Kringe38

Oh no, that has got to feel like a punch in the gut! To finally be told you have something and then have it yanked away. This whole job search thing is very much a roller coaster. Hopes up! Hopes down! Hopes up! Hopes down! Sigh.

That does make sense. I see what you mean. I do have a couple of their e-mail addresses. I e-mailed one right after my interview with her and got no reply at all. There is one who seems very nice and might answer me. I don't have any contact info for any of the others. It's difficult for me to see things from their point of view, what they would like to see/hear, their reasons for asking the same questions...over and over... After a while, I started getting really frustrated because I feel like I have a lot to offer but no way to differentiate myself from others, no idea of what I am doing or saying that is turning them off, etc.

It's been several weeks now with no more interviews. Would they think I was weird if I called them back now at this late date and asked them to reconsider, or ask if there was anything I could do to improve? I am so tempted to call. I guess what I mean by "seeming desperate" is that they will think that a) I was rejected by other interviewers so there must be something wrong with me and they should reject me, too, or b) I might be a resentful crazy who is going to come shoot up the place because they didn't hire me. I just don't want them to think I am some kind of nut. I get to the end of an interview, and they tell me they have other interviewees to talk to, and right then I get the feeling that I have not made any impression. I have practiced common questions with one of my classmates, and I thought I had gotten together some awesome answers...but no go. I had a really good one for the "if you were an animal, what would you be?" question, too. I am indeed very reserved, and it feels unnatural to me to just walk into some stranger's office and wax poetic about why I want to work there. I've told them why - it's a teaching hospital with lots of different specialties, I've been there in clinicals and have seen the teamwork and camaraderie amongst the staff, stuff like that. Is there something wrong with my answer? Some way to say it more convincingly? I'm just so confused...I feel like I have to go in there ready to perform a Broadway number with lots of singing and dancing or they won't believe I want to work there! Many of my classmates have gotten jobs, so it's not like there aren't jobs in my area...just not for me, apparently! /pity party There can't be any answer they haven't heard. They all ask the same questions over and over.

I do realize the job market is tough right now and employers have their pick of whoever they want to hire, yet I can't help but feel perplexed ever since I started looking for work. I have interviewed multiple times at the facility where I want to work, and they never hire me. What am I doing wrong? I just want to know why they are passing me over so that I might have some idea of what I need to work on or try to do better, but I'm afraid to ask because it might sound too desperate. I dress nicely and modestly. I take baths. I'm not insane, I don't think! I don't eat puppies in my spare time. I am quiet, so I probably don't come off with a lot of pizazz. I am almost 42. I try to play up my strengths - hard worker, fast learner, reliable, will be there on time when I'm supposed to be, team player, etc. But I always get shut out. In the most recent interview I went to, which was a group interview, we were told that "most of us" would get hired for one of the 2 floors they were interviewing for, and if not, they would pass along our name to the nurse manager who was still hiring on another floor. Well, I didn't get chosen, and I had already interviewed and heard nothing back from the nurse manager who was supposedly still hiring on the other floor. Sigh. I wanted to tell them, oh please don't pass me over and send me to the other nurse manager I already interviewed with! But that would have sounded too desperate. It really hurt to get my hopes up over the "most of us would get hired" line, after already having been rejected so many times, only to be rejected yet again. I just don't get it! I graduated in May, got my RN in June, and still no work as a nurse. I'm beginning to feel that I will never be a working nurse, just a nurse in name only.

I am still struggling. I even tried to quit but they want to keep me and gave me another week of training. It's just still so miserable and now I feel even more guilty if I quit after I said I'd keep trying and they have invested this much time in training me and trying to help me feel more comfortable. It would be better for me down the road if I could keep going with this and get at least a few months of experience, but the thought is positively nauseating. Tonight will be the fourth night of a 4-day stretch, then I'll have 1 day off and then another 4-day stretch, at which time I will be on my own. Scared, want to quit, feel like a scuzzball if I do quit, miserable and feeling at-risk if I stay, etc.

Hi, there. This is a common story, I guess, but here goes. I got a job at a nursing home and have only been there a few days. I had a few days of orientation, then one day when I was on my own and it was awful. They have been super nice and given me more help to orient me because I just felt I was drowning. How nice they have been to me makes me feel even more guilty because I just hate it. I haven't learned all the residents yet, I keep being switched back and forth between two different halls, and each 2-hall assignment includes approximately 20 patients. I just graduated last month! There are so many things to do, so many things to keep track of. I can't seem to get the hang of when to call the doc, when to do this, when to do that. I desperately need a job and don't have much in the way of other prospects right now, but all I want to do is quit so I can end this pervasive depression, anxiety, and fear. If I did quit, do you think my name would be mud in the whole town? Or what do you think I should do? So afraid I will make a huge boo-boo and hurt someone and also lose my license, which would end all possibility of a nursing job for me anyway. Freaked out.

I passed my NCLEX last Wednesday and showed up on my BON website as an RN as of today. I thought I'd be over the moon, but I am actually just petrified beyond belief. I almost don't want to work as a nurse because I don't want to do anything to ever lose that precious license. It seems like no matter how careful I might be, a med error or other mistake is bound to happen eventually. And I feel if I keep going this slow (i.e., checking each medication about 50 times - only a slight exaggeration), I'll never get the hang of it and probably be fired - yet speed up too much and make a mistake, and not only are you fired, you possibly lose your license and suffer the horrible feelings that a med error must bring.

