New RN Grad 2nd career: should I mention hospital exp over 20 years ago

[lubdubmyjob]

hello everyone. your expert suggestions and thoughts are highly welcome.

background: i've just graduated with my adn this month and am about to take the nclex. this is my second career. i have a b.s. in health care administration and worked in health care insurance (i.t., project management, operations, etc.) for a many years. however, before i started my b.s. degree all those years ago, i knew i wanted to be an rn in high school and got my c.n.a. and worked as a c.n.a. for about 1-2 years in early college career. i ended up changing majors for certain personal reasons. now that i've come full circle and have finally fulfilled my dream of becoming a nurse, i am faced with a bit of a dilemma.

dilemma: should i mention any of my past c.n.a. experience in my resume as "related experience" for example, even though it was so long ago? other than this experience (as a c.n.a.), i have none other working in an acute care setting (other than the practical and clinical experience in the rn program i just completed of course). any suggestions would be helpful. it seems pointless to mention this early experience in patient care, but i'm curious what others, who are already working in the hospitals, think it's worth mentioning. thanks for your input.

[llg, PhD, RN]

Definitely include it. It shows that you have actually done direct patient care and have some idea as to what that type of work entails.

If you look at posts here on allnurses, you will see that there are many new grads who are clueless as to what a real patient care job involves. The big danger in hiring a new grad is that they will get a glimpse of reality and run away after the employer has spent some money trying to orient them.

It's to your great advantage that you show employers that you know what you are getting into and have realistic expectations of the job ... and that past CNA experience will show just that.

Good luck to you!

[lubdubmyjob]

Thanks LLG. I appreciate your perspective and will be including it so prospective employers may have a better sense that I'm not going anywhere, if I get hired!

[JenniferSews]

I put my experience as a CNA 15+ years ago on my resume, and it's been asked about at each interview. I only worked there for 6 months! Even for a recent promotion interview after already working for the company, the CEO asked me about my experience as a cna many years ago. It does seem to matter, from my experience. Probably for the reason the pp already mentioned.