How is 2010 treating new RN graduates?

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I will be graduating from nursing school shortly. I was curious if the job market for RNs who want to work in hospitals (not LTC facilities :)) has improved in 2010. Someone told me to find an area where not a lot of wealthy or middle-class Caucasian people (i.e., of Western/Northern European descent) with college degrees and trust-funds live and compete for jobs and reolcate there, and I'll probably find something. So I did just that. And guess what happened?!?!: all of the other hypercompetitive, hotly ambitious, overeducated Caucasian job-seekers with resources and money and degrees did the same exact thing! Ygads! Sheesh! I just can't seem to get ahead. I feel like Charlie Brown in the Peanuts episode where Lucy pulls away the football. ARRRGGGHHHH!!! :clown: All self-referential, self-depricating jokes aside, how does 2010 look for you new graduate RNs? I know the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle is saturated, especially California. Any "decent" areas opening up? 2008 and 2009 were horrible years for new nurses. Is there light at the end of the proverbial tunnel in 2010-2011 or does it still look like crap?

Specializes in school nurse.

"all of the other hypercompetitive, hotly ambitious, overeducated Caucasian job-seekers with resources and money and degrees did the same exact thing! Ygads! Sheesh!"

I guess you have to watch out for those pesky Caucasians. I mean, nursing is full of trust fund babies... (Please tell me you were being ironic.)

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Nursejoed,

I was (kind of) being ironic. I was also being intentionally melodramatic which, linguistically speaking, is slightly different. I graduated from college in 2000 with a bachelor's in English lit and psychology. Coming of age in the 1980s and early 1990s during the Reagan-Bush-Clinton Era, we GenXrs were told to major in whatever field we wanted, pursue our dreams, be creative, etc. There were jobs for those who wanted to work, money was to be made, etc. Then 9/11 hit and the economy fell soon afterward.

When I was in college in Boston in the 1990s, nursing was looked upon as a "vocational career" that couldn't hold a match to the academic rigors of transcendental philosophy, Milton, Aramaic, calculus, linear algebra, or quantum physics. It wasn't respected as a major or career path, at least not in New England. Yours truly comes from a family of nurses and I always found it absurd that my undergrad colleagues dismissed nursing as "vocational" and not mentally rigorous -- which all of us here on allnurses.com know is complete bullsh**. Nursing science is extremely rigorous, A&P is the most difficult college level course sequence I've ever taken, and nursing itself is a difficult, demanding profession that requires 100% of one's ability to "put out fires," show compassion and empathy under fire, manage patients, drama, coworkers, multitask... Ok.

Now. Nursing is one of the last professions in this country where a young person can enjoy lifelong job security, good if not excellent health benefits, a living wage, an ability to advance and grow in the field (i.e., NP, MSN, PhD, nurse anesthesiologist, etc.), and, for the most part, a decent work environment. The number-crunching, bottom-line American business sharks that are managing hospitals in the twentieth century aren't going to be able to outsource our jobs overseas, although, hell, don't we know they're trying ;). So, nursing is a secure, lucrative profession for 21st century college graduates. In fact, nursing is one of a small handful of living wage/secure jobs left in this country. Everything else has been crushed to death, eliminated, or outsourced. Am I right?

In my initial post, I used the anecdote/stereotype/parody of the snarky, ambitious, competitive Caucasian college graduate, essentially a denizen of the American middle-to-upper-middle class, as a figure of speech for this reason: the same kind of ivy-leaguish person who haughtily pooh-poohed nursing as merely "vocational" fifteen years ago in New England is now madly competing with other well-resourced students of the same or higher caliber for NURSING JOBS!

Nursejoed, I worked in a medium-sized, West Coast city for four years as a CNA/unit secretary at a medium-sized hospital. The hospital was affiliated with a private nursing college on campus. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this: girls in their early twenties were pulling up to their 8 am nursing classes in luxury cars with California plates in full make-up with January tans, bling, Coach, and heels. And that's fine. I love it when women -- and men -- can accessorize perfectly and look great. Right on. But really????

These young people would come to morning clinicals bragging about how they didn't have to work to support themselves while attending school because their parents were paying their rent, $30,000.00+/yr. tuition, and groceries. I knew several nurses who started at the hospital after living in our very trendy, expensive city for well over a year without employment.

