About me: middle-aged, no RN experience, prior career unrelated to healthcare. I joke that I'm "female, fat, and over forty." My only real "plus" is that I went to a prestigious school.
Job Search Results
Since commencing a serious job search at the beginning of November, I've received multiple job offers in the $110K to $120K per year range, in areas with a very reasonable cost of living, where you can rent a nice 1 BR apartment for $800 per month and buy a nice home for $200K to $300K. The only exceptions to this are Hawaii, which can be expensive, depending on the island, and Alaska.
Now, I have SEVEN job offers and my headache is deciding which one to choose, as they are all good. I have a few more interviews in the next two weeks and may receive a couple more offers.
Where I looked for work: California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska.
How You Can Get Multiple Good Offers:
STEP 1 Invest in your resume.
If you are sending in applications and not even getting a phone interview, then it is likely your resume needs work. Be willing to put in a lot of time or invest in a professional resume service. You can't write a good resume in a couple of hours. If your school offers a career service, see if you can get a resume review and help to improve your resume.
For those of you who say, "I can't afford a resume writer," I say "How long can you afford to be unemployed?"
STEP 2 Be flexible and open-minded on location.
I can't say this strongly enough. There are thousands of NP jobs out there going begging! But they are not in NYC, San Francisco, or Los Angeles! Areas that have a hard time attracting providers are much more willing to hire and train new grads and they will pay you more than the big cities. More about this below. Once you get a couple years of experience, then you can easily get a job in one of those cities, if that is what you want.
STEP 3 Do not rule out a location if you have an opportunity to interview there.
Go and see for yourself. You might be pleasantly surprised. I had the opportunity to interview for 2 jobs in Fresno, California. All my friends laughed and sneered at the thought of living in Fresno. All I could find online were negative comments about Fresno. Well, to my surprise, Fresno is a very nice city, with a metro area population of 1 million people! There is plenty of beautiful, affordable housing and lots of MD, NP, and PA jobs going begging. I received excellent job offers from both interviews in Fresno and one MD said he would match any other offer I received!
Some locations may be within easy access of the more desirable cities. For example, Fresno is a 2-hour drive from San Francisco, 3 hours from Los Angeles, and 1.5 hours from Yosemite. Sacramento is only a one hour drive from San Francisco. In Hawaii, it is cheap and easy to take a short flight to another island for the weekend.
STEP 4 Make yourself visible to recruiters.
Have a good LinkedIn profile. If you look for jobs on sites like Indeed, many listings are from recruiters and ask you to send in resume and maybe fill out an online form. Make sure to do this so recruiters can easily find you. About half my interviews came through recruiters.
STEP 5 Don't take job descriptions too literally.
Most say experience required or desired. However, I applied to these anyway and got a lot of responses from the less desirable areas.
STEP 6 Be willing to consider unpopular specialties.
I happen to like pain management and got a lot of job interviews in this field. In addition, when interviewing at a beautiful primary care clinic, when I said I liked pain management and psych (just want is done in primary care), the Medical Director was thrilled because she could not find a provider who wanted work with those patients. I also had good interviews in sleep medicine, neurology, and cardiology.
STEP 7 You may have to make some sacrifices.
In my previous career, most jobs were in a handful of very expensive cities. It was common for people to couch surf or rent a cheap room for the work week and then go home on weekends. I did this - a 450-mile commute each way every week for several months. Short-term pain for long-term gain.
How To Find NP Shortage Areas And Job Listings
Here are reports and websites you can find via Google:
State-Level Projections of Supply and Demand for Primary Care Practitioners - report by HHS
HPSA Look Up - Use this to get a list of facilities in medically underserved areas by state and county so you can apply directly.
3rnet.org - site for recruiting rural practitioners
Health Workforce Connector - You can put up your profile and search for clinics in different locations and then apply directly. You can also sign up to be notified of virtual job fairs - I got 70% call backs from applying to employers at these job fairs.
allnurses Jobs Search
Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and other job boards
Professional association job boards - excellent resource. Look for your state NP association job board and NP specialty association job boards.
Advantages of working in undeserved areas:
- People there really need you and you will be performing an important public service
- Chance to make good money and pay off your student loans quickly
- You may be eligible for loan repayment at the state and/or federal level
- May count towards loan forgiveness
- Ability to save money and buy a nice affordable home
- This type of experience looks great on your resume
- You may find a beautiful place you didn't' know about!
Hope this helps other new grad NPs. Please share any other job search tips you have!
primary-care-state-projections2013-2025.pdf
