Discrimination, discrimination.. Tell me what you think.

Nurses New Nurse

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I recently applied for an RN position out of state. After less than 8hrs of applying I got a call from the nurse recruiter asking for an interview. I was so excited. I spent whatever little money I had bought a ticket and went to the interview. The first person I met on the day of the interview was the nurse recruiter who is also part of HR I guess. She spent 5 min telling me about the benefits & salary then took me to the nurse manager of the unit I applied for.I thanked her before she left, smiled and stuff. My interview went really well, I didn't feel that nervous. Then I shadowed a nurse for almost 4hrs. At the end the nurse manager told me to give her about 2 weeks because she still had more interviews.I sent thank you letters to both the manager & the recruiter. About a week later I got an e-mail from the recruiter thanking me for my interest in the company but unfortunately they are looking at other candidates whose qualifications better meet the needs of the unit. I was devastated an cried my eyes out. Later I decided to contact the nurse manager for some constructive criticism. She answered the phone remembered me who I was and told me that she hasn't made a decision yet because she is still doing interviews and will let me know. When I told her the recruiter emailed me a letter of rejection she said she doesnt understand why because she didn't decide yet. So basically the recruiter lied to me and tried to eliminate me before the race is even over. It's strange that on paper I looked so good to her that she called in less than 8hrs and after she met me she's trying to eliminate me.Sadly the 1st thing that came to my mind was that maybe she wasn't too pleased with my skin color. Maybe I'm wrong. So what do you think? What would you do if you were me? Thanks.

There was absolutely nothing in your post to indicate that it was because of your race. It could be they didn't like your personality or because they wanted to see if someone with more experience than you would eventually apply or they felt that they would be better off with someone who has a slightly different skill set, or one of a hundred other reasons.

Geesh...:icon_roll:icon_roll

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

As a former nurse manager, I would like to explain a bit about the hiring process.

When a position becomes open, most institutions require that it be posted in house for a period of time before it is posted to the public. If no candidate is hired in-house, then it opens up to outside candidates. That is where you came into the process.

Usually, resumes and applications are reviewed by HR, weeded out, then forwarded to the nurse manager. The NM may not initially (or ever) see all of the applications or resumes received. HR chooses some potential candidates and the NM chooses some. Interviews are set and may take weeks to complete. It is possible that at this point, a "special" candidate entered the process, someone from in-house, someone personally known to the manager or a staff person, a recent grad with a work/scholarship agreement, maybe even the neice of the CEO.

While ideally, the NM would have the final say over who is hired, that is not usually the case. The manager probably will select 2-3 candidates that s/he would like to hire, then HR will give their input and a final choice will be made.

It is entirely possible that the NM's choice will be over-ruled for any number of reasons, including references, past work history of the candidates, salary constraints, hospital obligation to employees with scholarships, even nepotism.

So the nurse manager may have wanted to extend you an offer that was over-ruled for any number of reasons by HR. I understand the tendency to question race as a factor, but highly doubt it. No reasonable or reputable HR department would allow that to be a consideration. If it were, you are better off not working there.

Best of luck to you.

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Specializes in Neuro/ MS.

Please keep your head up. Discrimination happens, we know it. People can state it doesn't happen but we know that it does. I CANNOT say this is what happened to you in this situation. You have to keep going and apply for other jobs. Trust and believe that you will get a job. I applied all of the US. Telephone interviewed in KY, AZ, and FL. I just kept applying about 100 times if not more.

Keep applying and praying for the job that you want.

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I respect your opinion that maybe it has nothing to do with race. But I was simply expressing how I felt, I never said it was a fact. To say that I'm making it about race to make myself feel better, really? You must be kidding me. You think it makes me feel better to think that someone maybe couldn't look pass my race and take a closer look at my qualifications? I would rather feel like I didn't get the job because there were a lot of candidates, my interview wasn't as good as I thought etc.. For the record no one who ever felt discriminated against because of their race chose to feel that way to feel better.Again, I was expressing how I felt, I didn't choose to feel that way; I just did, and nor does it make me feel better.

I apologize for making it sound that way but I was meaning you found comfort in thinking that the denial was based on race and that they had an excuse to not hire you. You now had a justification.

With this day and age, I just dont see racism in hiring (especially in nursing). The nurses that work in my small hospital come from all over the world. We have African nurses (from Africa), Indian nurses (from India), Chinese, American, British, Australian, Mexican and Philippians. There is a vast cultural diversity in the health field and racism just doesnt have a place these days due to the lack of qualified applicants. While I cannot say it doesnt happen, look around at the people working there and tell me that racism was a factor when hiring the staff of a hospital. I live in good ole Texas where people still think we are racist.... it is just not a factor

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With this day and age, I just dont see racism in hiring (especially in nursing).

I live in good ole Texas where people still think we are racist.... it is just not a factor

Okay. I live in Louisiana, and have spent much time in Texas. I am black, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt there are still plenty of racists in both of our states. I say this not because of assumptions, but because I have be told directly some very nasty racist things, and have been called quite a few racist names both in LA and TX, and I am just twenty something.

I wish it weren't a factor, but sometimes it is.

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Okay. I live in Louisiana, and have spent much time in Texas. I am black, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt there are still plenty of racists in both of our states. I say this not because of assumptions, but because I have be told directly some very nasty racist things, and have been called quite a few racist names both in LA and TX, and I am just twenty something.

