Foreign Nurse Seeking Job in USA / Canada

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I am a registered nurse based in Kingston, Jamaica. I completed my BSN degree in Jamaica and I have about two years of general hospital experience. I would like to find permanent work in the USA or Canada as a registered nurse. I've heard of several international staffing agencies (i.e. MedPro Staffing and O'Grady ) that assist nurses in finding work in North American hospitals along with sponsoring them for the NCLEX-RN exam and providing relocation assistance. Of course, I'm not 100% sure of all the financial ramifications of signing up with these firms or what their track record of success is like. So, I'm asking the general AllNurses community, how do I best go about landing a job in the USA/Canada given the fact that I only hold Jamaican paperwork and credentials? What type of questions should I ask to ensure that I find the right sponsor for me ?

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I will recommend staying away from staffing agencies they just want your money and you can easily do what they do on your own. Judging by the fact that you are capable of accessing this website, I assume you have access to Google. Go to google.com. start typing various arrangments of words like "canadian health care" , "canadian nurses association", "health professions act alberta".....

all joking aside, you will need to be registered by the professional regulatory body presiding over the area you are wanting to work. Ill just tell you how you would get a job in the city of Calgary, in the provence of Alberta, which is part of the country of Canada.

1) obtain Registration with CARNA (the college and association of registered nurses of alberta) Home | CARNA

Then you can apply for jobs at Alberta health services here: Careers | Alberta Health Services

I dont know anything about the process of obtaining a work visa or resident status in Canada, but this might help. Determine your eligibility – Work in Canada

you should also know that it is very hard to get a full time position with alberta health services. generally recently graduated nurses start their career by letting multiple agencies abuse them as a casual labourer for about a year, then one day they are lucky enough to get an actual job.

in conclusion: STAY OUT OF MY LABOUR MARKET! I dont need anymore competition! :p but good luck

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Starting point would be deciding on which country you really want to live and work in. Then look at the state/province requirements to register as a RN and then start that process. Either country an agency isn't required to do this process. Once you have eligibility to sit NCLEX for either country you can start the process on looking for a employer. Canada has a few different routes you can take so check out the CIC website.

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OP, if you are certain you want to migrate to any of these countries, be ready for a long process whether or not you decide to use an agency.

Many of my former colleagues have used both O'Grady and Medpro and have completed their contracts successfully without any issues to migrate to the US.

For Canada, I can only speak about my experience. It took about 3 yrs for cic to process my application for permanent residency and Carna about 8 months to process my registration.

But first you need to decide which country you really want to go because the process is different for each and costly. For Canada, your initial application would be made to NNAS, then to the provincial nursing body eg CNO or CARNA.

For the US, you apply to Cgfns and the nursing state board. There are lots of information at each entity's website.

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