Nursing home interview

ceridwyn · Aug 15, 2011

Not much to advise, yes, full-time especially sponsored jobs in the acute sector are difficult to get without much experience or specialisation in an area that a hospital requires.

You will be considered 'rusty skills' if you try to get acute job after nursing home and having aged care experience will not get you a job in acute any easier. (little do these nurses know how much assessment and general nursing and busy a day in the life of an RN in aged care is)

You cannot get permanent residency after 1 year.

Have you tried private hospitals, and how come you have not applied for a working holiday visa first? why do you need sponsorship to work if a US citizen.

If you had working holiday visa, then places like all the big acute hospitals take on working temporary visa's and you would have more experience when you needed sponsor ship and a foot in the door.

neeke816 · Aug 15, 2011

Thank you very much for your reply Cerdwyn.

I did apply to all those private hospitals like St. Vincent, Alfred, and etc, but most of them even didn't send me a reply other than auto alert mail, and I got no interviews at all. I got some agencies, but most of agencies said their clients would not hire any foreign nurses who doesn't have at least 3 years experience.

I am just so scard of not getting a job at all. I just got a couple of agencies that they might find me a job in rural area in Australia, but that's it other than this nursing home interview. I am still googling jobs at careerone.com and other job search engines and send my resume, but no replies at all.

I got my working holiday visa and told them I am eligible to apply to 175 by myself, but most of agencies and hospitals just turnned away from me because I don't have 3 years experience as I said.

Am I doing something wrong?? Is it better if I move to Australia and do my job search face to face???

talaxandra · Aug 16, 2011

Maybe you should look at getting another year or two od experience state-side, if that's what they say you need. Good luck

joannep · Aug 16, 2011

Australia does not have a nursing shortage and it is very competitive to get a job, many new graduates find it difficult to get a job. You need to get your experience up if you are going to apply for jobs in Australia.

ceridwyn · Aug 16, 2011

Interesting that the big aged care companies that was doing a lot of overseas sponsoring of nurses, are now stating on their advertising and web page, they will only sponsor, if international applicant did bachelor of nursing at an Australian university...even aged care cannot have a big nursing shortage.

To Neeke, you may find that attending face to face will get you a job.....many are short term contracts these days and therefore do not sponsor. Hope you have the working holiday visa and do not need sponsorship in a hurry.

ps The Alfred and st. Vincents are some of our big public hospitals in Melbourne, not private at all.

neeke816 · Aug 16, 2011

Thank you very much again, Ceridwyn.

Luckily I can apply to 175 independent working visa by myself, so no need for sponsorship in hurry. I might get a job from agency. I think I would be more comfortable with agency nursing after getting more experience, but if I have to choose between nursing home and agency, I think agency would be better to get a med/surg job in the future.

Sorry for my mistakes about the public and private hospitals, I was bit confused after sending so many resumes to hospitals. I did sent some more to rural area hospitals, I hope I can get any med/surg nursing job.

Anyway, thank you very much for your advise again.

sairin8 · Aug 22, 2011

I started in aged care (but in New Zealand) and that got me a job in AT&R (Assessment, Treatment and Rehabilitation). Once I've had a bit of time there, I'm hoping to be able to move around into acute nursing and gain some experience in that. Once I've got a few years experience, I should be able to go whereever.

Another colleague in aged care went from there to orthopaedics

Mcadamia · Aug 27, 2011

Okay - for a start

DON'T look down on aged care - if you want to ladder climb it is actually easier to do in aged care than about anywhere else

Now as for rural

My standard warning

DO NOT APPLY FOR ANYTHING WITH RURAL AND REMOTE IN THE DESCRIPTION IF YOU ARE FROM OVERSEAS

Some of our rural and remote is VERY remote - in my district we have one hospital located on an island where the only access is by either Barge or air flight (beautiful place but one of the more remote local hospitals anywhere) four "single nurse" stations where you are the ONLY medically trained personnel for hundreds of kilometres (and yes I do mean hundreds of kilometres) Other facilities are often just covered by one RN and one EEN per shift and those two people have to cope with whatever comes in the door as well as patients in the ward

Having said all of that you might do well to apply to some of the larger regional hospitals like Broken Hill, Katherine, Alice Springs, Mount Isa and the like. They are all big enough to allow you to work with more senior staff and they are usually have medical cover 24/7