No NP jobs. What now?

ArmaniX, MSN, APRN · Aug 13, 2020

Do you want to continue working in the hospital? Consider acute care cert.

The pandemic has slowed hiring in a lot of areas. But ignoring that. Perhaps the areas you’re searching or willing to work are the problem and you need to simply expand this search.

I do feel your FNP in the hospital role is limiting your options as a lot of facilities are not hiring FNP in the acute care setting, or such is rumored.

OkieNP · Aug 14, 2020

19 hours ago, ArmaniX said:
Do you want to continue working in the hospital? Consider acute care cert.
The pandemic has slowed hiring in a lot of areas. But ignoring that. Perhaps the areas you’re searching or willing to work are the problem and you need to simply expand this search.

I do feel your FNP in the hospital role is limiting your options as a lot of facilities are not hiring FNP in the acute care setting, or such is rumored.

No I don’t necessarily want to work in a hospital, I think after 5 years of it I would actually prefer not to. I don’t want to become an acute care NP especially if there will be 45 people applying to all the hospital jobs. I do not at all live in a “desirable” state. Though I do live in a city. I am looking in Oklahoma and Colorado. I actually want to work in primary care or urgent care, that seems to be the hardest job to get! When I lived in Tennessee previously and was in NP school I was told the chances of getting a job in the Nashville area were “slim”. I am just wonder if the whole country is like this?

aok7, NP · Aug 14, 2020

I would advise applying where you would like to work and make it your own. Consider your strengths and interests and do not get stuck on the statistics. I was terrified when I was about to graduate, had read a lot of posts here and hearing otherwise how challenging to get a first job. It was. But I read some books about job searching and in particular, interviewing, and gathered my strengths and interests and targeted my job search to those where I thought I was genuinely interested. I sent this message. Ended up getting a job in a large city with an incredible group affiliated with a hospital. I have since moved on, and same principles of seeking a job as a business professional rather than listening to naysayers, and can confidently say I would not be in my current dream job (which required my first NP job) without turning off the negative and opening to my own channel. That said, gathering facts about the market then sucking it up and doing what you have to do just has to be part of your professional job search. All the best.

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Aug 16, 2020

No, the NP job market is NOT saturated. It may be in some areas, but in many parts of the country, there is a severe shortage of primary care providers. Generally, the Western states have better opportunities for NPs. Do some research on the best job markets for NPs.

In general, the smaller towns and cities, along with rural areas, have the biggest shortages of PCPs. I mean the "2nd tier" cities and down in size. For example, in California, everyone seems to want to live in SF, LA, or San Diego. Outside of those 3 big cities, there is a real shortage of PCPs, and that includes in cities like Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Redding, Chico, Modesto, Stockton, etc., all of which are quite large in population and much more affordable.

Be open-minded and do the research to figure out the areas with the greatest need.

COVID did slow down hiring, but at least in California, it is starting to pick back up again.

Rnis, BSN, DNP, APRN, NP · Aug 18, 2020

I live in a trendy area and I would not say the job market is saturated. getting your first job can be tricky but then people seem to do fine.

ForensicPMHNP, MSN, NP · Aug 19, 2020

22 hours ago, Rnis said:
I live in a trendy area and I would not say the job market is saturated. getting your first job can be tricky but then people seem to do fine.

This is very important to remember, one thing I realized is that many employers will always favor NPs with experience, especially FNPs,PNPs and AGNPs. Thus the makret may seem tight for a new grad but it is partly because the experience is so valuable in this. Do not be discouraged

DrZaphod, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, NP · Sep 7, 2020

I hear you. I am worried now, too. I just found out that the requirement to be an RN for 1-2 years before NP has been waived. And evidently there are schools with BSN > DNP in 2 years, and BSN > NP in 16 months.

This will destroy the profession's credibility and prospects as far as I can see, just looking at supply/demand. Physicians have kept such high salaries by artificially limiting the supply due to over-training for most fields, but at least the path is long and hard.

If you remove difficulty entirely, and don't have the experience as an RN to back up the knowledge learned at the advanced level, I also worry that all the research demonstrating equivalent outcomes as MD/DO will no longer be true.

Subee2, BSN, MSN, CRNA · Sep 9, 2020

Yes our profession has consistently lowered educational cexpectations in the 40 plus years I worked as an RN. While they encourage more graduations, they aren't providing more educations. I don't blame them educators. It's a confluence of many factors that our education isn't taken more seriously.

TNT_RN09, BSN, RN · Sep 13, 2020

Oklahoma is over saturated, unless you want to work rural

OkieNP · Sep 13, 2020

I will say as a full disclosure, I haven’t actually been trying full force to get a new position, ha! I just know that amount of job postings are down and the number of applicants per job is 40+. I’m not a new grad, I’ve been an NP for 6 years. I am sure I could get another job if I actually tried, my concern is that what’s already a bad situation is getting worse at an alarming rate. As the above poster says Oklahoma is saturated with NPs. OKLAHOMA. This is not a place that I would call a highly desirable place to live ? as some others have suggested. I’m not even exclusively looking in the largest cities!! If Oklahoma is saturated and we don’t even have many in-person NP schools, the whole country will be saturated soon.
So I guess I’m considering.... should I continue as an NP relying on the hope that because by 2025 when we have twice as many NPs I will have 11 years of experience and thus I’ll be a shoe in? Or should I become a psychiatric NP because they won’t be likely to have a shortage? Or should I completely change careers out of fear?

