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I applied at Vanderbilt Medical Center for the January 2010 New grad Residency program:) I was curious how long it took to hear back from them after the deadline. The deadline was today and I wonder if I will be hearing something this week regarding the next steps. Any advice and info is helpful. Thanks.
i just moved to nashville from wisconsin. I graduated in may. before i moved i was working as an RN in an ICU for four months. I made $30/hr with my night shift and critical care differential. my base pay was $22.60 per hour. From what i can tell thus far the cost of living here is cheaper only by housing. When i go to stores I find that things are significantly more expensive than in wisconsin. I like it here in nashville and the weather is a lot better but the nursing job opportunities and the pay is very crappy. It doesn't seem to equal out with the so called cheaper cost of living. If any of you aren't opposed to moving to wisconsin the job opportunities are plentiful for new grads. I received six job offers when i graduated and was able to start in the ICU right away. i just had to move here due to my husband's job relocation.
I live in Memphis but Nashville really isn't that much different regarding cost-of-living. Housing is pretty affordable, and there are tons of things to do on the cheap in Nashville. Keep in mind there is NO income tax in TN, so your sales tax is going to be higher. I think statewide it is around 9 percent (in Memphis it is 9.25%). BUT, there is no income tax... The DO tax food here (grocery store food), which is kind of suckly. But TN will have a sales tax holiday every year for school supplies, computers, clothing, etc (back-to-school incentive).
The pay for the new grads at Vanderbilt is a little low compared to Memphis. But, there are 10+ hospitals in Memphis and more competition (there are a lot of medical training programs here - UT Medical School Memphis, Southern School of Optometry, at least 5 nursing schools, etc). The average here is $21-22/hour, with shift diffs averaging about $4.25 for night/weekend. Benefits are pretty comparable, but maybe slightly worse overall than Vandy. BUT, you will have good training with the Vandy residency, and you are getting the name recognition if you take a job there. There is only one hospital in Memphis that has an extended residency (St. Francis), so these residently programs are pretty competative state-wide.
Good luck to all of you! I hope you get the job!
JennRN09, that's an interesting thought - the test. It would really kind of suck to buy a plane ticket out to an interview and then not get the job. I was really surprised that they didn't offer phone interviews. Most places do. The tickets from my side of the country to Nashville are definitely not cheap. How long is your drive?
SJonesRN, I wish I could just pick up and go anywhere! My husband is such the opposing force and has some musical background. He'd love nashville simply for the higher incidence of the kinds of musicians he's looking for. There's pretty much nothing here in that regard. Where do you work in Nashville? Was it hard to transition over? That's the concern I have for my husband and his job... (RN also)
II honestly don't know. I think there are more hospitals in the Memphis area, but I guarantee if you were to search open positions in Memphis now you would find dozens, if not hundreds, of RN positions available. Most hospitals here hire new grads and have a new grad orientation, but only St. Francis has the nurse residency program. From what I understand the Vandy residency program takes a LOT of students. I don't know how the recession has affected their numbers, but I imagine there will still be a considerable number of positions. I'm not really sure how that reflects their nurse retention rates, but I suppose that's a whole other thread topic!!!
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Your comments made me more hopeful. I've been really discouraged out in my area... so I'm really hoping I can get a spot at Vanderbilt :)
One of the hospitals just let about 39 students out of their contracts to work (the hospital ran their education and exchanged it for work time). So that was an additional 39 students without jobs to compete with for the maybe 18 positions at the only hiring hospital in town...
Hey everyone!!! Thanks so much for all the information. I definitely know how discouraging this all can be. Painting skies...to respond to your earlier comment about Colorado yes it has been an extremely tough job market for new grads. I had to move out of state for nursing school simply because the waiting lists were about 3-4 years long. I worked in a hospital in Denver and loved it and now I am trying to get back. However there are hundreds of new grads that are in the area so it has been almost impossible trying to find a job. The hospitals are receiving hundreds of new grad apps for only about 10-20 positions. It's crazy. My husband and I were trying to figure out how there were so many new grads accepted into the program at Vanderbilt. Over the course of a year(summer 2008-summer 2009)there was about 300 new grads accepted into the program and that is not including all the other nurses that are hired into the hospital. I would think that there has to be turn over somewhere because that is alot of nurses hired in one year. My friend said that people work there for a long time because they like it so much but I think that some people are leaving because otherwise I don't think there would be that many people hired. The would assume that some people would leave due to the low pay. Keep the faith everyone we will all eventually get a job. I just know how hard it is. Hang in there:)
PS. Vanderbilt is a Magnet hospital so hey thats even more of an incentive to work there. http://www.nursecredentialing.org/MagnetOrg/searchmagnet.cfm?searchoption=1&state=TN
Paintingskies... My drive is about 11 hours...that's not to bad. I'm young so sitting and driving that long is nothing, I'm actually having my mom come with me. I will say it sucks to drive threw Atlanta, lol. Wow Florida is looking good. We have no state tax and are sales tax is only 6.5% in Orlando and no tax on food.
JennRN09
27 Posts
I'm driving up for the interview. No they don't reimburse for interviews. I think they are testing you maybe, kinda like to see if you really want it. But I don't know