Advice on do not rehire status

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I worked at a NY hospital that is part of a 3 hospital, 2 nursing home healthcare system. I worked there 4 years as an LPN. I was told by many coworkers and nurse manager that I was a good nurse. The last year I was there, I was under a lot of stress and they kept putting me as a aide to fill in because I was an LPN. I did call out 8 times that last year and although never fired, I was written up. I gave my 2 weeks notice, paid back my tuition, and left. I come to find out, I am a do not rehire now. I do believe the HR lady would not have marked me as do not rehire if I didn't ruffle her feathers when I told her that according to policy, LPNs only had to give 2 weeks because the policy said only RNs and management had to give 4 weeks. I got a higher up to confirm this for me. She didn't like that I am sure. My old nurse manager there Do said she would give me a good reference, but I applied for a ER RN position at one of the other hospitals in the system and I am afraid they will find out about the do not rehire status. Do I speak to one of the higher ups there to tell my story to avoid losing this job I really want? Sorry so long.

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Specializes in ICU / PCU / Telemetry / Oncology.

I'm not a nurse (yet) but I think your situation is basically an HR issue that can occur in most any industry. My feel is that you should be honest about what happened at your prior job. Better to be honest up front than to have it rear an ugly head later on as a potential cover-up on your part. If your record of achievement and experience speaks for itself, I would think your new employer would value that more and take a cursory look at what occurred that got you a possible DNR status (what's good is that you don't seem to be DNR based on your nursing skills). In fact, I would think twice about an employer who will make a quick judgment about the DNR without looking at everything you have to offer. The good reference from your nurse manager should speak volumes of your work and hopefully override the DNR thing. Again, I would hate to have that status come up as undisclosed if I were you, you don't want to appear as if you're hiding something and leave them to wonder what else you're hiding. I hate to finish up with a corny cliche, but yes: The truth shall set you free!

Good luck with that! :up:

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I would guess that your DNR status is based on your attendance (you got written up for excessive absences) rather than anything you said to the person in the HR office. Making a departing employee someone a DNR is usually done on the basis of established HR policies related to objective evaluation of a person's work performance (if only to reduce the risk of lawsuits) rather than on one person's whim because of a single interaction

Paco386 is right -- in either case, potential employers will find out about the DNR status when they check with your former employer. Rather than just hoping they don't find out, it would be smarter for you to be prepared to talk in interviews about what the particular situation was that led to that situation (without sounding defensive or like you're blaming your previous employer), and what you've done to make changes so that situation (excessive absences) will not reoccur, as well as having a number of positive references to offer to counterbalance the DNR.

This is not a career-ender -- lots of nurses have had a bad experience with an employer and been able to go on after that. Best wishes!

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thank all for replying. I recently talked to the administrator in person at my old job who labeled me as do not rehire. She ws even surprised. After a short talk with her, she said she would go through the channels and make sure that info did not get out to potential employers especially their sister facility that I was hoping to get the ER position at. It's now wait and see if I get called from them for the interview. When I met the nurse manager for the ER at the job fair, she was very optimistic about me and when I followed up on the phone, she said she was glad I called her and that HR would be calling me soon to schedule a interview. That was 4 days ago. I gues all HR dept are slow...

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Specializes in Psychiatric, Geriatric.

Communicate with your network. Negtive consequences usually occur as a result of people not being open with each other. Let the others know how you feel. And as always act as a professional. That opens more doors than anything else. Good Luck

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