“62 percent surplus of primary care NPs by 2025” -https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/number-nurse-practitioners-more-doubles-study-finds

All so this silly article by all nurses:

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Sep 13, 2020

12 minutes ago, OkieNP said:

I will say as a full disclosure, I haven’t actually been trying full force to get a new position, ha! I just know that amount of job postings are down and the number of applicants per job is 40+. I’m not a new grad, I’ve been an NP for 6 years. I am sure I could get another job if I actually tried, my concern is that what’s already a bad situation is getting worse at an alarming rate. As the above poster says Oklahoma is saturated with NPs. OKLAHOMA. This is not a place that I would call a highly desirable place to live ? as some others have suggested. I’m not even exclusively looking in the largest cities!! If Oklahoma is saturated and we don’t even have many in-person NP schools, the whole country will be saturated soon.
So I guess I’m considering.... should I continue as an NP relying on the hope that because by 2025 when we have twice as many NPs I will have 11 years of experience and thus I’ll be a shoe in? Or should I become a psychiatric NP because they won’t be likely to have a shortage? Or should I completely change careers out of fear?

“62 percent surplus of primary care NPs by 2025” -https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/number-nurse-practitioners-more-doubles-study-finds

1. You haven't really been looking that hard for a new job. So why the fear mongering? I ended up unemployed due to COVID, yet I found a part time NP job with full benefits within one week! Then I added another part-time NP job a couple months later. Had I been willing to relocate, I would have found a full-time NP job within a month of becoming unemployed.

2. You say Oklahoma is saturated with NPs, except for the rural areas. So what? And so why don't NPs go to those rural areas if they really need a job? Oklahoma is not the entire US, desireable or not.

3. Those studies projecting NP surpluses are crap. Here's why: we have a shortage of primary care MDs and that is only going to get worse. NPs and PAs will need to fill that void. Those studies also don't consider distribution.

4. Yes, there is a distribution problem in some areas. There are plenty of good NP jobs out there. They may not be on the beach in Malibu, but it's a big country and there are plenty of jobs in nice places.

5. It seems that due to COVID, many more people will be working remotely. People are therefore relocating in record numbers to places like Austin TX, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, etc. A lot of people, no longer tied to an office, are moving back to their home towns. That means there will be higher demand for healthcare providers in different parts of the country.

6. I don't understand why an NP with 11 years of experience will be a "shoe in." For what? Once an NP has 2 to 3 years of experience, they are generally viewed as equivalent in terms of basic experience. Employers will then look at how relevant the NP's experience is to the job need. A pain management clinic will hire an NP with 3 years of pain management experience over an NP with 15 years of Ob Gyn experience.

7. I am sick and tired of NPs just thinking they can go into psych because there is a high demand and it pays more. You know why it pays more? Because it is very hard emotionally and mentally. I am working on my PMHNP Post-Master's Certification now, as well as working as a mental health NP. It is way more stressful and draining than working in primary care. Not everyone is suited to working in psych and NPs considering this need to think long and hard about whether they can handle it, as well as whether or not they can be effective and compassionate providers to this population. For example, in primary care I seldom worried about a patient dying, even if I made a mistiake. Now, I worry every single day that one of my patients may commit suicide! And that would be totally on me, for not spotting suicidal tendencies in time, prescribing medications that they can OD on, etc. In order to be a good mental health care provider, one must have compassion, and for a compassionate person, listening to patients' stories of childhood abuse, sexual abuse, workplace abuse and violence, growing up in a war-torn country and seeing family members literally tortured to death, and listening to this ALL DAY LONG is incredibly draining. A provider that is not moved by these patients would be a very poor mental health provider.

8. Honestly, I have never seen such a fearful profession as NPs. I don't plan to be unemployed! I plan to be a winner! In my previous business career, we always had a surplus of candidates for the best jobs. So what? I always worked for the best companies and advanced to become a senior executive. It's a pyramid, and there are far fewer senior positions than people who want them. I did what it took to get one of those slots!

I wanted to get a great education. I came from a high school in the "hood," the first in my family to go to college. I got into Yale. Back in those days, even educated women started out as secretaries and I did, too. Ended up as a VP in business. Then I decided to become an NP. Again, I wanted to get a great education and got into Johns Hopkins and UCLA. Upon graduating, I got 9 job offers. With 2 years, I had a NP job offers like Assistant CMO, and working for specialist clinics for $160K per year (in a very affordable area).

People who plan to succeed in life will. People who are negative, fearful, and assume the worst will happen are usually right, as they will subconsciously project negative energy and not believing in themselves, will not get great opportunities or capitalize on them when given one.