Getting a Home Health job

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Specializes in Surgical ICU 3 years, L&D 7 years.

I'm an RN that's returning to work after being home for 17 years. My previous experience was in SICU and then L&D. For a variety of reasons, I would like to work Home Health at this point in my life.

Any advice for breaking into this field? I'm in South Florida, Broward....any agencies I should go to that are open to training a motivated, energetic, compassionate and efficient older nurse? Any agencies I should avoid?

How did you get your Home Health job? Should I start calling all of them and make appts if they'll let me, or just show up with resume in hand?

I've applied to a couple online, but haven't heard anything yet. It doesn't help that right now is the time of year all of the snowbirds are up north, so many agencies are very slow.

:)

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Hi, welcome back to the work force! While I can't comment on how it will go getting back into the field, I can say that you will have to be persistent with Home Health specifically. I have worked at 3 HH agencies in 3 years, one of which I was actively recruited for. With each agency there seems to be a strange internal chronic level of upper management chaos that has caused me to call, call, recall and show up several times after an excellent interview to FINALLY get going on the job. They will seem to blow you off but, don't worry it's not you... it's them. Just make yourself known.

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I gather up all of my employment paperwork and visit a home health agency dressed to interview. Usually I fill out the employment application and often get interviewed and hired on the spot. I can walk out with arrangements for my first case. Or, I might be given an appointment to come back for an interview. You should have no problems getting hired, especially if you want to do extended care. If you want to do intermittent visits though, there will probably be more of an orientation period. Good luck with your first hh job. Hope you get on with a good agency.

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After not working for 17 years it may be tough to get into HH starting out..many times, at least where I live, they want a year or more of recent experience. I would suggest calling some of the agencies in your area to ask, also look on job sites such as monster.com, careerbuilder.com, indeed.com and simplyhired.com

You can also look up the jobs and apply on most company web sites. Good luck!

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