New grad nurse moving to Utah...is it even possible?

FloatRN19 · Aug 21, 2015

Go to Kansas City Missouri. I was thinking of moving recently and they had a lot of job openings at kumed and st.lukes.

LV3677 · Aug 22, 2015

SLC is a challenging job market. There are many nursing schools in Utah pumping out RN's. Some of the hospitals have residency programs for new grads. I would look into those if I were you- however they are very competitive. No harm in applying for positions but just know that it's a saturated job market and the pay is on the low end for RN's.

ERGirl83 · Aug 23, 2015

Utah is still a tough market for new grads but it has opened up quite a bit since I graduated 2.5 years ago. If you want a hospital job, unfortunately a lot can ride on "who you know," but it's not impossible either, just highly competitive. There are plenty of home health, LTC and LTAC options too.

ERGirl83 · Aug 23, 2015

Oh, and yeah pay is much lower here than many expect. Expect to start around $21-22 an hour.

muirite · Aug 23, 2015

Oh, and yeah pay is much lower here than many expect. Expect to start around $21-22 an hour.

ðŸ˜² I make almost that as an lvn

Georgiapeach210 · Aug 23, 2015

I'm hoping I have a bit of an advantage because I'll have my BSN and I know a lot of nurses out there only have their associates. I'm fine with starting out at a rehab center or home health, but I would really like to transition into the hospital within a year after moving out there...but I don't have any connections to people at hospitals out there unfortunately! And I will definitely be applying to residency programs!!

LV3677 · Aug 23, 2015

A BSN will help. I would recommend having experience as a CNA/HCA/Tech, have a good GPA, volunteer experience, demonstration of your work, peer mentoring, excellent letters of recommendation, whatever - you'll need to be able to stand out on that resume to get an interview. Oh, and utilize the writing/career center at your college to perfect that cover letter and resume. It does make a difference.