Current job market in Northern Utah? Looking to relocate from MD!

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Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Care.

Hello Utah RNs! My husband and I are thinking about relocating to the SLC area from Maryland. I was wondering how the job market is for nurses there, as well as the average salary. I don't really know anyone out there so I would really appreciate your input. I saw some older posts on this topics but no one has really commented on them recently, so I thought I would put another request out there. :-)

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

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Hello Utah RNs! My husband and I are thinking about relocating to the SLC area from Maryland. I was wondering how the job market is for nurses there, as well as the average salary. I don't really know anyone out there so I would really appreciate your input. I saw some older posts on this topics but no one has really commented on them recently, so I thought I would put another request out there. :-)

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

What specialty? Regardless, get ready for a huge pay cut. At the U of U I got under $50K/year full time ICU with BSN and CCRN (they do not pay more for certs or higher ed.) I moved to a neighboring state making 50% more same cost of living. Good hospital to work for besides the pay. great, cheap benfits. The job market is pretty tight, but with experience it should be OK.

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Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Care.

I'm looking to go into hospice care, but I realize I need to start with Med/Surg. What's the nurse/patient ratio where you work? I don't think I mind so much about the pay cut, as long as the cost of living supports that cut. My husband is a web developer and would be looking for work in the SLC area as well.

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Do you have any experience? If not, I've got some bad news for you my friend. I hate to sound discouraging, but I looked for a job for a long, long time and must have applied to hundreds of jobs. Hundreds. I went on 2 interviews and never found a job. I finally confronted a HR department -- at that point, I'd already already given up, so I figured what did I have to lose -- about why it was so difficult to find a job or even get a call back and was told that for every nursing position they advertise, they receive about 200 applications. Looking at my resume/credentials from an HR standpoint, I had zero experience (new graduate) and only an Associate degree. University of Utah, Weber State, BYU all pump out BSN educated nurses every single semester, so an out-of-state Associate with obvious military affiliations (meaning, I move around every 3-4 years) didn't stand a chance. And I didn't just limit my job search to hospitals. Oh no. I applied at clinics, county health departments, blood/plasma donation centers, dialysis centers, nursing homes, behavioral health centers. Just about everywhere, but correctional facilities. It has been brought up in other threads in this forum if you take the time to read them that Utah is a state where the people that live there mostly stay there. People have been living there for generations, their mothers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc., all live there and they have no desire to leave the state, so all the hospital systems there have a big pool to choose from that just keep regenerating over and over again. Bitter? Meh. I was when I lived there. I even went on to complete an RN-BSN program thinking it would give me a little bit of a boost. Nope. If you have some freedom with where you want to relocate to, I would keep looking. That's my two cents.

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Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Care.

Wowwwww....well, that was a reality check for me!! Thank you for your honest reply. I have no nursing experience. And I'm graduating this summer with my Associates. My husband and I have discussed moving right after I graduate vs. after I've gotten some experience...and if we wait a while to move, I'm hoping to be hired here in MD by the Johns Hopkins medical system, for what it's worth. The move is for family reasons. Out of curiosity, how long ago were you looking for work in UT?

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We knew we were moving there about 6 months prior to actually being there. Even during that time, I started looking for jobs and contacting HR departments about any kind of new graduate nurse programs and/or externships. My hubby had gotten assigned to Hill AF Base, which is about 30 mins or so north of Salt Lake City, so I was applying EVERYWHERE. I would say that I looked for a job for about 18 months before I threw in the towel. Of course, at that point, we knew we would be moving again soon, so there was no point in continuing to look. Give me a sec and I'm going to PM you some add'l thoughts.

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Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Care.

Thanks for PMing me! I tried to write you back but the site won't let me - it says I haven't been an active member long enough to send PMs. Super annoying!

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That's funny, I received your PM and just wrote you back!

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