Job hunt strategy?

[lisa333]

Hi all,

I graduated with a BSN in April and passed the NCLEX in June. I honestly feel like I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to job-hunting. The only jobs I've had in my life were minimum wage, which just required walking into a retail store, asking for an application, and waiting for a phone call.

Does anyone else feel like they're kind of clueless with how to find a job? Want to share strategies?

So far, I've just been checking a list of job websites every day. I check aftercollege.com, indeed.com, careerjet.com, and monster.com. I also check the job postings for 8 hospitals in my area, including Kaiser and the department of public health.

I'm never really sure what to put in the search box though- new grad RN? Staff nurse I? Nurse residency? When I just search for RN, I get way more than I can sort through.

My school isn't really equipped to give advice about this, they just told me to apply to EVERYTHING. However, I feel like if a hospital posts that they want a Staff Nurse II, or specify that a year of experience is required, they're being up-front that they don't have the resources to train me appropriately. I don't want to set myself up for failure in a situation like that.

Should I be writing letters to the hiring managers at these hospitals?

What has worked for you? Or what's your strategy now?

Thanks in advance!

Please don't turn this into a thread about how it's cutthroat out there and we have to be every man for himself. That wouldn't be helpful.

[goodstudentnowRN]

You need to apply for positions that say "experience preferred." I have been looking ofr a job for the past eight months and to no avail. I got my license in March. You have to put your resume on the sites like career builder, monster, nurse.com etc. Make sure that your resume is impressive. For indeed, I normally put New GRad RN.

[lisa333]

That makes sense, I figure "experience preferred" means they'd be willing to let the new grads have a shot competing against the other resumes.

I've also only been looking at full-time jobs, which sure cuts down the number of search results. On-call or per diem seems out of the question for a new grad, but am not sure about part-time. Anything looks better than being unemployed, but I can imagine getting the hang of things could be really difficult if you only get a couple shifts a week.

Anyway, thanks for the quick response and good luck to you!