How do you get experience...

[1Tulip]

when no one will hire you if you don't have experience? Such a Catch-22! So, I've kept my license current, but been away from the bedside for over a decade. Now I want to get back into the stream of things and have been nixed for two jobs, because I don't have current experience. This is hard to understand, since both of these units hire new grads and mentor them. But they don't want to mentor a returning nurse. Go figure. Nursing shortage? What nursing shortage? Both these units have had three full time positions open for months and months. Very curious.

AND to add absurdity to insult, there are no (none, nada, zip) nurse refresher courses in out part of the state. Nearest one is two semesters long and 500 miles from where I live. And supposedly, we rank dead last in the country for nurses per capita population. But we have no way for returning nurses to break back in. What a waste of talent.

I'll be OK. I'm playing phone tag now with a nurse manager who seems eager to set up an interview. We'll see. But... I still am shaking my head at the irony of all this.

How are things in your part of the country?

[suzanne4, RN]

This happens quite often, but you are actually in better shape....you have a current license. For those that did not keep one current, they have to endure NCLEX again.......... Look at it that way.:wink2:

[RNinSoCal]

I had the experience of being shunned by hospitals because I had been doing private duty home health nursing for 4 years after nursing school. I was never away from the nursing profession but I had no acute care experience. I wanted to switch to acute care med/surg but none of the hospitals in the San Luis Obispo County, CA area would hire me without experience. I did not qualify for the new grad programs either. I found an RN refresher course at Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area and moved. I am single without kids and could make the move easily. I was hired 1 week after finishing the course at a large teaching hospital. Employers need to wake up and provide re-entry mentoring if they want to keep RNs in their area. I turned out to be a good med/surg RN and it is SLO county's loss that they didn't want to work with me. I hope hospitals in your area won't make the same mistake with you. Don't let them lower your confidence and keep on trying