I'm a 2010 grad, I started my first job at a LTC facility back in May in night shift. It's not exactly where I wanted to start however, a start is a start I'm grateful for the person that helped me get my first job and my fellow coworkers who have been nice to me. But I need to get hospital experience so I can finally go to grad school.
Apparently one of my family friends is a hospital director and was able to land me an interview for a Critical Care/CTICU unit. This is a huge leap from the somewhat stable environment of LTC to well how patients are in CC/ICU. How can I sell myself against other hospital prepared nurses? I work nights, I have very little interpersonal contact with family members and I rarely call doctors unless the crap has hit the fan. I look at paperwork more than my patients and the most intensive thing I've ever done was trach suctioning/care. I've been floated to the subacute part of the building but not enough to actually talk about it. My typical patient load is 28-39 patients depending on staffing and compared to other nursing homes at nights I'm told that's rather good vs other night nurses that have up to 60 patients.
The other interview I had went poorly because I was told I was too negative on my LTC experience (I said I wanted to learn more, but being in LTC does not really afford me that opportunity) and I think I didn't get enough sleep, I came back from work at 8am and had an interview at 2pm. I don't want to make the same mistake again, how can I spin my lack of experience to my advantage?
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I'm a 2010 grad, I started my first job at a LTC facility back in May in night shift. It's not exactly where I wanted to start however, a start is a start I'm grateful for the person that helped me get my first job and my fellow coworkers who have been nice to me. But I need to get hospital experience so I can finally go to grad school.
Apparently one of my family friends is a hospital director and was able to land me an interview for a Critical Care/CTICU unit. This is a huge leap from the somewhat stable environment of LTC to well how patients are in CC/ICU. How can I sell myself against other hospital prepared nurses? I work nights, I have very little interpersonal contact with family members and I rarely call doctors unless the crap has hit the fan. I look at paperwork more than my patients and the most intensive thing I've ever done was trach suctioning/care. I've been floated to the subacute part of the building but not enough to actually talk about it. My typical patient load is 28-39 patients depending on staffing and compared to other nursing homes at nights I'm told that's rather good vs other night nurses that have up to 60 patients.
The other interview I had went poorly because I was told I was too negative on my LTC experience (I said I wanted to learn more, but being in LTC does not really afford me that opportunity) and I think I didn't get enough sleep, I came back from work at 8am and had an interview at 2pm. I don't want to make the same mistake again, how can I spin my lack of experience to my advantage?