Nursing graduates find tighter job market - Page 9

For those of you who think LTC is a dead end... the baby boomers are getting older and there will be a huge need for nurses who have LTC experience in 10 years. Any nursing experience is better than none!

I think we will see some RN jobs open up this Fall doing Flu shot clinics. I am volunteering at a camp to get experience doing camp nursing. Write the ANA (who is still pushing the nursing shortage line), Write your congressman, and keep plugging away with the job search.

Idea for a business -

Obviously there is something seriously wrong with our nursing education if we cannot, once we graduate, be expected to be able to walk on a med surg unit and do our job. All we are qualified for as grad nurses is to pass the NCLEX. That is SAD!!!

OK - so for those business minded people who have many years experience in a feild, what if you were to start a school to educate new nurses in your specialty. You could work with the hospitals to fund it and get a new grad up to speed, without having to pay them a starting salary until they pass the program. Then, the hospital will have a "pre-oriented" nurse who would need much less training.

magriff3 - you hit the nail square on the head. if you work in healthcare and your services are billed for by your employer, you are valuable to the employer. the nurse does not enjoy this priviledge.

in medicine, pts and ots are directly billed and therefore are hot and will stay that way.

RE: Nurses not generating money

If you had to choose between hospital A who had a nurse to pt ratio of 1 to 5 and hospital B with a Nurseatient ratio of 1 to 8, which would you pick?
A good nurse will make a patient feel good about coming to that hospital and generate more good "word of mouth" about the hospital.
Take nurses out of the picture and watch your hospital go down in flames in no time, and the lawsuits will likely go through the roof!
Does the Hospital building itself generate income? no, but you NEED it to run the hospital. You NEED nurses to maintain patients (or do you?). You Need Doctors to diagnose patients (or do you?)

There was an article I read about robots being developed to do nursing:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/ne...tem/1169635956

What do you all think about that?

I wouldn't use ratios as the basis for my decision. Rather, I'd look at rates of med errors, nosocomial infections, etc.

You can have low ratios but still have lazy people who don't do their jobs well.

graduated in May with my RN. i heard that only 3 from my graduating class got jobs in facilities. it seems like these hospitals and other facilities will not hear of hiring a new grad.

fortunately, the place that i work were and still are hiring. they had a great training program and i get to work with children (my passion)! there are a lot of nurses hurting for work in Arizona. its really tuff right now.

hang in there!
Jen,

It is so tough out there. Last week I attended a job fair in NYC. What waste of time and once again the people that were representing the hospitals were not informative. For one they were not nurse recruiters so when I asked questions all I got was the response " That is a question a nurse recruiter can answer." The next hospital booth I went to I asked out right if they were on a hiring freeze, the person was taken aback by the question, she danced around answering the question by stating "the hospital has Magnet status."

That is all find and dandy about the magent status, but you people are not hiring newbies at all.
I was so over the job fair in 30 minutes to the point I could have chewed rocks. My plan wasn't to go there to get free crap like pens, post its, and bags, my plan was to get my foot in the door to get a job and make contacts, and get ifo the websites don't provide.

The hospitals that were there only pushed to check their websites.

It is pretty sad that I got more info about job opportunities that the FBI was offering from the rep they had there and they had different areas in which one could work. Sad that the hospitals there couldn't provide info about the one topic of nursing.

If any one can provide info on how to get "the golden 1 yr experience" that every place seems to require, but yet due to the economy isn't hiring, let me know. Do I have to wish for the nursing fairies to appear and flick their magic wands or something.

I'm ****** because I'm living in a state where they haven't even come up with the new fiscal year budget which affects if places are hiring or not. So far in all the places I have called to, contacted etc, only one was honest to state they are currently on a hiring freeze. that is sad when only 1 out of many is truthful.

From what one is hearing NYC is a tough market to find work at the moment. Leaving aside the city's and states fiscal woes and mess, you have in addition to new grads, experienced nurses who left for other jobs coming back, and due to several hospitals closing lots of experienced nurses out there looking for work as well. If you can drive have you thought about getting a NJ license and looking for work on the other side of the river?

Personally have always favoured the direct approach when seeking employment. That is get one's resume directly into the hands of the person who does the hiring or often even better their assistant. The Upper Eastside of Manhattan is fairly compact and there are several hospitals from Harlem to the East 60's. Maybe just doing a walking tour and stopping into HR, DON or whomever does nursing service hiring to hand in your resume and seeing if anything is open, and getting a name to call can work wonders. Not always, but it can. It also helps to get to know one or two persons on the inside, so to speak that can keep you updated on any openings posted internally. Persistence is key!
Best of luck!

On another note: think it really *s**ks that after months of screaming about a nursing shortage from the housetops, new grads aren't being given the chances they deserve. Has any of the powers that be thought about what "crying wolf" is going to do for future efforts? Who is going to spend the vast sums for schooling and pour blood, sweat and tears into working their butts of not only to get into a program, but stay in and graduate, then pass the boards only to be told they will have to sit and cool their jets for several months or longer?

Here is an idea, why not take some of the billions of unspent Stimlus funds and give it to hospitals, especially those in medically underserved areas to take on new grads. Maybe also open clinics staffed with a blend of experienced and new nurses to provide much needed care to underserved areas and take some of the pressure of emergency departments.

DoGoogThenGo, I couldn't agree with you more about what the governement needs to do with the money. It is frustrating hearing about nursing shortage knowing all the new grads and graduate nurses out their can't find a job due to bureaucratic foolishness. It is too the point I can't take the monetary risk of applying to another state for licensure only to have the same mess occur. I'm licensed in two states.

I've been calling up places I applied to. The other day I called up a hospital I had applied to in NYC because I haven't heard from them. When I called human resources I actually got to speak to a person, who told me to send my coverletter and resume to her. I had told her the email address I had previously sent my info to. I guess it is just some generic email address that they have set up to collect resumes. It is to the point now when I apply on line to jobs I am giving places a week before I call up them directly and start asking questions.

This situation of not being able to find a job has pushed to writing a letter to the governor of the state I currently reside. I don't know if anything will be accomplished by my letter, but at least I can say I voiced the reality of what is going on in nursing to those that really need a reality check into the situation..

most engineering firms that i've worked for have directly billed engineering hours to the customers (the 40/week, anyway - the other 10-20 are just the donations expected of the salaried chump)... i've seen plenty of engineers laid off, plenty of salary freezes, a few salary reductions, and ever-increasing pushes for uncomp'd ot. direct billing is no panacea.

besides, direct billing means detailed, accurate recordkeeping of what you did. according to one study i saw, the average staff nurse performs 250 separate actions each day. you really want to detail that? nah, of course not. what you'd end up with is - 3 hours of nursing care provided to patient x... pretty much what's already wrapped up in the room rate. and just because you bill it directly doesn't mean that it's going to be paid at any given rate. the payers will negotiate and whittle it down to the bare minimum, direct billed or not.