Published
I recently co-hosted a booth for my employer at a large nursing and healthcare worker job fair. I wanted to share some observations:
While I enjoyed hosting a booth and spoke with many interesting people, I have to comment about the lack of professional decorum among some attendees. I am old school so hear me out. If you are going to a job fair shouldn't you be dressed in your "Sunday finest" and have numerous copies of your resume to hand out to the representatives and HR recruiters? First impressions do count.
What saddened me about the day was to see so many unemployed nurses. NYC is very tight now. I was asked what advice I could offer and I really could not say anything new expect to volunteer, keep applying and continue to seek out opportunities. The job market for experienced nurses is tight so the new grads really have a hard road ahead of them.
I have been in nursing a long time and I have seen the highs and lows but the lack of opportunity out there for the new grads is something to worry about. A nurse out of school for more than two or three years who has not worked is in a very difficult place. With so many new grads, employers will take the latest grads from from school and clinical training if jobs should open up. I do wonder what will happen when it gets out that nursing is over subscribed especially in NYC.
To those who are looking for work, good luck. You are in my prayers.
Im kind of glad to read the OPs post, as im an unemployed new grad trying to get my first job (also in NY)
I have my first job fair monday on long island, and was just planning on wearing a suit and bringing a folder full of resumes.
If people are as sloppy as the OP makes it sounds, hopefully ill have a job by the end of the day
I wish I'd seen this post before I went to a job fair last May. I feel like a lot of people just don't know what to expect at job fairs. The truth of the matter, for me, was that I'd been to several nursing job interviews before the job fair and at every one of them, the person interviewing me had printed out my resume and was asking me questions about it. Not a resume I brought in - the resume I posted with my job application. After every interview having been the same (the interviewer already having my resume), I didn't bring mine to the job fair. I attached my resume to my application for the job fair, right?
I didn't realize it was going to be different from every other job interview I had, which is why I didn't have an extra copy of my resume. I think it was a blessing in disguise, though - the only person I got to talk to with the crazy amount of applicants present was the manager of a unit I would have hated to have to work on. Thanks for putting the information out there - maybe it will help someone else like me. :)
Not_A_Hat_Person, RN
2,900 Posts
I'm currently working on my 3rd degree (BSN), and I've never had a single school help me search for a job. My nursing advisor wouldn't give me any information on how to challenge my state's CNA exam; I finally found out on my own 2 weeks before graduation. Career services was worse than useless; I ended up telling them about job fairs. In 2 years, we had 1 job fair that was mostly RN-BSN programs.