IEN job hunting in BC

[Monprin]

I'm an IEN from Japan and have passed February 2009 CRNE.

Even though I passed the exam it seems very difficult to find a job for me:cry:

I think many employers doubt if I'm capable of working as RN in Canadian medical settings.

So, here is my question.

How can I gain my abilities to be a competent RN in Canada so that I can get a job?

Should I take some course so I can say to employers that I'm ready and confident for the Canadian work enviroment?

Or just keep waiting till an employer contact me and get hired?

(I sent my resume to several health authorities about 3 weeks ago but didn't get any response yet. I started wondering no employer want me)

Thanks in advance. Any advice is greatly appreciated:redpinkhe

[Monprin]

By the way, Fiona,

I am not intending to volunteer for patient care, but people said that I should volunteer in a hospital (to do whatever I'm asked) OR I should work as a RCA or something in a hospital. (I'm just not keen on the ideas though.)

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Volunteering or working as a patient care aide will not help you when you apply for work as a nurse. Not in any way. The people advising you to do this are giving you bad information.

As to your question about not hearing back about your application in three weeks, as Fiona59 says, Human Resources does the initial screen of applicants. If they weren't taken with yours, it never went any further. Also, if you didn't apply for a specific position, it may not be looked at in any case. But having said that, when anyone applies for a new position, the posting for the position has to close before they'll do the initial screening. So if I applied on a posting that didn't close for two weeks, I would automatically have to wait that two weeks before anybody looked at my application. Then HR would do their screening, whihc may take a day or a week, depending on how many they have to examine. Then they bundle up the applications they're sending on to the patient care manager. That pile of applications may sit on the patient care manager's desk for some time before s/he has the time to review them. Then the PCM will make a short-list of people to interview. And only then will they conatct the people they're going to talk to. I've seen the process take up to two months.

[Monprin]

Thank you very much for your reply, janfrn,

Your help is very useful and the explaination is easy to understand:jester:

I still don't hear anything yet at this point so I modified my resume and am sending the new resume to different places. I hope I'll get some response from them.

Also I'm taking some courses so hoping it will help too.

Since it may be the case of 2-month-process as you and Fiona59 told me, I'm still holding my hope though. But I feel it's a very slim possibility. I need to do somehting about it:paw:

Trying to do positive things.