I wish it weren't a factor, but sometimes it is.

You were told you didnt qualify for a job because of your race? Yes there are racist people, but did it effect your job? If it did, you have legal recourse.

My comments were to the original poster who thought she might have been denied a job based solely on race and that it wasnt her interview, education, experience, etc that were the contributing factors. I never denied that there are racist people throughout the world, I commented that racial discrimination in a workplace setting such as a hospital is a very rare occurring. There is so much cultural diversity throughout hospitals and they employ people from all around the world.

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My comments were to the original poster who thought she might have been denied a job based solely on race and that it wasnt her interview, education, experience, etc that were the contributing factors. I never denied that there are racist people throughout the world, I commented that racial discrimination in a workplace setting such as a hospital is a very rare occurring. There is so much cultural diversity throughout hospitals and they employ people from all around the world.

While this may be true in the hospital you work, I think that claiming that discrimination in the hospital setting is "rare" is a gross generalization. Unless you are hiring people all all around the world, how would you know?

Fyi, I can't tell if the OP experienced discrimination or not, I just don't think that it's "rare". It definitely happens.

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Funny thing happened on my way to my first Nursing Jobs.....

The first was in school. In NE FL, the vast majority of my instructors were women of color (euphamism for black). All of the graduate nurses of color in our class had no difficulty finding jobs. I have been in the hospitals and see an amazing amount of women of color working as doctors, nurses and aids.

I am in SC and I haven't seen it different here. So where racism is supposed to be the strongest, how is it I see so many women of color succeeding?

I have, however, seen those fired or not hired claim that it was because of thier skin color. It makes a person go....hmmmmmm, really?

Was it skin color or some other innocuous reason? Unfortunately, you most likely will never know. Move on an succeed regardless. :D

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Specializes in Neurosciences, cardiac, critical care.

Funny, when I stopped putting "Caucasian" on my applications I started getting jobs. I'm one of 2 white girls on my floor, and one of 4 in my MSN program (my cohort has about 40 people). It can work both ways...

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Specializes in OB (with a history of cardiac).

Highly doubt it was race. When I first graduated last year, I interviewed for a job in urgent care- went to the clinic directly and gave my resume to the manager because I was getting nowhere with the recruiters. I had only intended to give her my resume- I didn't expect to be interviewed right there and then. She pretty much told me I had the job. All she had to do was just call HR and tell the recruiter to pull up my online application so I was in the system.

Well, imagine my surprise the next day when I got a VERY nasty call from the recruiter telling me that all new grads had to go through a new grad residency, and how dare I walk into the clinic and "demand" an interview when the manager "has a buisness to run" (remember, I didn't demand a thing...) and furthermore I "will NOT be considered for this job" and boy did she ever tell me! Woo! So I called the nurse manager and apparently she had gotten ripped a new one from this recruiter too. So...sometimes it just isn't meant to be. Oh and I had another job interview awhile down the line that I thought I was going to get too but never did- did I mention I was pregnant? I had 2 interviews total the summer and fall after I graduated-one was denied me because...well, I guess the recruiter didn't like not being the gatekeeper and the second one I can guarentee WAS discrimination because I was 23 weeks pregnant, when I interviewed...and I ventured that information out too (I was at that weird point, I looked like I either just had a baby or was going to...or just had a big gut :D) and I sort of expected it.

A year later and I have a job now, I'm happy as can be, and I think I'm better off than if I had the clinic job or the other one (which was a phone triage job). So no, I really doubt it was your skin color, sometimes the nurse manager really just kind of does what HR tells them to do.

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Thanks everyone for your input.Since the nurse manager told me she was still interviewing I decided to call her back one last time. She told me she made her decision, to disregard HR's e-mail of rejection & HR will call me. Few days later, HR(same nurse recruiter) called to offer me the job.She was as cold as could be & said she doesn't recall sending me the rejection letter( yeah right, she typed my name there). Now I'm not as excited as I was before about the job. I'm doubting everything from the salary(low),relocation, bad taste in my mouth. I also realize that as a new grad I need to start somewhere even if the pay is not ideal. I'm so confused :confused:

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
funny, i think the same thing happened to me and from the other new hires i can probably prove but whats the use. mine was the nurse manager, she looked at me and decided. i know it. funny also, i asked in another question about the constructive criticism thing. i see from your experience, it seems like something i should do for sure.

sure i think you could be totally right. nursing seems so catty to me. i have heard that nurses do not like hiring other nurses that are good looking. i try to dull down my looks for interviews but its hard to do because i fear all kinds of judgment.

i had an interview on a floor that every nurse had a european accent, and the supervisor was the same with the accent.

stupid skin color, come on already. we are preached to have equality, but every form i fill out that is important has the question caucasian (white written next to it) what is white? then african american (black written next to it) what is black? i am not white, i am german with very dark features.....i am olive.

there are lots of reasons why hr might have rejected the op before the nurse manager made a decision. maybe all of the other candidates had experience, were from a nursing school associated with the hospital or were internal transfers. maybe the hr recruiter sent the letter by accident. the only way you'd know for sure is to ask hr. and it could be that the nurse manager actually made the decision but wasn't willing to admit it on the phone. perhaps you look just like her sister-in-law or her first husband's second wife.

if the good looking thing were true, i'd work with a much less attractive crowd. hiring by pulchritude rather than aptitude is a good excuse for folks who don't want to admit they weren't hired for less complimentary reasons.

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