New Grad Wants to Leave 2nd Job in 8 Months

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Nurse Beth,

Sometimes I feel as though I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, so I'll start from the beginning... I'm a fairly recent RN graduate (8 months ago) and I had so many interests during nursing school. I basically liked everything but geriatrics and peds. Since graduation, I worked on a med/surg floor and I'm currently working in L&D. My biggest fear regarding the floor that I work is that I'm pretty much forced to work overtime every week. I wanted to be a nurse so that I could help support my family, but also feel as though with my current position I will be working so much more than I ever wanted.

During my interview, they mentioned the rotating and on-call schedules and at the time I wanted L&D so bad that I thought I'd be able to do it. But once I got on the floor, and I saw nurses consistently working 4-5 days a week, I'm scared that my morale will fall because I won't be able to spend enough time with my family. My question is this: would it make a bad impression of me as a nurse if I begin to look for yet another position? I really feel as thoughthe amount of hours worked was grossly misrepresented to me during the interview. I'm so torn as to what I want to pursue as a new nurse.

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Dear Making a Bad Impression,

You're about 7-8 months out as a new grad, on your second job and thinking of leaving.

When you are hired as a new grad, you are looked at as an investment. Until you have been fully productive for a year or so, the hospital is upside down on training costs.

If you leave at this point, this is the kind of thinking you will be up against in your next job interview. Be prepared to answer the question "How can we be sure you will not leave in six months?" Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for leaving a job prematurely. But not knowing for sure what you like is not reason enough to jump ship.

You don't know yet what you want, but you have to give it time. There are good and bad points about every job, every specialty, and every unit. Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

Author, "Your Last Nursing Class: How to Land Your First Nursing Job"...and your next!

[sunny time]

is this 8 hour shifts or 12 hour. basically I would not quit, I would go to the manager tell her that I would like to work part time because of, child care, missing function or whatever.tell her you would work every other weekend and may pick up a day during the week. sure you do not make benefits such as PTO or sick time as fast, but you have more control. and really isn't that the reason you want to leave? The schedule is out of control and you have to work too much overtime.