New Grad Job Market: A Game of Chance

[sourapril]

It's no longer about whether you qualify for the job or not, or if you have more education and experience than the next person. Nowadays everyone passes NCLEX, everyone graduates with a 4.0, everyone has CNA experience, and yet still many spent months and even years to land that first job out of nursing school.

I don't think nurse managers and hospital administrators actually know the severity of the unhealthy new grad job market because all of them have given me the same suggestions (I only personally know one and other managers are friends of a friend): Get some CNA experience, Apply to new grad programs and Move to a different state. I have already done the first two and I think I may have to do the last one sooner or later.

Just weeks ago, I thought passing the NCLEX was mission impossible because I could not get my Kaplan Q bank score to be over 57%, but in the end, NCLEX seemed to be a piece of cake. Yes, I spent three hours at the test center but I passed on my first try. The thing is I never had PTSD with standardized tests or writing papers no matter how many times I had to do them and how hard they seemed. SAT, piece of cake. GRE, piece of cake, NCLEX, not exactly a piece of cake but maybe a slice of a cake?

However, I was traumatized multiple times when I applied for jobs.

First time was when I graduated from college with a BS in biology. That was in 2006 and no place would hire me. Eventually after 4 months of hopeless searching and going through some really dark period, my dad made some connections and I moved hundreds of miles away to work as a research assistant in a very cold place where the winter was long and harsh.

Second time was when I graduated from grad school with a public health degree. Still, no places seemed to want me so I moved again miles away to take some low-paying job with a well known national nonprofit organization in a hot desert where 100F was accepted as a comfortable and normal temperature. You would think third times a charm, but I was again denied for an entry level position.

Friends, good friends nonetheless I made at school became competitors and strangers, and they didn't give a damn whether I found a job or not. They stopped talking to me or hanging out with me as soon as they found a job. The more sympathetic ones would say, "you will find it" or "it's not just you." Eventually everyone moved on and moved away.

Yesterday, one of the CNAs whom I used to work with connected me with the HR person of a good nursing home. Hopefully I will get an interview and maybe even a job next week. Sometimes I asked myself why I kept going back to school when obviously what employers wanted was experience. Does two college degrees and one master degree means nothing to employers anymore? Is an intelligent person who published 2 papers in well-known scientific journals, who have volunteered for years, who had CNA experience, clinical research experience, and teaching experience not hireable in this market? Then why on earth do schools charge students a fortune to get a piece of paper, and more students want to carry tens and thousands of student debts so that they can put a B.S.N. after their names?

I chose nursing because I genuinely care about people and interested in healing them and helping them resolve whatever issues they got in their lives. Maybe that's no longer a good reason for why you want to become a nurse. Maybe I should erase that from my cover letter (note to self: don't mention you care about people just list your experience and accomplishment). If I was rejected by as many guys as the number of potential employers who rejected me, I would not want to date anyone anymore. I probably would even quit asking guys out after 3 rejections. And yet, here I am, filling out yet another job application, writing another cover letter, to number X employer (I lost counts on how many jobs I applied)...expecting a different result (maybe I will get lucky and get hired this time). Someone smart once said: "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Maybe I am insane.

P.S. the last quote is from my hero Albert Einstein, who also said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." I think I am that fish who tries to climb a tree or pollinate a flower and believe I am not good enough.

[sourapril]

I wrote this article back in July. It's been 6 months since I graduated and 4 months since I was licensed. I am glad to report that I have a great job offer. I was hired last Friday to work as a public health nurse in my local health department. It's my dream job. I don't have to move to a different place because I absolutely love my friends and my city. I know there are still new grads who are without a job. One word for you: persevere. It's always darkest before dawn. Sometimes darkness makes us lose hope. Then some of us give up nursing completely after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year of trying and getting nothing... The whole process of looking for a job was like riding an emotional roller coaster: a phone call for an interview would raise my hope up but then my confidence would be crushed in the next couple of weeks because of a rejection letter (and trust me riding the roller coaster once is more than enough in my life).

After going through rounds and rounds of interviews and rejections, do I still believe the new grad job market is a game of chance? Most definitely. I can't thank the person who hired me enough, but I think the reason I got hired was not because of my credentials but because that my personality matched hers and my qualities matched the health department's values and believes. We clicked! It's as simple as that. (Heck, I didn't even have the one year experience they required for the job.) During the interview I felt like the interview questions were written for me. I knew answers to all the questions they asked. When I asked her what she was looking for in an ideal candidate, she used adjectives that precisely described my qualities.

Lesson I learned from this experience, listen to your heart. I didn't want a hospital job. I didn't want to work in a nursing home. So that pretty much eliminate 90% of all the Nursing Jobs in my city. Although I tried to apply to hospitals and nursing homes out of desperation, I never got a call back. It almost looked as if God was trying to tell me something. So I stuck with my original plan which was to apply to local health departments even though the jobs were far and in between. Every health department I applied I would get an interview. I requested to job shadow, asked tons of questions during my interviews, and wrote thank-you cards after my interview. I made sure it's the job I want to work for a while and not just for 1 or 2 years so I can get the experience and move on. I am glad I made the right decision and I feel like a better person after going through this difficult and yet necessary process.

[adventure780, BSN, MSN, RN, APN]

glad you found your niche! Hope it goes well for you!