How to be honest with employers but still get a job if you only to work 1 yr?

[nursing_student93]

I'm planning to work for a year before going back to NP school. How do you explain something like this in a job interview? Or do you just say "I'm not sure how long I'll plan to be there, but at least a year"?

[Stephalump]

I think it's a non-issue. Until you've graduated, and actually been accepted to an NP program it's all just hoping and planning and no one's business.

[Sun0408, ASN, RN]

Plans change and I would not limit myself or be passed up for a job because of that. So no, I would not tell them; jobs are hard to come by these days.

[JBudd, MSN]

IF they ask, you can say NP school is in your future plans, just not immediately. Leave it at that. Many of us did graduate work while still working. Nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

If you want to get a job, any job at all, never, never tell the prospective employer that you don't plan to stay there more than a year. They won't even make back what they put into orienting and training you in that time, so they'll take someone who says they mean to stay and learn as much as they can about XYZ from the team here so they can be a great team member.

Besides... When I was first teaching, 95% of my students wanted to be "mother-baby" or peds nurses. This number is not an exaggeration; some of the older instructors can confirm that they had the same experience. These students were truly shocked, some of them, to discover that they would have to study other things in nursing school, take care of elders and adults and psych, and so on. And a good thing, too, because :news flash: 95% of those years' students did not work and are not working in those two areas today. If they were, who would be working the other ones?

So too with the current fad of "I'm working one year of med-surg and then I'm going to NP school" and "I'm working one year of critical care and then I'm going to CRNA school." Correction: You will work wherever you can get a job-- did I mention there is no nursing shortage and a lot of new grads spend their first year out of school job-hunting, not building a resume?-- and you might apply to an advanced clinical program after a year of work, and they might be interested in you with just one year of clinical, when you aren't really out of the "novice" category, if there aren't a bunch of more experienced RNs with better-articulated career plans applying that week.

So there is zero guarantee that you will be accepted into one, but I can guarantee that the 90% of you who plan to do this will not, repeat NOT, be NPs and CRNAs. Life has a habit of happening while we are busy making other plans. Keep your mind open. You might fall in love with that oncology floor and decide to take the ONC certification, and go on to specialize in gyn oncology. You might be surprised to find yourself loving ortho surgery, or cardiac rehab, or acute stroke unit, or find that working float pool perfectly meets your needs at the time.

First things first, though, so do what you need to do to get a job in the first place. Then let us know in a year how it's going.

[FurBabyMom, MSN, RN]

I wouldn't mention your plans. In fact, at this point, I wouldn't consider myself set on anything with respect to timeline. When I graduated, I had a set of jobs I wanted, but I've worked none of them. I've had offers for all of them, but that was respective of my hard work at school and interviewing well. And, just plain luck!

I worked as a floor nurse carrying up to stepdown acuity patients. And supervising an LPN's patients. I wasn't in love with the patients or patient load we had, but I liked working with some of my amazing coworkers. I learned SO much from working with them. I had three amazing offers to pick from when I wanted to leave that job, and I'm satisfied with what I picked of those options.

I think that what's meant to be will be. I didn't particularly like aspects about my career at the time (location of my job, working straight nights, pay rate in the region I got a job in), but they taught me valuable lessons that have made me a better nurse or better person in general. I get to take care of patients of all ages with my current job. I have great coworkers and an awesome manager. I get to learn so much, about so much. I do plan on grad school eventually, and may go back to the floor or ICU for a while, but I'm not there yet. My original plans for grad school are not necessarily what I'd plan to do now, and I can't speak for where my thoughts on the matter will be in another two years. Things I'd ruled out as an undergrad getting ready to graduate are things I'm considering.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

How do you explain something like this in a job interview? Simply put, you don't.