New Grads that have Jobs: what do you advise for the rest of us

[estrellaCR]

Hi

I am New Grad from January 2012 (I dont know if it counts a new grad still though). I been applying to hospitals since March 2012 after I took NCLEX and received my license. I have been on 4 interviews since April, 3 for hospital and 1 for a clinic (where I currently work at).

I have 4 years experience (Im a second degree BSN graduate, my previous degree was in Health Sciences) working as a child development associate at an organization for children with disabilities, certifications in BLS, NRP, ACLS, IV, PALS. Bilingual in English and a major foreign language, Volunteer experiences at clinic and at hospital, Great customer service skills, and great references from previous employers and preceptor for my senior internship, and 6 months of working at RN at a pediatric clinic.

I'm looking for a hospital position as working in the clinic the skills used are very basic and physical assessment and very little of everything else we learned in nursing school so I want to learn more and in the clinic there is no chance for advancement. I feel like I'm not using nursing skills like one would be able to in a hospital. And I been told that in a hospital is, not in nursing school, is were new grads really learn everthing.

Anyways, I went on those 3 hospital interviews and HR and the nurse managers all said how impressed they are with my qualifications and experience and constantly hint they would hire me. They all say they will call me in a week or two. So time passes and then I contact the HR department about the position and they all inform me they are "still in process of interviewing". More time passes, one month, two months and nothing. I heard of new grads in the city where I live with zero experience that are interview and hired within a week of interview. I feel so rejected especially since the managers acted like they really like me and thought me a "good fit" for their unit.

So New Grads that were so fortunate to be hired? How did you do it? I sent thank you cards to the interviewers but I'm thinking may be I should have sent a cake. LOL.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

[AFwife727, BSN, RN]

I have found the ASC association website for my state (Florida) but it doesn't have any link or information about where to apply for jobs or send a resume. I'm going to try to email someone there and see if they can tell me where to go from here. I'd actually been wanting to find work in an ambulatory/one-day surgery clinic rather than on a conventional nursing floor.

[AFwife727, BSN, RN]

What worked for me was FAXING! Good old-fashioned FAXING. I had heard some of my fellow grads got positions at surgi-centers, so I googled the state ASC association, and sent out faxes w CV & cover letter. Probably sent out 40, but got 6 interviews and three job offers! All Per Diem, but it was SOMETHING.

Best of luck to you!

PS- CA & NJ are not very new grad-friendly - unfortunately, I speak from experience.

I have found the ASC association website for my state (Florida) but it doesn't have any link or information about where to apply for jobs or send a resume. I'm going to try to email someone there and see if they can tell me where to go from here. I'd actually been wanting to find work in an ambulatory/one-day surgery clinic rather than on a conventional nursing floor.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

The advice about working in a hospital as a CNA is a good one - but ONLY IF YOU WORK IN THE UNIT YOU WANT TO GET HIRED IN. Seriously. I put that in all caps because I wish someone had told me that. People say if you work in a facility you're "in," but if you want something competitive like critical care it's just not true. The fact is a lot of your classmates or new grad competition may work on the unit you want to work on, and the department director will hire them over you because he/she already knows them. This happened to me. Worked at a hospital that had a 15-spot critical care residency, which is what I wanted, but I did not work on a critical care floor. 30 of my 90 classmates also worked for this hospital, several in critical care. The classmates who worked in critical care got the job and I did not, and then my hospital pulled new grads who worked critical care at OTHER hospitals before they pulled current employees. So, just saying - working at a facility will not necessarily help you get a job unless you want a job on your CURRENT unit because the people doing the hiring are not the same across different departments!

I did end up finding a job. I found a critical care residency in the middle of nowhere at a decent-sized hospital. I was applying everywhere in a four state radius - VA, NC, SC, and GA. I've heard it's easier to get jobs in the South that the far west or north, so don't be afraid to try in the South. I drove nine hours for the interview - which set the stage for it to go well because I think they were impressed I was willing to drive that far. And then they asked me why I applied there, and I told them I was passionate about critical care and I would do whatever it took to land my dream job in a MSICU. Apparently it worked. :) Try to find a hospital in a SMALL, INCONVENIENT place - major destinations like Charleston, NYC, etc. are way too competitive. Think of somewhere you'd never want to live in a million years and apply there - honestly, no one else wants to live there either and you will probably get the job! I used wikipedia to look for all hospitals in a state and looked at the websites for all of them bigger than 200 beds to find places to apply. I figured anything smaller probably wouldn't give me good ICU experience.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

I don't have a hospital job, so not sure if this is helpful, but...

I landed my first per diem job as a substitute school nurse in a very diverse and super busy urban school district one month after being licensed. I worked pretty full-time for a couple of months to fill in for a nurse on medical leave and I got this job through someone I knew. However, it was not through any medical/school connections but through my musician husband whose piano student was a teacher in that school district and passed my resume to nurse that hires/oversees the nurses in that district!

I fell in love with school nursing (always loved community) and started applying for jobs. I am a second degree nurse with 7 years experience in higher education administration so that was a huge help in looking for a school nurse job; with that experience and my sub experience I landed a full-time school nursing job three months after being licensed.

I know a few classmates that have landed full-time med-surg hospital job three months or less after being licensed (and I'm in the Boston area, tough place to get a job as a new grad - there are tons of new grads looking). However, I will admit that every one of them had a connection through school or family to get their resume in the door; one really connected with the nurse manager on the floor she precepted and got hired per-diem right after she was licensed, two others had aunts that were nurses that pushed their resume through the typical HR filter and one was working as an admin in a ER and when she was licensed was hired there on a med-surg floor.

One thing I can say is don't give up! It is easy to get frustrated. Sometimes a connection through a volunteer experience can be good. Another friend volunteered with me at the Marathon and chatted up a physican working with us and she is helping her get shadowing experiences and passing her resume along.