moving to oakland

Expect a wait of several months before your permanent California RN license is issued. The California BRN is one of the slowest BONs in the country.

Oakland is a city that one should never relocate to without a job lined up first. It is taking local new grads a year, sometimes longer, to find work. I apologize for not providing a rosier forecast on the area's employment outlook.

What's your reason for moving and is it something you can't postpone until you've got at least a year's experience? As already mentioned, it's nearly impossible to get a job in a hospital without experience in Berkeley or Oakland (or the entire East Bay for that matter). Berkeley and Oakland alone narrows down your choices to Kaiser, Sutter, and Alameda County Hospitals that don't usually have new grad positions. As a Bay Area transplant myself, I've observed that hospitals prefer nurses that could hit the ground running with minimal orientation if you're even lucky to get a job. Many break in to the job market by working as a traveler first and travel agencies require at least 1 year of nursing experience.

The Bay Area is a very competitive job market for nurses because the pay is the highest in the US and RN's also enjoy California's mandatory staffing ratios as well as strong union representation in many of the large hospital systems. There are many transplants from somewhere else here and most bring experience from where they're from that hospitals here desire. Hospitals can truly afford to be picky.

I work at an academic medical center full time and per diem at a smaller community hospital that is part of Sutter both in San Francisco as a Nurse Practitioner. I work with many RN's and typically the new hires are already experienced either from out of state or are California/Bay Area natives who moved out of the area for a while to gain experience somewhere else and then returned to the area to be close to family.

I also find that with the high cost of living, some RN's hold at least 2 jobs (a full time and a per diem). I notice staffing gets a bit short sometimes but that's mainly due to call-ins and not due to an actual shortage of RN staff. Travelers are definitely around as well and they help fill staffing holes in some hospitals but unlike most parts of the US, travelers in the Bay Area actually earn less than regular staff in terms of salary but enjoy perks such as housing allowance which is a big help in an area known for such high cost of rent.

To be honest, the only times I see new grads is when flu shot season comes since many work for flu vaccination companies contracted by hospitals to provide flu shots to employees. I feel bad because I can sense these new grads thirst to get regular employment.