Getting a job after challenging CNA exam

[Nurse2b87]

Are there any CNA's that have been able to find a job easily without having taken a formal training course? I challenged the CNA exam here in Florida and passed last week. I didn't take a training course because I just didn't have the money, so I studied really hard on my own. I bought a couple of study guides and watched videos and practices on friends. I also volunteer at a hospital, so I got to observe CNAs on the job.

I'm really worried that I won't be able to find a job because I haven't taken a formal training course. I just want to know if there is or was anyone in the same boat as me.

[Poochiewoochie]

Honestly I'm just hoping that my good rapport with the staff at the hospital will give me a leg up. I'm already familiar with a lot of the policies and procedures there and they know me and my work ethic. All I can do is be honest about my situation and do the best I can under these circumstances.

I do appreciate your honesty, thank you.

I hope things work out for you. Good luck!

[Amnesty]

Where do you live?? That makes all the difference.

I got a job in a hospital without any formal license or CNA training. I openly admitted to my employers during my interview that I'd never had an iota of patient contact. They hired me based on my attitude. The hospital where I work is a great place, and they didn't want any of these crappy CNAs who only do the bare minimum and don't care about their job. Being a CNA is a difficult job, but the tasks themselves are not what makes it difficult. A monkey can take vital signs and do grunt work for patients, but it takes a caring person to go that extra mile to make sure the patients have the best care possible and are in as little pain as possible. Apply for jobs, and show them your spirit and your license. Tell them you have no formal CNA training if they ask, but if they don't, why bring it up? And if they do bring it up, tell them that you have experience working with patients in a hospital setting and that you help the CNAs. Where I work, getting things like water and pillows and extras is the CNA's job, so that's not even you trying to fib. Good luck!

[funtimes]

Strange as it sounds, I think you're probably more likely to be hired at a hospital without formal training than you are at a Nursing home. The workload at a hospital is usually less and its an all around easier job to learn than nursing home work is.

Things like not having to get a person who is paralyzed on one side fully dressed in street clothes, and then getting them in and out of the clothes and cleaned up whenever they have an "accident" is an example of something you have to do continually in a nursing home that in a hospital you will never have to worry about, and it makes life ten times easier for the CNA. Its SO much easier when you just slip a new hospital gown on them.

In a hospital most of the patients are either bed bound, or can pretty much ambulate themselves, with maybe someone standing by for safety, and to make sure they don't get wrapped up in IV lines. In a nursing home you're getting people who cant even stand in and out of wheelchairs all day. I know hospital techs who probably don't even know how to use a hoyer lift, or at least have never used one on a patient, whereas every nursing home CNA probably uses one several times a day.

[Poochiewoochie]

The OP is lucky-in my state you can not take the CNA test unless you take a CNA course.