Nursing: The 10 Hardest Jobs To Fill In America

I read this article and was so irritated. Well if nursing is one of the hardest jobs to fill in America than how come I can't get a job and there are many nurses being laid off.

I am sorry. It has to be location. The ads on Careerbuilders and our locate paper are begging for new graduates. I was hired for a new position last week and could not get my physical for a month because of the 30 new hires that were coming on board and I was informed by my recruiter that they did not get as many new grads as they had hoped. This was one hospital and there are hundreds of other local healthcare facilities in the area.

No kidding nurse901. This supports my theory about hospitals advertising so many openings for nurses and then not hiring any, especially when licensed, experienced and qualified nurses apply for the jobs. This whole nursing shortage thing is crap---I think at one time there used to be a nursing shortage (like when I graduated back in 1989 and got a job at a major medical center in NYC over the phone---I never even went in for an interview!!!) but there is no nursing shortage anymore. There are tons of people going back to nursing school because of this alleged "shortage", and there are going to be a whole lot of nurses who can't find jobs in 4 or 5 years. I firmly believe that the more hospitals cry "nursing shortage, we can't find nurses" and tell the powers that be that they need to hire agency nurses and need more money, they get subsidies from somewhere and they are using the money for other stuff in the hospital (bonuses for the administrators, you think????). All I know is that all the hospitals now run on a skeleton nursing staff, the nurses don't get to spend any time with the patients, the paperwork and computer work is ridiculous (computers were supposed to make papers obsolete---the only thing it has done was make charting even more cumbersome, since not only do you have to write everything down with ink on paper but you have to enter the same information into the computer......????) and takes longer than the actual tasks of nursing do, everybody is terrified of being sued, and don't even THINK of putting in for overtime. OH---and I can't forget being mandated to stay for another shift if a nurse calls in sick for her shift to relieve you and they can't find coverage (which they usually can't). Hospitals will pay agency nurses 3 times what they pay their own staff nurses........but then when it is time to negotiate a new contract for the nurses, the cries of "We don't have any money" come out again. It is sad, the whole situation. We always thought we'd always have a job----and that's no longer true.

jaflosa---Do you know why hospitals are DYING for new graduates? Because an experienced nurse makes a lot more money than a new grad does. For every year, there is an experience differential. For higher education, there is a differential. Plus--older nurses are closer to retirement, and they are looking at paying a pension and medical benefits to someone who worked at their hospital for 5 years to get vested and then retire and collect their retirement benefits. THAT'S why hospitals want new grads!! It's all about money, my friend. You won't see ads from hospitals looking for nurses with 20 years of experience. When you have worked in nursing for a while, you will get to see how everything revolves around money, and nothing revolves around quality patient care. It's a business---like a car dealership or a restaurant. Sell a lot of cars, make more money. Turn tables over in a restaurant quickly and seat as many people as possible, make more money. Hospitals run by the MBA's are functioning the same way---get the patients in, get them out, turn the beds over and make more money. Never mind the fact that they aren't ready to go home----they're going home whether they're ready or not. Serve yucky food, have as few nurses as possible, minimize the therapies and get the patients out---that's the name of the game.

NurseDiane,
I am sorry, I think that you misunderstood me. I am not a new graduate. I have been a nurse over 30 years. I was hired at a new hospital but not as a grad nurse. I have worked in over 10 different states in more facilities than I want to remember and that is just not always the case. The last hospital I worked in was very patient and nurse oriented. Nurses were consulted in almost every aspect of the running of the facility. nurse were treated as very valuable resources. The average length of longevity was 10 years with nurses with well over 30 years of experience. I only moved on because I got my Masters and no Clinical Nurse Educator positions were available. And believe it or not as a staff nurse my starting salary was over 80k not including diffs. And to the person that did not know how much a educator makes, I was offered well over 90K as a CNE. So I do not know if all the problems you all are having are because there are few options in the areas and there is no competition or if something different is going on. But, the disparities I see are alarming.

Jaflosa---I wonder if it could be related to areasa of the United States. I live in New York, and in the tri-state areas, the story is the same one I told. Maybe in other places it's different??

NurseDiane,

That must be the case. I had heard other nurses talk of how bad the nursing situation was in thier cities but I thought that it was just isolated cases. But, after joining this site and hearing so many nurses tell of similiar situations all over the ciountry, I have really had my eyes open.

Thanks Nurse Diane,
I hear ya.....seriously what is all this nursing shortage mumbo jumbo about. Nursing shortage WHAT!!!!!!! Yeh right there is a nursing shortage. Right now there are way too many nurses. Seriously I have applied everywhere and some nursing recruiters are telling me that hundreds of people have applied for only 5 positions. This is craziness. I can hardly believe this. Also we are so called recession proof....I don't think so folks. Anyway hang in there and maybe we can start getting the media to publish the truth about this so called "nursing shortage." I actually e-mailed the author of that article and very nicely explained to her the situation. Hopefully she read it and did a little more research.

I am upset I spent so much money to return to school based on this lie. I am a divorced parent (ex lives far away) with three teenagers. I was counting on this job to get us out of a bad area and possibly into a home of our own. I am not a lawsuit person, but I feel like I am a victim of fraud! I hope it turns around soon. I have a friend that is getting interviews I know about 7 in the last few months, She is told that she needs experience. Why call her in for an interview? Waste of your company's time and hers. I guess the HR people have nothing to do?
Sorry - just worried about the summer...teenage kids have a tendency to eat you out of house and home and they are always bored!

Nurse901 and RN2bMBAnext---your posts further support my "theory"......telling a nurse that hundreds of nurses have applied for 5 positions (therefore, pretty much telling her "Thanks, but no thanks").......and places interviewing new grads and then telling them they need experience........and then these same places will go to whatever "Powers That Be" (in other words, the people in charge of the "subsidy" monies), and tell them that nobody applied, or they weren't qualified for the job, or whatever other line of bologna they can drum up.

Tons of people are going to nursing school based on this widespread "nursing shortage" that has been sensationalized by the media, and reinforced by hospitals crying about the nursing shortage when patients complain about the sh**y care they receive----"Oh, we are so short of nurses", "We can't fill the open positions we have"......

The media is basing its reporting on what facility administrators are telling them---they don't ask the bedside nurses what is going on. I wish I could get into the HR/Nursing Recruitment offices and see how many actual positions are open and how many nurses have applied for them, only to be told no, for some stupid reason. If you are a new grad, and the hospital says that "New Grads O.K.", then to be interviewed and then told that you need experience, that is absurd----how is a new grad going to get experience if she can't get a job??

I stand by my "theory" about subsidy monies for an alleged "nursing shortage". Something very suspicious is going on, and the only explanation for it is money----money is what the facilities want. They don't want QUALITY patient care---they want QUANTITIES of patients!! I have family and friends in the healthcare business---a cousin who works in admitting at a major university hospital in Connecticut, a brother who is a nurse, several cousins who are nurses........My cousin who works in admitting in the major university hospital in CT tells me that they will be laying off in Admitting, and they are going to put a lot of the paperwork for patient admissions onto the nurses so they can lay off staff in Admitting----as if nurses don't have enough to do already? I have a cousin who just graduated from nursing school, but she has been a nursing assistant for years and she has worked in a major university medical center in Connecticut in the ED---only 2 people out of her graduating class have jobs, and the only reason she has one is because she has already worked for the hospital for 12 years as a nursing assistant.

What is going on in nursing is mind boggling.