new RN grad with LPN exp

[littlenurse23]

I'm not your typical new grad because I worked as a LPN for two years before RN school. Now I'm looking for jobs and I can't find anything! If I go back to the nursing home (which is what I did as a LPN) will that experience transfer to the hospital? I really want to work at the hospital but I moved here out of state and they only hire the ones who precepted here. Will ever get to work in a hospital if I only have nursing home exp????

[CT Pixie, BSN, RN]

Check with your local hospitals to see if they grant LPN experience toward RN experience. I know of 3 or so hospitals in my local area that see a certain amount of year(s) as an LPN toward experience for RN positions. One in particular grants 0.5 year credit for each 1 year of practice as an LPN or Surgery Tech (and 1 year credit for each year of practice as MD outside the U.S.).

Worth a shot. There may be some hospitals in your area that do the same.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

I am in the same boat as you-I was a LPN for seven years before I graduated with my BSN in May. You have to be crafty and sell your experience in order to land that call and the interview. Once I changed my résumé into a skills based resume combined with my healthcare experience, is when I got my phone screen call, then two interviews, one with exposure to the unit. They let me know I should receive a response within the next week. It took me 4 months to get my foot in the door, once I had the interviews, it will take about two weeks response time, so about two months total for both interviews. So once you sell that you are interested in the position, especially if you have experience in skilled nursing, have taken up forms of leadership, your chances if going through the process of finding a job have a chance to increase exponentially.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Actually, LVNs becoming new grad RNs is kind of typical nowadays :)

The bad news: LVN experience doesn't necessarily equate to RN experience. Some facilities may use a formula to work out an equivalent in experience, like CT Pixie's place. Even then, you'd still come up short against candidates with actual RN experience. The majority of places will only count RN experience as RN experience.

The good news: you still have actual nursing experience, which is something that a lot of new grads don't have. And if you are wise, you will play up that experience as much as you can--sell the fact that you already have knowledge of basic nursing skills, time management, delegation and prioritization, leadership, healthcare in general, etc. Your LVN experience can help give you a leg-up over new grads who have zero nursing experience and so would really be starting from scratch.

Also, since your nursing experience is not RN experience, you are eligible for most new grad programs/residencies.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Agree with PPs - most hospitals apply a "conversion factor" in order to determine entry level salary for RNs with previous LP/VN experience. In my organization, each year counts as 1/2 year of experience. So, if you have 2 years LP/VN experience, you would receive the same initial salary as someone with 1 year of experience. However - you would still be considered a 'new grad' in terms of actual clinical experience no matter now much non-RN work you had done. Because being an RN is different than any other type of license. So, I guess it's a good news, bad news sort of thing.

I would encourage the OP to look at LTACs as an interim step to get into acute care. These are acute care settings and patient care can be very high level, including ventilator-dependent patients. The only difference is in the patients' length of stay.