Strategy for nursing 2nd career, Toronto

Volunteering positions in hospitals don't involve working in patient care.You would be working at information desks, delivering lab samples,you may transport patients in wheelchairs/gurneys to different units and deliver mail. You may not have lot of networking opportunities. You would need to get to know hiring managers who usually hang out in their offices, not on the floor.Volunteers really don't get involved with the nursing staff or have time to schmooze with the managers. They will see a volunteer that wants to chat instead of work.You really can't know in school what area you want to work in.You may have something in mind but until you have had some experience you really can't make that decision.You also will have to do placements in school in other areas including nursing homes.You can't just focus in one area during clinicals.You don't volunteer in a certain speciality, you will volunteer where you are assigned.Getting a clinical placement in the hospital that you volunteered in is not that simple.For starters most placements are assigned by the program, you don't usually get to pick. Plus schools have agreements with certain facilites to accomodate students.The school you attend will have certain ones they place people in. You may or may not get a HFO job after grad.You can't count on it.

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Got to agree with Lori. I work in a specialty. The only volunteers we see are the ones that deliver the newspapers. They have no real contact with staff or patients other than a quick "Hello". There are no volunteers in the OR, Dialysis or ICU/NICU at my hospital.

Students only really get specialty experience in their final placement and even then it's often not their choice of specialties. I had my heart set on Gynie and wound up on a specialty geriatrics unit. But I did become very good at cathing elderly females.

I think the OP needs to stop thinking with a business school five year plan background and learn to go with the flow. It's the only way to get through nursing school.

Yes that will be a benefit before going to nursing school but it will have no effect on getting a job or getting into a nursing program.You learn about feeding when you are in nursing school.You will not have control over where your clinical placements will be done and you can't do them only where you are interested.Potential employers will not count volunteering when they ask for experience.The things these programs teach you are things that nursing students learn anyways.They are not special skills that will make you any different.

Volunteering in LTC would give you a leg up in that facility. But I doubt that is not the 'specialty' you are wanting.

New plan - get good grades, impress your teachers (references), consolidate in an area you want to work or hospital and do well, network, study, apply everywhere, pass exam, take whatever job you get, get experiences, maybe take a few courses geared to specialty, get some seniority, apply for specialty area, get job in specialty area and finally live happily ever after, even if it consists of poop.

May I ask were it is you want to work?

I agree. You really can't do anything else other than what all the students try to do. Even getting good grades doesn't really matter when it comes to getting work. The employers only sees that you have your license, but not if you were a C or an A student.As Daisy said, you will have to take whatever job you can get.Don't get the idea that you will get the dream job in the speciality you want right out of school.

Agree with others. Get good grades, get to know some of your instructors very well, and make friends. You need references and connections these days. Also be prepared to relocate. Getting hired from your consolidation is not definite anymore, and HFO is a joke. Few positions, tons of applicants. Hopefully, ON changes for the better in the coming years. Who knows? But, ON has been terrible for new grads for four years now.

Yeah that's one thing I hadn't thought of.The number of places with HFO jobs is dwindling.Very few employers participate these days.Plus many new grads don't get offered jobs after the HFO positions are finished.

Have you completed the prerequisites for the BSN program at U of T?