I just applied for a job that looked very promising!
Oh, but then the computer sent me an e-mail saying, "no new grads." So, I walked my résumé in by hand to at least get by the screening. I was, however, told that they're looking for experienced nurses -- you know, "it's so expensive to train new grads."
So, I was thinking about contacting them and offering to work for minimum wage for 3-6 months in order to help offset the expense. (This is a non-union place so there's nothing to stop them from paying a training wage.)
I know several new grads who are working as unpaid interns (actually, they're doing it through a nursing school so they're actually paying to be med-surg nurses... good gig for the hospital, huh?) and it seems like this would be a step up from that.
What people seem to forget is that nursing is a risky job. I've been back at work for 2 shifts after my maternity leave and I'm already coming down with the cold that is going around the LTC.
Can someone answer this question?
Why should I risk the very real possibility of:
needle sticks...exposure to body fluids...being attacked by crazy patients/families...being exposed to all manner of diseases....worrying about bringing those diseases home to my family...back...foot...shoulder injuries etc for minimum wage?
Now answer this question?
Why should I risk all of the above for $7.25/hour when I know someone who was just hired to work at the local cable company call center for $13.75/hr to do customer service? This is orientation pay and it increases to $15-$17/hr once you are hired full-time. This is a job in a clean comfortable office building, sitting on your duff answering phones, and you are guaranteed lunch/pee breaks. You also have a definite time to leave work and no one calls you on your days off to harrass you to pick up extra shifts for the sake of being a team player.
You're not even taking into account that you are saving peoples lives!!! Is your work less valuable then someone who works for the cable company? What about a true minimum wage job like McDonald's? Has anyone ever died from not getting their quarter pounder in a timely fashion?
I can understand working for a $2-$5 less per hour during orientation but minimum wage? Ridiculous!!! Yes you will be working with another nurse so you are doing less work then when you go out there solo but the risk is still the same.
Honestly, I will go work in the call center or McDonald's before I accept minimum wage for being a nurse. This job is just too damn hard, stressfull, and dangerous to work for a salary that won't even pay my rent.
I just applied for a job that looked very promising!
Oh, but then the computer sent me an e-mail saying, "no new grads." So, I walked my résumé in by hand to at least get by the screening. I was, however, told that they're looking for experienced nurses -- you know, "it's so expensive to train new grads."
So, I was thinking about contacting them and offering to work for minimum wage for 3-6 months in order to help offset the expense. (This is a non-union place so there's nothing to stop them from paying a training wage.)
I know several new grads who are working as unpaid interns (actually, they're doing it through a nursing school so they're actually paying to be med-surg nurses... good gig for the hospital, huh?) and it seems like this would be a step up from that.
Any thoughts?
Sure, why not? But I doubt the hospital will agree.
Some people who do not have experiences are shut out of the door permanently, even though they are trained in US, spent huge money in tuition, occurred a huge debt etc. Even worse, unbelievably some places are still importing foreign nurses since they are "experienced" while tens of thousands of US new grads are denied job opportunities. This is ridiculous, it hurts the US economy and its people in the long run. I saw new grads nurses on this board live on food stamps, though she is looking for a job actively, nobody wants to hire her because she needs to be trained. My classmate told me she is depressed, she took a loan for nursing school and she still has no job with an RN license. I looked everywhere, even the nursing homes here are not hiring new graduates. Luckily I still have a non-nursing job, but it's getting hard to hold on to it and I'm on the verge of financial difficulty.
If any hospital in my area agree to hire me but pay me minimum wages (8/hr) during the training period (say 6 months), I would be more than happy to accept that. Unfortunately almost all hospitals here are unionized. So I know that's not possible.
I wouldn't and I hope other RNs wouldn't either. We are already underpaid and we don't need people volunteering to be nurses for $7-$8/hour. You could be a waitress or bartender for 3x that per hour with less stress and barely any responsibility.
A better option would be to get the wage you deserve and assure them you are willing to stay at that facility for a minimum of 18 months. The big fear is training people and having them leave the facility and taking their training and one year of nursing experience with them. Let them know if they invest the time in you that you will invest the time back in them. Reassure them that you don't have any immediate plans to move and are looking for a career and a future with them.
Even the pay during the training is low, but everybody know after gaining experience, new nurses can enjoy much better pay and much more job opportunities. This is unlike bartender, these are dead-end jobs, and one make sthat kind of money pretty much forever.
thank god that doctors don't have the same pay mentality that most of the nurses posting in this forum do about training wages. Otherwise why would anyone take out 200000 dollars in debt when they would only be making 30k a year for up to 5 years, much greater than the nursing training phase of 6 months. Yeah making 7 an hour sucks, but its costs the hospital money to train you and you are pretty much a liablity until you are trained. I guess I am being a little judgemental, but the training wages a comcast guy gets and the competitiveness of the transcription field have little to do with nursing, as nursing might just be a tad more professional.
The people who disagree seem to be the ones who have jobs.
I feel the new grad nurse who has loans to pay and every job needs one year experience...will be more then happy to work for a 6 months on training wage
If you're willing to work for minimum wage, go get a job at McDonald's. Less stress that way, and you won't be setting back the cause of nurses who have fought for semi-decent wages.
If you're willing to work for minimum wage, go get a job at McDonald's. Less stress that way, and you won't be setting back the cause of nurses who have fought for semi-decent wages.
