New Grad RN first position in a Clinic/ Urgent Care center opinions?

[CalishortyRN]

Hello everyone!

Just wanted some opinions. I've read a lot on here that your first RN position should ideally be in a acute care hospital... because that is where I eventually want to end up working the 3-12s in a hospital setting in an ER(which I know is VERY difficult to land being a new grad).

But after applying for a while and without huge success I've started to think about applying to Clinics or Urgent care centers there seems to be quite a few around where I'm moving to (around Kingwood, TX). Any opinions if later on after I get that experience will it be considered acute care and aid in attaining a hospital position?

The hospitals seem to only hire twice a year and I don't want to wait around for something I might not even get an interview for, but I've heard that once you work at all as an RN you are no longer eligible for those new grad programs.

I'm probably overthinking. I've even applied to positions over an hour away.

Thank you for any advice or your experience with this!

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Sorry - "acute care" = inpatient not ambulatory care. Formal new grad programs are normally scheduled to coincide with graduation dates of the local programs. Due to the expense of these programs, some organizations are only having one program per year now. Organizations are faced with some very severe financial challenges right now as inpatient volumes have drastically declined over the last year.

In my experience, the most common reason for eliminating "new grad" programs is the fact that they don't actually increase retention of the participants.... new grads that changed jobs too quickly cause the residency/internship to be eliminated.

[Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN]

Many of these stand alone facilities will not hire new grads either.

The few around me that my friends work at as RN's will hire only those with at least 1 year of ER/ICU experience (one will hire other specialties but only with 3 years experience).

I do know of an urgent care center I could have gotten hired at as a new grad but only because one of my RN co-workers is related to the person who does hiring at it and could have pulled some strings (but would have been only a PRN position (with full time hours) with no benefits and not as much pay as the other RN's with experience).

As a new ADN/ASN RN is is getting very hard to find that first job. It is getting to the point you have to know someone to even be considered.

I got very, very lucky being hired into the IMU at the facility I worked at as a tech while going to school.

I had the possibility as an Endoscopy RN position at the same facility as well, but got the IMU position before I followed up with them.

I also had a standing offer from my previous job where I worked as a paramedic for an Occupational Medicine RN position at a Haliburton facility, but that was a 55 mile drive each way 5 days a week and not a long term contract.