New grad RN in Bay Area Desperately seeking job

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I graduated with my BSN in May 2012, and took and passed my NCLEX in June. Recently after this, I moved to California. I have 3 months of experience as an RN, but that pretty much means nothing out here. I have been job searching for the past 3 months and absolutely cannot find a position. I have read several forums about how hard it is to find a RN position being a new grad. Is there any advice any one has? I am willing to relocate anywhere in the state of California, and have applied to several positions all over the state. I dont have any connections here, and i feel that is a main issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :\

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

Trust me, connections do not go as far as you think in this state. There's way too many new graduates, many of which have and/or are trying to work connections. The problem is that there are only so many jobs to go around, so not every connected grad is going to land a job. My hospital has even turned down several internal applicants for new grad jobs.

The Bay area and SoCal are horrible for new grads. I've heard that going inland, as well as east along the border, seems to be a bit better.

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Specializes in Near Future: ED, Future Future: ACNP!.

Ugh, I'm also finding that if you don't have an address in the area the far inland and desert hospitals don't want to hire you because they think you are less likely to relocate there! It is really frustrating (I'm in SoCal, San Diego to be exact). I feel your pain. I've been looking for 4 months and have sent out 109 applications.

Keep at it, I'm sure something will come up for both of us :)

Meriwhen, I'm pretty sure I know which hospital you are talking about. I have friends that work there as CNAs that haven't been able to get hired.

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i have an interview in Sacramento on Monday, fingers crossed! I hope you find something too! I'm glad i'm not the only one who can't get a job. Its the worst feeling ever!!! good luck!!!

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
Meriwhen, I'm pretty sure I know which hospital you are talking about. I have friends that work there as CNAs that haven't been able to get hired.

Yeah, it's pretty brutal. When I graduated a few years ago, the new grad job market had already tanked, but most internal applicant classmates had no problems: only three were turned down from jobs, though one was able to get picked up at another hospital in the chain. Now it's no promise at all.

I still recommend getting a tech/CNA job pre-graduation for experience--I often wished I had but I couldn't at the time--but I definitely warn people not to rely solely on it to get hired later.

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With no connections and no experience...I'm going to say please don't bother moving here.

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