getting a job with an ASN and a BA?

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Jul 10, 2015

I would hope some of our Boston area nurses would speak up, we have several frequent posters from that area. It is my understanding that the Boston market is especially competitive. If you want to work acute care, you would need a BSN. If Boston is as I've heard, ADN may seem cheaper but it is not because then you will owe money on that bill, not have a nursing job and then have to start working on a BSN just to have a hope of being hired. If Boston is as I've heard. . .

JulianaRose · Jul 25, 2015

*** The irony here is that there is nothing at all about Magnet that requires or suggests that staff nurses need to have BSNs. Hospitals shooting for Magnet may choose to hire nurses with BSNs but it certainly is not related to their seeking Magnet. I suspect that the two go hand in hand as an indication of the mentaliety of managment in those hospitals.
I wouldn't worry about it though. In my area Magnet hospitals have aquired a well deserved reputation as not being good places to work, particularly among critical care & ER types

Our hospital requires 80% of nurses to be BSN due to their Magnet status. The reasoning is due to some evidence-based studies saying BSN trained grads have fewer errors. I personally will not be looking for continued employment with them due to their BSN requirement as I am an ADN student and do not wish to wait 5 years before being able to work in a RN role.

PMFB-RN, RN · Jul 25, 2015

The reasoning is due to some evidence-based studies saying BSN trained grads have fewer errors.

Oh really? Do you believe that? Have you seen any of this evidence? I have never even heard of any studies that show that BSN grads make fewer errors.

If you, or anyone else, knows of any studies that shows that BSN grads make fewer errors I would like to see them.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Jul 25, 2015

My friend has been LPN for 4 years, graduated the same class with me (zero experience in nursing). She got a job at the same hospital I did. Pay is the same.

Your friend didn't start at the hospital with zero nursing experience, unless she never worked as an LPN one day in her life. She presumably had four years of licensed nursing experience due to her LPN licensure.

LPN experience does not equal RN experience, but it is licensed nursing experience.

ivyleaf · Aug 20, 2015

I graduated with an ADN in 2007 and I live in MA. For reasons I won't go into (basically, I hated nursing school-- it wasn't what I expected), after graduation I immediately took my boards and started that fall in a bachelor's degree program, planning on getting a BS in biology. Another long story short, that turned into a BA in psychology. While I was on break that first semester, I was able to find a per diem job with a mental health agency I had worked at in school as an RN at an unlocked mental health unit/detox north of Boston.

There, I met an NP who worked at a local hospital psych unit (slightly outside of Boston), and through her I was able to get a per diem job on that unit while I finished my BA (2 yrs).

By the time I finished my BA, I had realized I did not want to work in a biology lab or get a graduate degree in clinical psychology. I applied to some nursing jobs (mostly mental health, I believe, as that was where my interest and experience lied), and I was able to get a great job at a nonprofit mental health agency in the Boston area that included excellent hours (M-F 8-4), great pay for a new grad, supervisory experience, and lots of room for creativity and freedom. My focus was health and wellness promotion in individuals with severe and persistent mental illness.

After 3 years there, I wanted a change of pace, and was able to get hired at a major Boston hospital doing psychiatry case management (I had gone in for a per diem interview and the full time person happened to quit a week or 2 later). I did that for about 1.5 years before I decided I missed direct pt care, and was able to (fairly easily) get a job north of Boston (I got 2 offers) on a locked psych unit in a general hospital (not freestanding psych) setting.

Most recently, I landed a job as a floating clinic nurse between different primary care/family medicine/OB and an urgent care clinic.

I have also worked per diem for another non profit mental health agency, and throughout my journey, have interviewed for and have been offered multiple jobs in the behavioral health insurance realm (major insurance companies, smaller behavioral health ones), including supervisory roles, as well as a job in a primary care clinic, a job doing telephonic chronic disease management from home for a major insurance co, and another in primary care chronic disease case management.

So in short, if you're open to non traditional roles, primary care, case management, and/or mental health/psych, you can definitely find a job in the Boston area without a BSN.

However, if you are set on getting a new grad med surg or other specialty position (ED, L&D, ICU) at the BI/BWH/MGH, you should definitely go for your BSN.

I wish I had gone for my BSN because 1) I am trying to transition out of psych (I have always dreamed of working in the ED), and 2) I am planning on moving in the next couple years. Psych is much less competitive, and besides the large boston hospital I worked at, no one in PA or CA is going to know the community agencies or hospitals I worked at-- I will be at a disadvantage compared to nurses with local experience and networking, and not having a BSN will just make it even harder, even though I've hacked it out here pretty well for myself.

Just my 2 cents..

WCSU1987 · Sep 5, 2015

That be awesome if my BS counted with my ADN. Unfortunately nothing like that here there is diploma nurse's in hospital I work at who obtain a bachelor's in health sciences will be grandfathered don't have to go for their BSN in 2020. That is really only exception I know of. However, of want to continue you working for my hospital or any area hospital's where I live need that BSN, BOO! Anyways extra $10K hoping can get the finances for it. I only used $10,000 to bay for my Bachelor's degree once finding out my estranged paternal.grandfather had $60,000 set aside for me for college, paid off most of my college.

applesxoranges, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2015

In my area, they prefer BSNs but everyone had a job within six months of graduation from my school because my school has a great rep. I just looked at our residents and two of them graduated from my school so they have associate degrees.