New Grad RN-->No Jobs, Then what?

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I have been reading through these threads and haven't seen an answer to this question. I know that it is tough to get a new grad RN position and some say they are still looking after a year post graduation. So what happens to those who get no experience and in effect are now "old grads with no experience" when the job market begins to open up again? What do those in the know recommend for those who may not be able to get a job within a year or two of graduation? Do you get more certifications, i.e. ACLS, PALS, etc while waiting for the market to open? Do you volunteer in a hospital? If volunteering, do hospitals allow clinical practice as a licensed RN volunteer? (Of course, there may be union issues with that). Essentially, will a licensed RN with no experience become obsolete since many will graduate and be "newer" when the job market opens again?

Specializes in Family Planning, STD, OB/Gyn.
The job market is so tight right now i don't know what to heck to do. People say go back for your BSN but i can't afford to go back to school without a job to help pay my loans. It's so depressing out there. Why become a nurse if you can't even get a job because everybody wants experienced nurses. All these stupid hospitals and nursing homes need to realize they need to invest in new nurses because eventually people will retire and they'll have to do it anyways!

I'm so frustrated right now...sucks to be a nurse at this time.

Have you applied for Mollen Immunization Clinic? It's a seasonal job for the time being. Can you tutor on the side also? Can you speak, read, or write vietnamese? That could be an asset. I got a job from MIC for the time being while applying for jobs that are slowly opening over here. Get some volunteering in also, you may never know who you might bump into. =)

Have you joined linkedin.com? That might help you by linking up with recruiters in your area.

Cyram81RN

I have applied for the flu clinic i haven't heard anything from them. I am looking to volunteer at irvine kaiser but they lady told me they have too many applicants and will not be taking any more applications until the 1st of 2012. I'm looking into volunteering at st Joseph. I called hoag hospital about their internship turns out i have to be a student to enroll.

I only speak and understand vietnamese. I was offered to be considered a candidate for this health day care but i decline due to the job description. Now i'm thinking i made a mistake!

I am on linkedin but that website kind of confuses me.

I'm trying to apply for nursing homes now. I have many friends with jobs in hospitals and non willing to help or could even help.

I got an interview at victor valley a week ago. Kept following up with the lady and she jerked me around and finally told me they are on a hiring freeze and if i follow up with her again at the end of the month she'll let me know if she will hire me.

Specializes in Family Planning, STD, OB/Gyn.

That's fine, I can only speak vietnamese and trying to teach myself how to read and write. On linkedin.com when you sign in there is a search bar, search for nursing groups and join them such as Nursing Network to keep up to date and find tips on how to get a better aim at getting any nursing job. There are recruiters, physicians, nurses on there to help ya out.

Yeah, I know what you mean not being helped out. But just move along and keep focus on applying for jobs. Something will come through. I know the feeling of being chased around too, I have 4 hospitals around me but under one company and it is not easy. I have decided to take a route that will lead to community nursing rather than working in the hospital since I can't get any calls or interviews from them for the time being.

Oh okay yeah sounds great! I'm trying to look for a nurse recruiter to pay a fee to help you look for a job.

I've heard that there are community college that offer you an internship to hospitals and if you work for free for 12 weeks and they like you they'll hire you. I'm trying to look into that. Where are you from? Is there a way to communicate more privately here?

Specializes in "Wound care - geriatric care.

The true is that our economy is contracting very strongly and hospitals are not hiring, they are laying off. Until that changes...there is very little you can do other than get lucky I suppose, yes ACLS helps and I guess at the end of the day is a game of seeing who will be standing when it's all said and done. Even volunteering is a hard thing to get. It took me 3 months of probation and 2 interviews to become a volunteer at the ER at a county hospital, then I had to leave before I started but that's another story, next week I will see if they still want me. But here is my vision: Hospitals are betting on economy getting worse, so they are laying off and not training anyone, but if they lose that is, if the economy begins to really turn around...they are going to find themselves in a very, very different territory where nurses will leave in droves, and patients will come in in droves...at that point, anyone who has a valid RN license and has a pulse will get a job. Until then, let's just sit and cry because this situation is beyond bad.

Specializes in "Wound care - geriatric care.
Oh okay yeah sounds great! I'm trying to look for a nurse recruiter to pay a fee to help you look for a job.

