New Grads, A Few Words of Encouragement

I'm a 'late-bloomer' just now enrolling in nursing school @ 45, living in western Arkansas. Like everyone here, I'm concerned about whether I can even get a job after graduation...does anyone here know how the nursing job market stands in Arkansas or Eastern Oklahoma?

Information on job markets for anyone just entering nursing school at this moment is useless. The situation is so fluid that no one can really say what it will be like when you graduate. But I can say that up until now the tight job markets we have had have not lasted more than two years. That is why I am so confident that the job market for nurses will turn around, because it has turned around in the past.

There are ample jobs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!
I am also graduating this May and have a job lined up in an ICU.
Good Luck!

i am a new lpn and i just passed my nclex in march, ive been to about ten inteviews and must have sent my resume to about twenty dif places,. i get the same answer " you do not have any exp". i am begining to feel that i just made the biggest mistake of my life, i have two daughters ages 2 and 1, and my husband salary can barely make it.. and i can honestly say that i wish that things would start getting better but thats not how i feel iis like all my sacrafices to get to this point is for nothing...

Thanks for this encouragement. After graduating in Dec, and having such a hard time finding ANYTHING, I finally got a per diem job in an assisted living facility. I have spoken to my profs. since graduating, and they all say, "We tried to warn you" without being too outspoken, that on the East Coast, there is a small vacancy ratio! Well, the college keeps pumping us out!

Upon graduating top of my class becoming an LPN, I was hired immediatly in LTC. My first day as a graduate LPN, my DON assigned me to the "skilled hall". This facility has 6 wings, holding 50 patients per wing. Me? Im assigned to SKILLED! All "NEW" nurses pay attention! I WAS SCAIRED TO DEATH! This hall, recieved all new admissions, the very ill patients, if they progressed, with the ok from their MD, they would transfer to the other halls. To this day, I thank my DON, for assigning me to this hall. The skills I obtained in the ten years I remained employed with this LTC facility are unremarkable. From admitting the patient, paperwork, taking off orders, ordering meds, clarifying questions with MD, treatments, ordering supplies, Iv's, Cad pumps,Ng tubes, peg tube feedings, catheters, peritoneal dialysis, trach care, making and recieving MD calls each day, pushing Iv meds emergency and non emergency, assessing critical situations and watching your patient heal from them, doing CPR, calling and leading a RED TEAM ALERT, also meeting the patients family needs, and at the end of my ten years at this facility, I had been Charge Nurse of each shift, including when I went to 16 hour shift weekends. They sent RNs to me to train, which I enjoyed teaching, they would look at me and ask me how i could take all the stress? Made me smile! Please know new nurses, us seasoned nurses know your fears, we have been where you are, and it takes time to become a great nurse. To learn, ask, Ive been a nurse 16 years now, I STILL ASK, its always changing, and its ok. Expect mistakes. They will humble you, and learn from them, we all make them. After 16 years in LTC, I feel I can go ANYWHERE with my skills and Charge experience, and do just fine. But I so remember walking onto that skilled hall brand spanking new my heart in my throat, thinking maybe I shoud work at Walmart instead! Be strong, Good Luck, Ask, always ask questions if need calls, we ALL are learning each day, you will become "the nurse" only "the nurse" YOU want to be in time! Congrats!

I really needed that encouragement. Thanks a lot!
I live in the Bay Area, graduated last December, and has been job hunting ever since. I am very frustrated and feeling hopeless that it'll be almost 5 months, and I haven't received a single phone call from any of the hospitals I've applied to.
Now, I am considering a possible employment at a skilled nursing facility. I would take any nursing job available to start my career and pay the student loans.

Thank you so much for the advice....
That's a long journey....
Hoping that i can also found my way to success....

Thank you ALL for your answers..you all make a lot of sense. I hope you're right about the job market turn-around, in fact, I guess I'm counting on it. I can't imagine working your butt off for years in school, not to mention paying for it, and then struggling for months to find jobs! That's got to be very frustrating..as someone who has spent her life working in 'unskilled' labor and didn't finished college, I cannot say I know how that feels.
I wish you all luck in this job market; Lord knows we always need good nurses, everywhere. Congrats to those of you who have been lucky enough to get jobs.

Keep your heads up, keep calling back weekly to check on your apps, take any shift you can to get your foot in the door, and again, LTC is a great way for RN's or LPN's to begin your careers, learn your skills, which to manys disbelief, skills ARE abundant in LTC facilities, I am living proof! Also in Indiana, the overtime in LTC is unbelievable, so not only are you learning your skills, you have an "open door" to all the overtime you can handle to pay down your loans! I dont know if I mentioned this, also the facilities I worked at, nurses were ALL listed as LN's. Makes for a great sisterhood. We ALL were teaching each other, new things every day! You worked hard to get your degree, now put that effort into finding your new job, it will come, as only you know, hard work pays off sooner or later! Then one day when you are working insane hours, being the Nurse in Charge, you will say to yourself quietly, "I want to work at Walmart"! Go get em new grads, the world needs you! DO NOT GIVE UP!