Can I find a "desk" RN job without experience

Nurses Career Support

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Hi fellow community,

I've held my RN liscense (with a BSN) for a year now. I only have experience in outpatient dialysis clinic. No hospital/acute care once so ever. I have not found a job in the hospital yet. I can barely stand my job now. It's not challenging, it doesn't build any nursing skills, and seems like a dead end job. Oh, and the hours are crazy (usually waking up a 3am and home by 8pm. I have known since the begining of RN school, that I do not like direct patient care. I always had plans of getting a few years of hospital floor nursing experience then moving on to case management, triage, outpatient surgery, insurance nurse, or educator. But again, the hospital barely hire new grads, without experience. Catch 22! How come in other careers it is okay for a entry level grad to desire a 9-5 job, behind a desk/management, but in nursing, the experienced RN's think the new grads are being too picky, or arrogant because we value our degree versus experience. I understand the nursing is as much skills, as brains, but I value my happiness, to take just anything to eventually reach the top. Is it too soon to be searching for that desk RN job?

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

Because the jobs you listed are not entry-level positions.

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You must be freking kidding!! How are you going to manage when you have never done the work? How are you going to case manage, when you don't know the case?? No. No desk jobs for nonexperienced RN's. Learn your nursing first. Without experience you can't even prioritize the crap on your own desk.

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No are u freaking kidding me? Its nurses like you who are typical for thinking they are at the top and newbies like me don't deserve a chance. Rather than post your negative thoughts in such a demeaning manner, it would have been better to offer some suggestions on working my way into those positions. But here we go, Big fish eating little fish in the dog eat dog world of nursing. I may be a nobody without experience in the realm of nursing, but I am very intelligent and educated. My point was, new graduates from other majors like buisness, social work...etc have the opportunity to supervise and obtain desk jobs right out of school so why doesn't nursing offer the same opportunity. It is likely because this female dominated field of nursing, with arrogant, bitter, self-righteous, aged-old RNs sabotage each other, rather than promoting the future of the field by training, hiring and encouraging novice RNs.

Thanks for your personal attack which is not allowed on this site. And by reading your profile, you do it often; better known as your "outspoken posts"

God Bless!

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

All you can do is try. You never know what any individual hiring manager is looking for. I never did acute care. Just try, try, try and you will eventually find something.

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Specializes in Long term care, Rehab/Addiction/Recovery.

not knowing what state or region you live in makes it harder to advise you. If you can try Public Health..if your county isn't suffering a hiring freeze. There are many "cushy" desk type of jobs in this sector. Have you applied to Insurance companies? Most major companies are frequently looking for case management type Rn's. I would suggest to you as a last resort to try home care for awhile. With that experience, you can probably get a supervisory position in that field quite easily. Good luck.:smokin:

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Where do you propose geting this 'training" you did say training? didn't you?? watching videos and reading abvout it? I don't know of any profession that hires a "newbe" as you labeled yourself into a managment position. Socialwork sure does't just ask all the MSW's who have to do the grunt jobs before they can even sit for LLC boards I think they actually have to talk to a few , but just a few before they are qualified to sit for those boards. Maybe if you were a business major they will let you supervise in Walmart- but I double if Donal trump is going to let you run his company fresh out of school with no experience on the ground. Pie in the sky. get your hands dirty first and find out what it's all about It's not like it is in the books. Your naives will thank you for it too!

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
it would have been better to offer some suggestions on working my way into those positions. My point was, new graduates from other majors like buisness, social work...etc have the opportunity to supervise and obtain desk jobs right out of school so why doesn't nursing offer the same opportunity. It is likely because this female dominated field of nursing, with arrogant, bitter, self-righteous, aged-old RNs sabotage each other, rather than promoting the future of the field by training, hiring and encouraging novice RNs.

The training you need to seek out is acute care floor nursing preferably with progressive supervisory experience. There simply is no shortcut. Your degree alone is not even close to what's needed. Regardless of what you believe,that degree without skills and experience does not give you the knowledge to supervise, advise patients or manage people. It has nothing to do with other nurses wanting to hold you back. It's the reality of the type of job we have. Business grads get desk jobs because that's the kind of jobs that a business degree entails. I guarantee you almost no newly degreed business grad goes immediately into a management position. And please, can you try to refrain from pigeon-holing all of us older, experienced nurses into the stereotypical bitter, old hags that, in reality, isn't true for the majority.

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FlyingScot pinned the nail on the head. OP, My mom is an old school nurse and she always told me I have to get in the hospital and get my hands dirty. I'm an ex Social Worker and I miss my old career. I find it so hard doing bedside nursing at times. I want my 9-5 with my weekends and holidays off. However, I've taken advice from my mom and many long time nurses and I realize that you have to get that experience so you have the ability to supervise others. You should try. You never know, you just might like working in the hospital.