I've heard that there are community college that offer you an internship to hospitals and if you work for free for 12 weeks and they like you they'll hire you. I'm trying to look into that. Where are you from? Is there a way to communicate more privately here?

Yes, that sounds good and all but be careful. In tough times like these some dishonest individuals will try to take advantage of people who are desperate. Don't ever get into any thing without signing a contract. One typical scam is when they sign you up with a agency and send you to some hospital or clinic. They might use you for as long as they want and how they want and when you have served their purpose they will just spit you out like you didn't even exist. Agencies can be a way that the hospital has no formal or legal obligation with you, so easy in and easy out. We try really hard to get anything going but set limits to yourself...it's not worth getting hurt.

Specializes in Family Planning, STD, OB/Gyn.
Yes, that sounds good and all but be careful. In tough times like these some dishonest individuals will try to take advantage of people who are desperate. Don't ever get into any thing without signing a contract. One typical scam is when they sign you up with a agency and send you to some hospital or clinic. They might use you for as long as they want and how they want and when you have served their purpose they will just spit you out like you didn't even exist. Agencies can be a way that the hospital has no formal or legal obligation with you, so easy in and easy out. We try really hard to get anything going but set limits to yourself...it's not worth getting hurt.

Wow, thanks Marcos9999! I never thought of that, but then again, I don't trust to pay anyone up front for a job. That would be a red flag for me. But I do like the tip to sign a contract before anything happens. :yeah:

Specializes in General Internal Medicine, ICU.

To all the new grads out there...please don't give up hope. Yes, the market isn't the best for nursing grads right now. Yes, the economy sucks. Yes, the nursing shortage the the media portrays may or may not happening in your area. And yes, getting your foot into the door for your first job can be quite the nightmare...but like another poster stated, "someone somewhere out there needs a nurse". You WILL find that first job. It just might not be where you envisioned yourself to work.

I am a new grad myself, and I was experiencing a lot of the anger, frustration and disappointment that many of the posters in this thread have stated. I live in a big metropolitan city in Canada, and right now, there is an oversaturation of new nursing grads in my neck of the woods. Coupled with the fact that the province I live in isn't growing...that puts a lot of excess of new grads in the job market and not enough demand. It is a buyers' market here--hospitals have the luxury of picking and choosing which RNs they want to hire. And guess what? New grads are definitely not their first choice.

I started applying to small towns and rural area for a job in another province. And lo and behold, I got a job offer. No, I never did envisioned myself working a small area--I am a city girl at heart, and I always figured I'd work in a metropolitan setting. But...you go where the jobs are. And since I'm still young, I have my entire nursing career to work my way back to a big metropolitan city.

So my advice to new grads is...go where the jobs are. Relocate if you can. Don't pigeon hole yourself into applying for hospitals only. Remember, it is not only hospitals that needs nurses.

I work at a hospital in recruiting and we hire PLENTY of new grads. I do see a lot of bad ones though. Ones that absolutely cannot interview, have very poor answers, are all over the board on what they want to do or where they want to end up.

The problem I see with most new grads is they want to get into units where experience is a must, such as L&D, ED, etc. You're better off picking an ICU that you perhaps had a leadership or capstone in. Or another unit that sees a lot of turnover / transfers like med-surg. Poor resumes, interviewing skills, and drive aren't going to get you a job. Know what you want to do, explain why you're qualified to do it, and stick to it. And don't bother applying to positions that aren't what you're after. No one is going to hire the person that "just wants a job," there's thousands of those out there already.

If you're a ASN that can't find a job I highly recommend going back and getting your bachelors, more and more hospitals are not accepting ASNs for RN positions, and will reject ASNs for most other positions because it just looks like theyre trying to get their foot in the door and transfer.

I applied to 2 subacute facilities (separate times, different facilities) near my place (SoCal). BTW, I am a new grad as well. During my interviews, it was going so well that both of them are willing to hire me. But as soon as they mentioned the job description -that I would be the only RN on the whole falicity (one is a 45 bed, fully occupied; the other is 60-bed) night shift, with just LVNs and CNAs- I turned it down.

In as much as I would like to work as an RN already, I didn't want to compromise the patient's safety nor my hard-earned license. I was devastated. I wanted it so bad.

