Jay T
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This may be specific to working in a strong union, but I can give you a side by side comparison of my nurse bestie and I. We graduated at the same time and I got a new grad residency slot in a union hospital while she got one in the non-union hospital where we had been CNAs together. Started at approx. the same time and we'd be considered "same area" even though we worked in different towns. -Salary: My pay for 12hr day shifts was $74/hr while she made $54/hr including night diff+ a bilingual diff that she took an exam for. -Orientation: We received the same orientation length of 3 months. Since I was in a union, my orientation was strictly for the unit I was on (They run specialty training separately), while she had the opportunity for a few float shifts to critical care, OR, etc. just for exposure to different areas of the hospital. -Nursing Assistants: My hospital nearly always had at least one per shift, but if not, they would /usually/ float an extra nurse to assist (along with a breaker). Her unit regularly had zero CNAs and never an extra nurse. -Breaks: We would miss out on breaks for usually one shift a week, sometimes more during some of the bad Covid waves. She would go for a month or longer at a time with zero breaks for a 12hr shift. Even when Covid waves felt like they had receded, her hospital regularly said they couldn't staff a break nurse. -Ratios: Being in California, I never worked with more patients than our legal ratios, even during Covid waves when there was a statewide waiver. She regularly worked above ratios with 6-7 patients on telemetry (and this started immediately after she completed orientation), again, even when Covid waves appeared to have receded. As far as we can tell, her hospital took advantage of the ratio waivers for as long as they could, even when censuses were lower. -Management: I always had cordial experiences with managers and mostly found them to be nice and that they cared about their work. My friend had managers who would regularly berate her and her co-workers like, "Why aren't your patients being mobilized, why are meds being given late, etc." without consideration to the fact that they were working over ratio without relief nurses or CNAs. Suffice it to say, she now works at my union hospital. Some people can find unions to be stuffy, ineffective, or too many rules. Those are often the same people who don't get involved with advocating for better working conditions. The most important aspect of union work is solidarity and collective power.
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Hi all, I'm looking for advice on if it's OK to combine experience on a resume? I'm currently looking for a second job and was just blindsided by a question, "From your resume, it looks like you've been jumping around facilities. Can you explain that?" The gist of it is: I started for an organization in a new grad residency in med-tele (not my goal). A little over a year later, I did a training program in the Emergency Department at a different facility in the same organization. When I was eligible to, I transferred to a different ED within the same organization that was closer to home. After over a year and a half total of ED experience, I was accepted into an ICU position also within the same organization and at my current facility so that I could finally be in my goal specialty (I felt like ICU would give me more options for grad school). I had all four of these nurse jobs listed separately to highlight the different specialty experiences I have and because that's how I learned to make a resume. Would it be reasonable to combine the two ED roles since it's the same specialty and job description for the same organization, or would it flag in an employment background check as separate facilities and look dishonest? I was able to explain in my interview the reasons that I transferred to seek new training or the location convenience and that I loved my current company (I'm looking for additional work, not to leave). I never considered it job hopping because I was only making lateral transfers within the same company. The nurses I've worked with over the years all highlight this as a union benefit that we can easily transfer to gain the experience, location, etc. that we want, but the interviewer did not seem satisfied with this answer. Please advise! I'm just hitting the sweet spot of >3 years of nursing experience that makes my job applications more competitive, so I can't afford to just leave a year or two of experience off my resume so that it looks better,
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Hi everyone! New to Allnurses and new to this thread. My friend from school told me about this thread since we both applied to the Mayo externship 2020. Happy to say that I received an email informing me that I moved to the next round! I look forward to getting to know more about you all and hearing about who all gets in!