Difficulty in finding an RN job in the Bay Area

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jun 11, 2006

Do you have a a green card to work in the US?

If not, it requires a lot of paperwork to work here and hospitals frequently do not want the hassle of it.

suzanne4, RN · Jun 11, 2006

The Bay Area is not hiring nurses that do not already have green cards, the hospitals in the area or not doing any petitoning. There are enough US nurses, or nurses that already have green cards and work experience in the US to fill the positions.

The Bay Area is the highest paying area in the US, and thus, gets nurses from all over wishing to work in that area.

It is a known fact that none are petitioning right now, and have not been. Any of the other areas of the state will be much easier to find a position.

cyang22 · Jun 11, 2006

No. But I can work with EAD because my husband and I are AOS pending. I also clearly indicated in the application saying that I can legally work in the US. Still can not figure out why I am not being hired.

cyang22 · Jun 11, 2006

The Bay Area is not hiring nurses that do not already have green cards, the hospitals in the area or not doing any petitoning. There are enough US nurses, or nurses that already have green cards and work experience in the US to fill the positions.
The Bay Area is the highest paying area in the US, and thus, gets nurses from all over wishing to work in that area.
It is a known fact that none are petitioning right now, and have not been. Any of the other areas of the state will be much easier to find a position.

Yeah maybe you are true about this. However, when browsing through their career centers, they are still hiring nurses--many positions are still waiting to be filled. (Some even have been posted since last year.) But none suits me as they told me.

As for green card, my husband and I are petitioning it right now. He is the main petitioner under EB-2 category since he is an engineer with a PhD degree. We filed last Feb. So far I-140 got apporved. Code 3 biometrics was done last Apr. Our attorney said that we will probably get it within six months.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jun 11, 2006

Yeah maybe you are true about this. However, when browsing through their career centers, they are still hiring nurses--many positions are still waiting to be filled. (Some even have been posted since last year.) But none suits me as they told me.
As for green card, my husband and I are petitioning it right now. He is the main petitioner under EB-2 category since he is an engineer with a PhD degree. We filed last Feb. So far I-140 got apporved. Code 3 biometrics was done last Apr. Our attorney said that we will probably get it within six months.

While Suzanne is the expert on Immigration, I am not.

I do know of several Japanese nurses that were here, because of school/spouse's jobs/etc. and working. The facility had to file extra paperwork on them. At various times, their status changed due to changes in the spouse's status and they would be off work for undetermined periods of time due to paperwork issues. Our manager would neither fill out their paperwork due to not wanting to take the responsibility, nor would she hold their jobs for them, despite the expensive of losing senior personnel, the shortage of staff in the department, and the cost of hiring someone. It was the facility's policy (even prior to 9-11). On a small unit, losing even one full time person for a few monthes was a serious problem.

For the facility, they often do not want to go through the "hassle" of the extra paperwork, or the cost of orienting someone that may be prevented from working due to immigration issues. They prefer for all of that to be cleared up before investing the money to hire and orient someone.

It may not be fair, but just how things work.

Sheri257 · Jun 11, 2006

I applied for Stanford and Kaiser. They did not want to hire me as an RN, saying that I did not have any working experiences here in the US. Instead, they wanted me to apply their new graduate programs. In the end, they both rejected me. I feel so frustrated. They only wanted the new graduates just left school with IPs, not an individual trained outside the US with an RN license.

Yeah maybe you are true about this. However, when browsing through their career centers, they are still hiring nurses--many positions are still waiting to be filled. (Some even have been posted since last year.) But none suits me as they told me.

Kaiser is a big bureaucracy, and their job listings may not be up to date.

Also, this is graduation time, and they're probably flooded with applications. I don't know about the Bay Area but in southern California, everybody wants to work for Kaiser because they have the best pay and benefits of any private hospitals in our area.

So, unlike other hospitals, they can be very picky if they want to ... and they are, even with new grads from California schools.

Since my school's graduation was later than others, Kaiser was already flooded with new grad applications and they'd already filled a lot of the openings. So ... they didn't really care if new grads from my school wanted to work for them or not.

All the other hospitals were begging new grads from my school to work for them, but not Kaiser. They don't need to. I wouldn't be surprized if the same situation was happening with Kaiser in the Bay Area.

:typing

suzanne4, RN · Jun 11, 2006

The issue that you are not paying attention to is that the Bay Area is currently the highest paying area in the entire US. There are many Americans that trained in the US that wish to work there, and or there are those that already have experience of working for a couple of years in the US, and have US experience under their belt.

You will only find difficulites in getting a postion in the Bay Area. Any other area is usually wide open.

And as what Lizz states, what you see posted about job openings are definitely not always up to date.

At this time also, new grad programs are already fully booked and most have already started or are starting shortly.. Most of the Bay Area facilities only hold new grad programs twice a year, next ime not until after the New Year holidays, they also usually take most of their new hires from students that rotated thru there.