Interviews....

Hi, I will be starting my contract soon (meaning I signed it and sent it in, but am waiting to get my copy back from the BON in the mail--and I also started my UA monitoring program), and I do have an interview this upcoming week for a LTC facility. I'm excited and yet VERY nervous. All they know so far (from what I put on the job application) is that I was terminated from my last RN job for a violation of a company policy). I was terminated for diverting narcotics and my case was sent the BON and so on and so forth. I have been clean for almost 6 mo. next week :) I am so GRATEFUL for sobriety! I have an awesome sponsor, AODA counselor and take my sobriety very seriously. I'm completely willing to be open and honest about my contract during the interview, but does anybody have any advice? I cannot handle narcotics for 5 years, so I don't even know if they are willing to work with me, but an interview is an an interview, right? I realize I many have many interviews before I get lucky and I understand that. I just don't want to sound like an idiot---I want to sound confident but yet sincere....does anybody have any advice??

Thank you all for reading:)

Hi! Congrats on 6 months clean and sober!

Some posters may disagree but this is what my sponsor (who wasn't a nurse) told me when I started "make 'em fall in love with u"

Go in, let them know about your strong points, school and grades/awards if u have been out of school too long. If u can, ask one of your old instructors to write u a letter of reference.

If u have been nursing a while and there is somewhere u used to work with (manager, director, charge nurse, or even an MD) it doesn't hurt to ask for one. I did that and got a letter from 2 docs and my old charge nurse (who also happened to be in recovery) for a reference.

This did seem to help me some when I had gotten fired, lost my health insurance and in my mind ANY chance of being a nurse again. I couldn't find a job nursing anywhere it seemed - and my mom was giving me enough money for 1 UDS a week and a little gas money. I went to my church and asked - the minister finally gave me 4 or 5 small paper bag lunches that they hand out to the homeless. I ate 1 bag meal a day and that fed me for not even a week while I was job hunting.

I finally found a job as a "pizza girl" doing deliveries and that helped both financially and spiritually. While I was a pizza girl, that kind of gave me something to live on while job hunting for a nursing job. Don't get me wrong - it took me a while - months - to find a nursing job. But it did happen.

Good luck in your recovery! Hope things go well for u. Sending hugs and prayers - let us know what happens!

Anne, RNC