RN's Is This The Best Way To Get.....

[All4NursingRN]

a range of experience???

Alot of the more experienced >10 years nurses I've talked to (that I work with) have a range of experience, from the floors to recovery room, to ER and ICU. They all have done agency nursing and said that even though they may have been assigned to a certain area they at time were asked to fill in on other units, and that's how they got a good range of experience.

I'm asking because it seems to be getting harder to go from specialty to specialty. Everyone wants experience in the area you're applying to, and now they even want more than x amount of years of experience even if you're applying to a different job in the same specialty.

Being a new RN

MICU

SICU

CCU

PACU

NICU

Radiology

Endoscopy

Cath lab

Trauma ONLY

I applied for a transfer at my job for a CCU position but a senior nurse took it *bummed*

I like ER but I feel stuck here. I thought this was thee specialty where you could move into anything. Not to mention that job market for RN's here is absolutely terrible. Nurses unemployed here for months.

[Akeos]

I completely agree with you. I'm a newer nurse too (2 yes experience) but only in home health, I would LOVE to get experience in a hospital and try out ER, NICU, ,L&D, or even an outpatient clinic. But I can't even get my foot in the door because I have no acute care experience. It's beyond frustrating, and even the jobs I do get an interview for I'm interviewing with 20 other people! I'm stuck in a field I don't really enjoy, and learn very little in. I hope this horrible job market turns around soon.

[All4NursingRN]

I agree it seems to be the job market as well that's holding things up. smh

[LynnLRN]

I feel like (from job positings i've seen) a lot of the specialties you listed don't necessarily require experience in only that specialty but like the applicant to have some form of critical care experience and ACLS. So I say try and get into critical care, then after that I think you will be able to get into PACU, trauma, cath lab, radiology, etc. Fore example, job listings I see say something like: prefer applicant to have min. 1 year experience in cath lab or Critical care. So I feel like if you can get your feet wet in critical care then that can get your foot in the door in all those other positions you would like.

[Carlinrnprof]

Have you ever asked the manager if you could shadow on the unit? We allow nurses from the step-down and m/s units to come in a shadow a nurse for a shift. If you make an impression the staff tends to push for you to get a position on the unit. (we tend to be rather vocal).Also see if you can float or sign up on their needs list. We currently have a staffing and bed shortage. Telemetry nurses are being pre-assigned to our CICU to take the patients with transfer orders that can't be moved or are used as helping hands when there is a high acuity. We have hired several of these nurses. Just a few ideas outside the box.

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

The rns at work I have met with a variety of expereince have been nurses for years at the same hospital. THis hospital has everything from psych to LD, med surg, sicu, micu ,dialysis, nicu, picu etc. They have stayed at the same place and gotten a variety of experience. I think intrahospital transfers would be a lot easier to obtian then going to a new facility. Example if you have a good reputation, interview well etc, the ICUs where I work hire a lot of transfers from med surg floors etc.