Sorry this post is getting so long... I'll quickly get to the point: Nursing, particularly hospitalist nursing, is now sanctified enough to be considered groovy by those "pesky Caucasians" we all know and love of the middle-and-upper-middle classes, one of the reasons the job market is as competitive as it is. I'm a working-class Irish-Jew myself so I kind of fall into that mix somewhat -- which is why I characterized the humor as self-referential and deprecating. So I was being ironic yet poignant. :)

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Well I'm sorry to offend you with my presence in the nursing field because according to you I don't belong here, as a pesky caucasion women who previously went to a fancy "ivy-leaguish" school in the 90's and is now in nursing as a second career. I don't drive a luxury car and my parents never paid my rent, my husband pays the rent right now and I've got my share of "bling" and Coach. Like you, I was pushed by family into a liberal-arts college right after high school and told to major in anything, I could have "any job I wanted" and life would be peachy. Well it didn't work out that way, I hated the corpororate jobs I drifted into and always wished I'd done something VERY different with my life. I wanted to help people hands-on, I wasn't afraid of hard, dirty work, I wanted to learn a real skill/vocation and end each day knowing that I worked as hard as I possibly could. So after years of saving money from holding corporate jobs I loathed, I applied to nursing school and graduate next year. I've never been happier now that I followed my true calling, and it's an honor to care for others that I only wish I'd done earlier in life. I'm not here because nursing is a "popular" career and I'm not here for money. I'm here because I love nursing. Coach bag, "bling", ethincity (that I was born with and can't change) - I'm as dedicated and hard working a nursing student as anybody out there. So don't come and tell me I don't belong in the profession or I'm not as good a nurse because of my ethnicity or background.

Now here's a thought - perhaps a better attitude would yield more luck in the job search? Because this sense of entitlement sure can't be helping you.

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Whoa! I never wrote that certain people don't belong in nursing. And I wasn't pushed into a liberal arts education by my family either. I selected it myself. I decided to pursue nursing when a good friend of mine died of AIDS (the reason I've selected nursing as a career and not, well, Milton). I was being ironic in my post which the former respondent picked up on. I'm not picking on anyone in particular. I'm sorry you misunderstood my post.

Look at it this way: don't you find it interesting that nursing has evolved as a career that is now enthusiastically sought after versus... well, you know how it was in the 1990s... You can elaborate on that if you wish but please don't misquote me.

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Specializes in NICU.

I'm in New England. Job prospects suck.

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PSYCH, PP, CEN.

Bearscrubs, I totally get what you are saying. You are very articulate and it is fun to read something well written. There are some people that take offense too easily. No way did I read into your post that you were saying certain people shouldn't be in nursing.

Right now the job market mostly sucks. I have been in the job market for 38 years and have always got every job I ever applied for.

Well, recently I applied for a staff position and did not get the job. I had mentioned to someone else that "blah blah" would be a nice place to work and next thing I know he has applied for the job and got it. And I was actually asked by the place to apply after working several agency shifts there.

But alas the job market is very tight and he has a little more experience than I do, is younger and lives closer.

Fortunately I really respect this nurse and value his friendship so I am telling myself that God has other plans for me. And this guy has a family to support. I don't.

So keep trying and something will turn up. I know it is hard. 3 years ago I was working 70 hours per week and now I am lucky to get 20.

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Chicago metro and all points north is dead for New Grads.

I do know of a few hires, but those positions were gained by personal/political connections not by the normal process for the most part. Several of these hires are part time/float and have not been given chance at anything more substantial. Some went in cold to home health. I hear through the grapevine that some hospitals in the area are still bringing new grads in from abroad. One or two major facilities have posted the same "openings" since January but have not granted interviews to anyone I know.

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Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

We are not hiring, to compensate the staff can have as much OT as they feasibly can have.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, ICU.

South Carolina is not much better I'm afraid; there are about 7 nursing schools in the upstate that are pushing out new grads about every 5 weeks. It's impossible to get a job in Greenville for a new grad! So frustrating! I've put out at least 20 applications online with no results.

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Specializes in Hospice.
South Carolina is not much better I'm afraid; there are about 7 nursing schools in the upstate that are pushing out new grads about every 5 weeks. It's impossible to get a job in Greenville for a new grad! So frustrating! I've put out at least 20 applications online with no results.

i put out about 100 and in the end what got me my job was my connection. Most of my friends have gotten their's through connections as well. I think you should pump out as many as possible and then try and actually talk to people.

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Specializes in NICU.

agreed. I've submitted about 200. The only actual responses I've gotten were through some major networking.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

I have put out over 500 applications and no job! Some you here are very lucky to have gotten a job right out of school. I have been on three interviews and I did not get the jobs. I do not know what to do. I also call the nurse recruiters and they said that they are not hiring new grads. As a matter of fact I called on this morning about a job fair and she specifically told me that they are not hiring new grads. I went there anyway and she said she sent my application to the nursing director. Let me see how this thing plays out.

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