Will McDonalds give you the opportunity to make 20-30/hr when you shed the new grad label..no.
We want to be nurses..spent 1-4 years in school to get this far..and are willing to work at a low wage for 6 months to get to the final goal.
The opportunities are endless in nursing, but you cant really embark on those till you shed the new grad label.
thank god that doctors don't have the same pay mentality that most of the nurses posting in this forum do about training wages. Otherwise why would anyone take out 200000 dollars in debt when they would only be making 30k a year for up to 5 years, much greater than the nursing training phase of 6 months. Yeah making 7 an hour sucks, but its costs the hospital money to train you and you are pretty much a liablity until you are trained. I guess I am being a little judgemental, but the training wages a comcast guy gets and the competitiveness of the transcription field have little to do with nursing, as nursing might just be a tad more professional.
Listen...transcription has lots of people who want to work so badly that they will undercut other transcriptionists, which creates a cycle of hospitals and clinics paying less and less for transcription and wanting to maintain that bottom line of paying less and less. When that happens, everyone's pay is eventually lowered. Newbies are paid less to start and periodic raises in line counts don't happen for the experienced transcriptionists, if the work hasn't already been outsourced. Hospitals and clinics want to pay less and less because some people are willing to work for less and less (and sometimes for free even when no free internship was offered) just to have the chance to have work experience. What the OP was describing was what people in my field have been doing for quite some time, so that's why I brought it up. (The trick around finding a job for newbies is to apply to places that say they require experience. Some employers will stick to their guns and say no newbies; many will allow newbies to apply anyway.)
By the way, I do have to ask about your last sentence. Nursing might just be a tad more professional than what?
I could ask my RN husband which one of us he considers to be more professional, but I'll just know that we are pretty darned equal when he calls me to ask about some obscure term he came across at work that he assumes I know about and when he draws me out EKGs and explains the etiology of different waves that I don't' know already to demonstrate that what I am transcribing is accurate. I generally make more money as a transcriptionist than I did as a "more professional" nurse, but I also take great pride in my work because I want to do it well, so I do have an ounce or two of being a professional.
Will McDonalds give you the opportunity to make 20-30/hr when you shed the new grad label..no.
We want to be nurses..spent 1-4 years in school to get this far..and are willing to work at a low wage for 6 months to get to the final goal.
The opportunities are endless in nursing, but you cant really embark on those till you shed the new grad label.
If you really choose to devalue your education so much as to work minimum wage, then I feel sorry for you. If new grads are willing to work for minimum wage, why wouldn't the hospitals all pay that in the future? It's shortsighted to accept a "solution" that will harm us all in the end.
If you really choose to devalue your education so much as to work minimum wage, then I feel sorry for you. If new grads are willing to work for minimum wage, why wouldn't the hospitals all pay that in the future? It's shortsighted to accept a "solution" that will harm us all in the end.
So the finance, communication major etc. who do unpaid internships after college are also devaluing their education in your opinion?
To not use the education because you cant find employment devalues it more then working for minimum wage during a training period.
Maybe the current nurses should not take overtime and high patient ratios? Then the new graduates would be needed. This is also harming us all in the end.
Basically
experienced nurses will say this a horrible idea because they don't want their wages to go down.
new graduate nurses who can not find a job because every listing says "1 year experience" will say yes (if they really want to be a nurse)
Even if I was a new grad with the choice of 22/hr on one unit or a 6 month training wage on my dream unit..
Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.
If you're willing to work for minimum wage, go get a job at McDonald's. Less stress that way, and you won't be setting back the cause of nurses who have fought for semi-decent wages.
There will be no "going" back on the wages because experienced people would leave. You cannot have a hospital running on "free" newly grad RNs alone.
It is DANGEROUS.
and it won't happen.
I agree about working at McDonald's though, at least you get to get free food.
.thumb.gif.11fa0ddb3aacfb1b3953bc671abcfb7e.gif){kind=avatar}
Lovely_RN, MSN
1,122 Posts
What people seem to forget is that nursing is a risky job. I've been back at work for 2 shifts after my maternity leave and I'm already coming down with the cold that is going around the LTC.
Can someone answer this question?
Why should I risk the very real possibility of:
needle sticks...exposure to body fluids...being attacked by crazy patients/families...being exposed to all manner of diseases....worrying about bringing those diseases home to my family...back...foot...shoulder injuries etc for minimum wage?
Now answer this question?
Why should I risk all of the above for $7.25/hour when I know someone who was just hired to work at the local cable company call center for $13.75/hr to do customer service? This is orientation pay and it increases to $15-$17/hr once you are hired full-time. This is a job in a clean comfortable office building, sitting on your duff answering phones, and you are guaranteed lunch/pee breaks. You also have a definite time to leave work and no one calls you on your days off to harrass you to pick up extra shifts for the sake of being a team player.
You're not even taking into account that you are saving peoples lives!!! Is your work less valuable then someone who works for the cable company? What about a true minimum wage job like McDonald's? Has anyone ever died from not getting their quarter pounder in a timely fashion?
I can understand working for a $2-$5 less per hour during orientation but minimum wage? Ridiculous!!! Yes you will be working with another nurse so you are doing less work then when you go out there solo but the risk is still the same.
Honestly, I will go work in the call center or McDonald's before I accept minimum wage for being a nurse. This job is just too damn hard, stressfull, and dangerous to work for a salary that won't even pay my rent.