Jobs after graduation

[Ansumana]

Live in Maryland and I've been reading posts for a while now about how nursing isn't recession proof. Though it may have a high resistance job failure due to the economy, I believe that nursing is a very much secure position than other fields. But why are people facing hard times finding jobs? Is it just in the bigger cities and states because in MD (Salisbury, MD, to be more specific) when I search for job on MWEjobs.com, almost LPN/RN fills up the job searches with management positions for restaurants trailing behind them. Any thoughts ?

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

The need for experienced nurses is always notably higher than for new grads. No, nursing is hardly recession-proof; there is currently a glut of nurses who might have retired by now if it had not been for the poor economy--a good number lost their nest-eggs a bunch of years back when the bottom fell out of the financial bucket.

It's not unusual to see a great number of listings for nursing positions in any given hospital. However, having an opening AND an actual job they plan to fill aren't the same thing. Hospitals are known for listing a bunch of positions to look like they have much to offer, but when push comes to shove--they aren't hiring. They want very much to keep the competition alive, it keeps it much more an employer's market that way.

Doesn't matter if you're in a big city or a small one. Same story across the US. Some grads have no problem finding a job if they're in the right place at the right time. Then the jobs are filled, and the search continues for the next batch.

[Ansumana]

Well that's depressing. We go through all that schooling just not to get hired

[rys22]

I know there are a lot of people out there who just can't find a job (especially new grads) but I can't help but wonder how many jobless people are just making common resume/interview mistakes without realizing it or get burnt out from applying to no avail. I've been there with the latter (but not in the nursing industry) and I know how easy it is to just feel depressed with the whole process and start applying halfheartedly or spending more time thinking/talking about applying than actually doing it. I think there are a lot of job hunting options to exhaust before we can truly say we've done everything we can. I think it's important to not be too picky sometimes as a new grad so that we get any kind of experience we can get our hands on. Also when it has been a while of looking for jobs with nothing to show for it, like I said in the beginning there needs to be an evaluation of the resume and how you behave in the interview. In this economy, hiring managers know they can be picky over the silliest things (IMO) and they can reject an applicant for a lot of things.

Again, I do not mean to say this applies to everyone and I do apologize if it offends anyone. That is not how I intend it to be just how I see it sometimes.

[jtboog2003]

Not speaking for everyone, but the ones that I know without a job are those with the mindset that they don't want to work at certain places. They are very specific about where they want to work, like the NICU for example and won't apply for anything besides hospital jobs like this. I have heard "I don't want to work in long-term care" from these people a lot, and they are the ones still looking. I feel like you take what you can get to gain that experience. No it may not be what you want right now, but at least you are doing SOMETHING for the time being. Once you have that experience there are more opportunities.