Specializes in LTC, Medical, Rehab, Psych.

"The problem I see with most new grads is they want to get into units where experience is a must, such as L&D, ED, etc. You're better off picking an ICU that you perhaps had a leadership or capstone in. Or another unit that sees a lot of turnover / transfers like med-surg. Poor resumes, interviewing skills, and drive aren't going to get you a job. Know what you want to do, explain why you're qualified to do it, and stick to it. And don't bother applying to positions that aren't what you're after. No one is going to hire the person that "just wants a job," there's thousands of those out there already. "

Trinnylax0484 (is that your birthdate?),

I think you mean well with the advice but there's some contradiction in your words. You say that new grads want a job like L&D, ER, etc, where experience is a must (though there are residencies for such areas) and so should take a job in another area like ICU. But you then go on to say that newbies shouldn't take just any 'ol job to get a foot in the door.

Since there really are thousands out there in this situation, as you've mentioned, I'll beg to differ. My father always said, "Do what you can until you can do better." In this situation, you take any job that's offered (unless you really don't want it) and then work toward what you really want. And if you don't get there? What I've found in my little bit of working life (may be alot longer than yours if that really is your birthdate- this is my second career) is that you often don't end up where you think you will. You can make big plans but life has a way of changing them. You can call it a test of sorts, if you will, but I tend to think that humans really aren't meant to control things (and I'm an atheist if you must ask). But man, do we ever keep trying......

So to all you newbies (I'm still one too and I'm right with you!)- do whatever works for you. Keep fighting, even if you feel like you're looking down a deep black hole sometimes. We're all in this together. And it isn't just nursing! It just feels like it is.

And as to talk of free work- volunteering is one thing but I hate to hear of someone giving their precious time for nothing. So disrespectful. Is this the New World Order? Is this what we're going to accept? Slavery and debt? YES, that is what you are accepting if you work for free. You are effectively saying that you do not deserve enough respect to be paid for your work. 10 years ago would you have accepted this? At a hospital? They should be ashamed.....

Long Time Reader First Time Poster. I graduated from RN program last year and have been searching for the job in California. After almost 1 year of extensive search in San Diego, OC, LA, Bakersfield, SLO, Salinas, SFO and beyond, I have decided to give up. There are absolutly NO Nursing Jobs for new grads in California. I am ready to move to any other part of country but based on what I hear on this forum, its almost same scene everywhere else in the country.

I applied for Nursing Assistant and LVN positions as well but learned that hospitals and other health care facilities already have plenty of RNs working as Nursing Assistants/LVNs and plenty more are lined up to pick up the same.

Here are my "lessons learned" based on 1 year of job hunting as a new grad Nurse and 3 years of Nursing Education:-

1) The whole "Rewarding Nursing Career with endless opportunities" thing is actually a big scam and a ponzi scheme getting played on all of us who started or switched over to this career.

2) Senior Nurses, Nursing Colleges and Main Stream Media is running this scam to suck money from us. It was the duty of Senior Nurses and Nursing Academics to advise new students about NO JOBS in nursing. But they did exact opposite and misguided us all. They knew about it all along but misguided us on purpose. So much for the sake of ethics and integrity of this profession.

Dont believe those Yahoo Articles and Main Stream Media hype about the jobs in Health Care. There are NONE. If you are lucky enough to find one ... you will probably work on minimum wages only.

3) To all the students who want to take this as a profession ... Dont believe the Johnson & Johnson Ad ... Thats all a bunch of crap. You are better off becoming a plumber/mechanic/engineer than a nurse.

There are no jobs in nursing. You can get the hyped "Feel-Good" experience of nursing by volunteering at your local senior center or at your kids school. Dont waste your time, money and energy on 3+ years of RN/BSN, hoping to get the same fulfilling job experience.

4) To all the RNs in my situation ... if you dont have any short term financial issues, stay focussed on your research. It may take a while to find anything decent.

I spent almost 3+ years of my life, lots of money, energy and time away from my kids to become a nurse. I can not get any of that back.

At this point, I am all loaded with Debt and no job to bring food on the table. So with a broken heart I say Good Bye to Nursing.

Starting at my local Walmart this week as checkout clerk.

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