New Grads and License Pending

[mvanz9999, RN]

Hello all:

I've been mostly missing from the board during the past year due to being in nursing school and up to my eyeballs in work.

I still have to make it until May, but I'm wondering what other peoples' plans are for working after graduation. As I understand it, Illinois no longer hires new grads "license pending", which means one must have a license in order to be hired at all.

As I see it, it takes roughly 30 days (or so) for the administration to notify PearsonVue of my eligibility to take the NCLEX and then another 4 weeks or so to take the exam and receive the license.

So really, at the completion of my program, I have 2 months or so to "not work". How are new grads handling this issue? I cannot be without income for those two months. That's absurd. Yet it appears that I cannot actually work without a license.

Does this mean Illinois grads get jobs at Starbucks? This is just an issue I'd like to deal with now since I'll have enough other stress in the Spring semester.

[Wildflower8 RN, CCRN]

I think it varies with each school how quickly they get your information to pearsonvue. Our may grads last year graduated like around the 3rd of May and were able to test like the 3rd week in May if they wanted. I graduate next Sat. and our school told us we will probably be able to test by the end of Jan. Some hospitals will hire you before but you can't really start orientation until you pass. I have to pass my boards by Feb. 9th in order to start my job. So I guess I will only have a little over a month of not working which I saved up my money in order to compensate for that. Now I did have a job during nursing school that I would have stayed at if I felt that it would have taken me longer to get employment though.