad I'd gone to a diploma program that taught us what work as an RN was.
That comment really irks me. It takes out a lot of people who want to be nurses and probably be great ones. And as far as the second-career statement, that could be looked at from another perspective. If you weren't satisfied with your previous career, how long will it take before you're unhappy with this one.
I do agree with this situation that the OP is asking for an awful lot. Three days of orientation isn't enough for seaside nurse, let alone a new one.