Is it difficult to go straight from nursing school into critical care?

lilredrn · Jun 7, 2011

In my region right now, it is difficult for a new grad to get a job anywhere. PERIOD. Let alone get a job in the hospital! I was in the ICU for my senior practicum & LOVED IT. The staff loved me, wrote letters of recommendation and even filled out the forms with glowing reviews for the residency program, but no luck. There were thousands of applicants and 17 spots.

I'm working in LTC and consider myself lucky believe it or not. I can pay my bills and many of my classmates are unemployed. I'm just hoping that I won't be here long. This was not my career plan at all. I am not a geriatrics nurse. I am finding the silver lining here though. My co-workers are a hoot and some of the patients really tug at my heart strings. I have to remember... Sometimes things don't go according to plan because I have work to do here first I am still applying to all the hospitals within 1 hr driving distance and keeping my fingers crossed.

Good luck to you!

chaplainjanie · Jun 7, 2011

Thanks so much for the info. Do you mind if I ask what your general area is?

lilredrn · Jun 8, 2011

I am in the Pacific Northwest. If you look at the online postings for jobs, it would look like jobs are plentiful here. However, as a new grad, I have applied for all of them. ALL of them. I have 150+ apps that were instantly rejected because they were "searching for someone more qualified." Several of the online internships are still pending from December when I graduated. Many more were just cancelled. Who knows if they ever planned to truly fill those positions, or if they found out they just don't have the funding. And just FYI we have 13 major hospitals within a one hour radius of my house that I have been applying with. I have even been emailing Nurse Recruiters and remained in contact with the ICU charge that has been my cheerleader through all of this.

ashleyisawesome, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2011

i had a short (2 day rotation), in icu and loved it.. i asked my instructor i was with that day the same question, and she said new grads have been hired in the unit before... guess it depends where you live..

PMFB-RN, RN · Jun 9, 2011

Many hospitals have residency programs for new grads going directly into ICU. My hospital has a 9 month residency (fully paid) for new grads. They only hire ADN grads but that is very unusual and most hospitals want to hire BSNs into their residencies. If you search here you can find discussions listing hospitals with new grad residencies.

The SICU where I work hire four new grad ADNs from this springs graduating class. we had 30 or so applicants and it was very competitive.

Edit: I should say that we interviewed about 30 people. I don't know how many applicants we had.