Is my career over already???

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Hello all! I'm needing some career advice and hopefully some personal stories from all of you.

I am having an incredibly difficult time getting my foot back in the door. We are military family who just arrived back stateside after 4 years overseas where I was not able to work as nurse (there very literally were no nursing jobs) but did extensively volunteer, have great letters of recommendation and awards. I thought I did it right! But now I'm encountering the "paid experience" road block. I'm being told I need "uninterrupted PAID experience" "related PAID experience" "PAID experience with the last 2 years"....you get the idea.

Should I voluntarily do a refresher course? Should I try to go back to volunteering? Should I just be more persistent?

I have a 3 year old and do not think I could do nights full time (a suggestion by a recruiter) with no family help and a husband who's schedule is chaotic and who could be in another country for who knows how long at anytime. I could swing part time, but I'm thinking they'll want a full time commitment.

HELP!!!! I'm paying for CEUs, certs and license and no job prospect.

Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
13 hours ago, mermer_rn said:

Thank you all so much, update....you never know how things might work out. I had pretty much given up but attended a BLS course because I had already paid for it in advance. The woman who instructed the class was impressed with how I helped a nursing student (she was really nervous and we chatted quite a bit about nursing and that she shouldn't be discouraged or intimidated, etc). The instructor and I chit chatted during break really hit it off. The instructor was surprised I was having trouble finding a job and turned out to be a manager of a unit not currently hiring, but told me to list her as a reference and wrote me a really nice letter of rec. I got hired on a med surg unit (not super exciting) and began floating to postpartum....now I'm a flex employee for both med surg and postpartum as PRN IBCLC. Bottom line....always do your best, and be kind you never know who is watching.

That's an awesome update, so glad that things worked out for you!

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Happy to see that "networking" worked. ?

Enjoy your new position.

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