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Many of the posters here need to read the OP's post carefully. I don't think s/he is saying that she doesn't WANT to do beside nursing. In fact the OP acknowledges the fact that in order to get those "cushiony desk jobs", one has to do "their time" on the floor. His/her frustration is the difficulty in obtaining even the first step to his/her goal--a bedside nursing job. Everyone is entitled to dream and make goals. STOP with personal attacks and snarky comments. It's very childish and inappropriate when the OP is just trying to make a point. We're all adult here.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
The training you need to seek out is acute care floor nursing preferably with progressive supervisory experience. There simply is no shortcut. Your degree alone is not even close to what's needed. Regardless of what you believe,that degree without skills and experience does not give you the knowledge to supervise, advise patients or manage people. It has nothing to do with other nurses wanting to hold you back. It's the reality of the type of job we have. Business grads get desk jobs because that's the kind of jobs that a business degree entails. I guarantee you almost no newly degreed business grad goes immediately into a management position. And please, can you try to refrain from pigeon-holing all of us older, experienced nurses into the stereotypical bitter, old hags that, in reality, isn't true for the majority.

As usual, Flying Scot nails it again. :yeah:

Perhaps nothing irritates working people so much as someone fresh out of school with a sense of entitlement---a person who thinks s/he doesn't have to pay any dues and who actually has the nerve to be angry when no one will let her/him leapfrog over the rank and file. It's difficult, if not impossible, to respect a supervisor who's never done the actual work and thus cannot know what (and who) s/he is supposed to be supervising......and that's true in every field. Just ask a construction worker how he likes the 22-year-old foreman with a newly-minted B.A. who's never driven a forklift or lifted a hammer in his life---while the "boss" was out getting his precious degree, that worker was busting his orifice for his employer and learning the craft literally from the ground up.

I'm not saying the OP isn't intelligent, or that she HAS to enjoy direct patient care in order to be a nurse worthy of the name. Thankfully, nursing encompasses many types of jobs that weren't even dreamed of 15-20 years ago, and not all of them are bedside positions. What bothered me---aside from the gratuitous snark about "aged-old" and "bitter" nurses who live merely to torment the young and restless---was the sense that she considers herself too good for floor nursing and deserves a management position right now. I'm sorry, but a four-year degree or better does not automatically confer the ability, let alone the street smarts, to manage situations AND human beings successfully......especially in an arena where lives are literally on the line every day!

I've been a nurse-manager on and off for years, and at 50-something I have long since shed the obvious disadvantage of needing to make the "aged-old" workers respect me. But having started out on the other end of the spectrum, I know what it is to get my hands dirty, and not only am I still willing to get them dirty if needed, I also continue to learn from those who are getting theirs dirty. There's no other way to be a decent boss. And that takes time and life experience, not just a college education.

The average working man or woman is not stupid.........they just get tired. An arrogant, entitled 'superior' who knows nothing of what their days are like, what they feel, what they think of when they're on the job, is not going to be able to manage them well OR earn their respect, and that makes EVERYBODY'S lives at work harder than they need to be.

Just sayin'....:rolleyes:

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Many of the posters here need to read the OP's post carefully. I don't think s/he is saying that she doesn't WANT to do beside nursing. In fact the OP acknowledges the fact that in order to get those "cushiony desk jobs", one has to do "their time" on the floor. His/her frustration is the difficulty in obtaining even the first step to his/her goal--a bedside nursing job. Everyone is entitled to dream and make goals. STOP with personal attacks and snarky comments. It's very childish and inappropriate when the OP is just trying to make a point. We're all adult here.

I have known since the begining of RN school, that I do not like direct patient care. ... How come in other careers it is okay for a entry level grad to desire a 9-5 job, behind a desk/management, but in nursing, the experienced RN's think the new grads are being too picky, or arrogant because we value our degree versus experience. I understand the nursing is as much skills, as brains, but I value my happiness, to take just anything to eventually reach the top. Is it too soon to be searching for that desk RN job?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I have read the OP's post carefully, more than once, and it seems pretty clear to me that s/he is saying s/he "doesn't WANT to do bedside nursing." S/he isn't expressing frustration in the difficulty in obtaining an acute care bedside nursing position, s/he is asking how come s/he can't just jump right into a management/administrative type position (as s/he seems to believe novices in other occupations are routinely able to do)and bypass all that nasty taking-care-of-sick-people stuff. I think that and the comment about new grads "valu(ing) our degree versus experience" comment, specifically, may be what got the initial negative reactions to the original post (I, personally, especially like the "versus," as if we, the older, experienced nurses, don't also have "the degree" along with our experience), compounded, of course, by the later reference to "arrogant, bitter, self-righteous, aged-old RNs sabotag(ing) each other."

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