Barnaby12

My wife recently became an RN. A little over a year ago. We are non-traditional students. In our late 30's. She has 3 Degrees: BS Business, BSN, MBA in Healthcare Management. She currently works in the ICU at a local hospital, Critical Care RN. she has over 1 year now of Nursing experience. She earned her BSN after her MBA because she got tired of working for $15 an hour with a Masters. Couldn't find work. The hospital she did clinicals at hired her before she graduated straight into critical care. based on a USA jobs advertisement we were led to believe that she could obtain a reasonable raise due to her Masters degree. Talking about 30k. Which would certainly help with those student loans. she recently applied for and was selected to interview for an RN Critical Care - ICU position at a local VA hospital. the entire application and interview process was absolutely horrible. Took forever. She had to write a paper - apparently this is what is used to determine your salary. it's interesting how her current hospital needed none of this, and the interview process was professional and straightforward. HR was communicative and informative. based on the information shared on the USA jobs posting we felt she qualified for Nurse 2 having over 1 year of experience and a Masters in a healthcare related field. Then Nurse 3 upon 2 + years of experience. turns out that information is not correct the posting is wrong it's lacking a lot of information. The N2 & N3 pay grades are essentially irrelevant to the job she applied for. N2 requires Unit level leadership & management experience plus education N3 requires organizational leadership & management experience plus education So the way we understand it: N2= Charge Nurse N3: Unit Manager or ICU manager so... no one with N2 or N3 level experience is ever going to apply to be a floor staff RN... isn't going to happen. Thats like being a general manager of an entire Walmart then applying to be the person stocking the shelves. Makes no sense. Anyway they offered her N1 Level 3 Step 6 which currently is 75k where we live. Technically this is 10k higher than my wife's current base salary, until next month when she is slotted for an annual raise then in October they will be renegotiating their Nursing contract at her hospital. Most likely the pay gap will be much less if any at all in a few months compared to N1 L3 Step 6. here's the issue: apparently this VA requires her to take a two week training course and then sit for two exams. It's our understanding if she doesn't pass these exams the offer could be rescinded. If she does pass it's 8+ weeks with a preceptor. WTH A huge risk with zero guarantee of a job at the end for most likely a couple thousand dollars in the end. Not to mention the VA requires 40 hours per week or 4 days. Her current job is only 3 days for full time. so my wife is furious. Her VA recruiter could care less, yet the Nurse manager in her interview complained that they can't hire Nurses and that they are short staffed! No wonder! Not to mention her recruiters signature said MSN, BSN... OK why is a Masters level Nurse sitting at home recruiting when your Nurse manager is complaining about being short staffed? An MSN is a clinical degree! Recruiting is not part of the program. That recruiter needs to get back to doing her day job and get HR to handle recruiting. needles to say my wife told them to forget it. A wasted 3+ month process. What a terrible waste of taxpayer money and my wife's time only to be insulted numerous times throughout the whole ordeal when the hospital she's working at delivers her patients to her bed via helicopter at times, and the VA doesn't even have a heliport! my wife and I visited this VA hospital on a Saturday prior to her interview to get an idea on location and driving times. We were shocked to not see anyone! We drove in, parked, walked into the main atrium and there was nobody to be seen. No police, no employees, no one. my wife's current hospital is busy 24/7 7 days a week. She jokes that if a patient arrives via helicopter they would never know what day it is by looking at the inside of the hospital as it is always the same. If the VA is having staffing issues it's their own fault. It is their ridiculous pay scale that is the problem. The pay scale pushes Nurses off the floor if they want a raise! Otherwise, if you actually, you know do the career you went to school for? Be a Nurse? You'll be stuck at N1 for 20 years, due to their ridiculous requirements and pay scale. Stay away from the VA, until they figure out their ridiculous system is broken. Maybe when some of the Chiefs have no choice but to work the floor and you know, be a Nurse, they will get their act together so they can start hiring Indians again.