Not sure if I want to be a nurse anymore?

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So I have been a nurse for three years now and I'm starting to think I don't want to be a nurse anymore. I wasn't aware of how hard it would be to get the job I want in nursing (which was either nicu or newborn nursery). I went through school got good grades, graduated with honors, passed my nclex first try and realized there were no jobs that wanted to hire a new nurse. I worked in pedi homecare for two years, then went to a TCU unit in a nursing home and now I'm pack to pedi homecare working with a preterm infant. I'm not even sure if I got a nicu job if I would enjoy it, I am so afraid of hurting someone. I feel like I went through nursing school and came out not knowing a thing. I don't know where my fit in the nursing world is and I have been looking for a new job. I have had 6 interviews in the past 6 weeks and haven't had any offers. I have seriously been considering quitting nursing and going back to school but I feel like I spent so much money to pay for nursing school and took so much time that would be a waste. Does anyone have any ideas of what I should do? What types of jobs I might enjoy within nursing?

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Nursing has so many different avenues, many which have next to no direct patient cate. There is research, teaching, staff education, etc. perhaps try an outpatient setting like a walk in clinic? I wouldn't give up just yet.

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There's nothing at all wrong with changing careers to something non-nursing.

If you want to stay within nursing, there are a lot of options, but those jobs aren't easy to get either. Some require Masters degrees, others require a minimum of x number of years in an acute care environment, etc.

What would be helpful would be for you to make a list of the things about nursing that you enjoy the most.

Do you want to stay at the bedside, or do you think you'd rather work in a different capacity?

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I enjoy helping people and caring for them. There are a lot of bedside nursing aspects that I love but also a lot that I don't. When I worked in the TCU at a nursing home that was my only experience doing something more acute than homecare which is only one patient. I enjoyed having more than one person to care for because it kept me busy but I didn't enjoy floating to the LTC units where I had 20 patients and felt like the only thing I had time for was popping pills. I enjoy working with the preterm infant I currently work with but I work nights and I feel like a glorified babysitter. Yes, sometimes he needs me to suction his Trach or give him a neb tax but that's pretty much it. He sleeps 90% of the time I'm here and all I do is sit on my butt looking for a new job. I have no clue if I would actually enjoy working on an inpatient unit in a hospital but I don't think would because I didn't particularly enjoy my clinicals. The jobs I have had interviews for recently were a school nurse, nurse leader for a disabled school, medical daycare rn, community health center nurse and an interview today for a mental health agency for adolescents with traumatic backgrounds but the majority of the work is overseeing and teaching (which I have no clue if I would prefer this to bedside nursing but I am a rather shy person and probably wouldn't be good at teaching or overseeing). I don't know if I'm not good at interviewing or they just hire someone else with more experience but its frustrating having so many interviews and no offers. :-/ sorry this was a long response to your post haha but I'm very upset and confused...

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Sometimes the interviewer might be willing to give the right candidate with no experience a chance, but if they sense your heart really isn't in it, then you won't be that "right" candidate. And, if your heart really isn't in it, it's not fair to fake it because when you start the job and decide it's not for you and start looking for another job, this will put your employer in a bind. My personal philosophy is to never apply for a job I wouldn't be excited to have.

It sounds like you'd like to stay busy, and that you enjoy the caregiving aspects of nursing, but not so much the patient teaching side of things. Does that sound accurate?

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It's not patient teaching, it's staff teaching I didn't think I would be good at. I don't quite mind patient teaching, not my favorite but I do feel good when I can teach a newly diabetic patient how to check their own levels and give themselves insulin. I just really feel like I'm not a great nurse, I felt like when I was working in the TCU the patients would love me because I know I'm very kind and I listen to them but I was always being told I was doing thins wrong by management. I actually was fired from that position and that was a huge ordeal and probably was a major reason I started thinking I wasn't cut out to be a nurse. My DoN asked me once if I was passionate about my job and I responded saying yes of course I really love all my patients and enjoy caring for them (which was the truth, I truly did love caring for the patients) and she said "oh, really? Because I don't think you do." And it was like a slap across the face, because the only reason I did enjoy that job was because oh the relationships I built with the residents and I just figured I must not show my passion correctly. Idk but the residents seemed to like me. I'm rambling again... Sorry.

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