New Grad Struggling to find a job

[abrn38]

I recently graduated from nursing school and passed my NCLEX in jan. I started applying in my last semester of nursing school and the feedback I was getting from these places was to wait longer as they were not going to hire until closer to graduation/ NCLEX exam date. I have now completed both those obstacles and thought I would be smooth sailing now. But, I have not been able to really find anything that will give me a chance. I don't know what else to do. I have been applying to EVERYTHING. I cant find any new grad programs right now and I want to begin my career. Any advice? I am in the Dekalb/ Aurora IL area. 

[Julia Liou, RN]

Hi abrn38, 

Sorry to hear you are having trouble finding a job. Have you had a chance to ask someone to review your resume? You have to make sure you're really highlighting the keywords, and make sure the resume isn't too long!

Feel free to review this resource to help with your resume: Creating a Resume with One Year Experience - Career Advice: Ask Nurse Beth (allnurses.com) 

I do find many hospitals hire during certain months of the year, and they do take a while to reach out. Be patient, you can also try calling the units to ask to speak to the manager of the unit, so you can bypass HR and get to the hiring source. Best of luck! 

[pandabearlover]

I'm not sure where you live but if you're  not opposed to moving to Dallas, Texas , allll they want to  hire is new grads! As an experienced nruse it has been so hard to find a job because they literally just feed hundreds of nursing students/new grads straight  into their  nursing residency programs into many different units. Check it out: https://jobs.utsouthwestern.edu/nursing-residency/

UT Southwestern will start interviews even before you've graduated I think? Don't quote me but I think they  do it like May graduating classes interview in April for the July Cohort with assumption of graduating in May, and their cohort  are July, October and Feb.

I'm suprised to hear it's been hard for you, I'm sorry. When I was a new grad it was pretty hard too, but I started March 2020. So many hospitals are doing new grad residency programs bc they figured out it was their solution to help staffing numbers by hiring new grads who they didn't  have to pay as much as current  staff nurses. So  if Texas isn't your thing, no problem, so many  hospitals in every state are doing this. You see it really often with University  affliated hospitals, but now other outside hospitals are doing it too. Hope this helps!!