I took it on June 1 and felt like mine had a lot of SATA. I didn't keep count, but it was more than I was expecting for some reason. It stopped at 75 questions, I got the "good" pop-up, and yesterday my quick results said I passed. Now I just have to wait to show up on my BON website. My best piece of advice for anyone who has yet to take it is - don't panic. Do anything you can to calm yourself if you suffer from severe test anxiety, for it does you NO good. Get rid of it. Take some slow, deep breaths, imagine yourself on the beach, read, do mundane chores, whatever will distract you/calm you. This goes double for after you take it. There's a 99.9% chance you will feel bad after you finish - confused, anxious, convinced that you failed - but it means nothing. It is normal to feel this way, so don't let it convince you of the worst.

I just got home a couple of hours ago from taking mine, as well. I think it is normal to feel like you failed. They told us that in the review course I took, that the vast majority of NCLEX test takers feel like he** when they get done. I could have written your post. 75 questions, lots of SATA, lots of questions I feel like I just didn't know, and NO math questions. It is haunting me about the math questions - how can it determine anything about my ability (or inability) without some math questions? Eyagh!

No job yet, and it's making me really blue.

I have a Bachelor's and am about to graduate with an Associate's in nursing. I wasn't eligible for any grants but was able to get loans after filling out my FAFSA. If you have a low enough income, you might be eligible for help through your state. I got help through my state's workforce program.

Now it's 10 days as of today.

I would be interested to see one of these $5 pins. I had to pay about $100 for mine!

We pay for our own pin directly. I guess that's better, in a way, than having the cost of the pin rolled into tuition. At least you have the choice of whether or not to spend the money on it this way. If you can't or don't want to, you can still attend the pinning and they will use a ribbon on you. You must either use the school's pin that you have bought OR use the ribbon substitute, no other pins allowed. I went ahead and scratched up the money since I really wanted to have it for some reason. ETA: Would probably not be willing to do "volunteer work" for the pin. Too much extra fuss to think about.

I think a lot of people in my class are feeling this way, me included. Only about a month to go and it's like pulling teeth to make myself do my clinical paperwork. And for some reason, my skin is acting up right now too. It's kind of a mess and I don't know what it wants! I do have my major assignments out of the way and I have my pin all ready for pinning, but there are lots of tests coming up.

I guess I was parading around with a clipboard part of the time! So glad it's over. I was able to offer help - this floor has more total-care patients than I've seen before. Did my little presentation at the end of today, too. I feel good about it overall. It wasn't as bad as I was imagining it would be at the beginning of the semester when we were first told about this assignment. Whew.

That's what I'm afraid will happen - that I will end up standing around uselessly! And that I will pester my team members too much - Do you need anything? Need help? How about now? How about now? On day 2 I will have one patient of my own and the other students will have three, so that could make it interesting.

Approximately 10 more weeks... I kinda feel like this right now: :dzed: There's a bunch of stuff all coming up at once (what else is new); a presentation, 2 tests, a paper, a quiz.

Okay, this coming week is our last week on this floor and it's finally my turn to be the team leader. I will update when it is done. It's looking like I will *have* to actually assign the patients and not let the other students take their pick. I will have 4 students with 2 patients each on Monday, then on Tuesday I will have 1 patient myself and each of "my" 4 students will have 3 patients. Funny I am not as nervous about it now as I was when I first heard about this assignment, but that may change come Monday morning! I have had a lot of time to see how the other students have been doing the assignment (since I'm last).

That sounds like it would work perfectly. Unless my instructor says otherwise, I think I will try this.

Thank you. I'll try to get back and post about this again. I'm always on here, LOL. At least lurking. Thanks. Yeah, you bring up an interesting point that I thought of as well. The objectives specifically state to assign patients based on each student's ability level - well, how do I know what that is, exactly? As a student myself, I don't feel I'm really in a position to know the ability level of other students, for the most part.

Final semester. We are each going to be assigned a day (actually I think 2 days) during clinical to practice the "team leader" role. This is for a grade. There's a whole long list of objectives to meet, but the gist of it is that the team leader student is to get there early, make the pt assignments for each fellow student, make morning rounds on all the patients who will have a student, make rounds again later to make sure that each patient's needs are being met, troubleshoot, etc., probably a bunch of stuff I forgot. Er, I'm scared! I'm not a very assertive or confident person to begin with and have no idea how to project myself as a halfway decent leader, even if it's in an environment with instructor backup. No idea how to make pt assignments. We're supposed to get there a half hour early...I would think I would need to be there MUCH earlier to have a chance to look over the patient census and make determinations. I realize I will probably find out more about what this will be like when the time comes, but it's just kind of scary. I want to do a good job, but this is just 101% out of my comfort zone. Anybody had this experience and what was it like?

I don't get all the hate for rolling backpacks and I don't know what school some of you guys are going to if you don't even need your books. At my school...for one thing, almost all the books are huge. Even just one class worth of books will kill you. On top of that, they never tell us ahead of time what we will need. If you try to pack light, they will say, "Hey, everybody needs their..." and it will be the one thing you didn't bring. I'm using a rolling backpack and it's certainly not because I'm trying to make a statement about how studious I am. In addition, at clinical we are expected to have 2 different drug books, which are small but thick, plus our lab tests book, plus our clinical packet (big thick notebook), plus any other books we might need to reference skills or conditions, plus steth, penlight, etc., so I can't even manage to pack light for that.

Fifth (and last) semester of an ADN program. No idea where clinicals will be this semester! We don't start school until the 18th and we will be lucky if they tell us then! They might not tell us until right when clinicals are about to start (that's what happened last semester, as I recall). All I know is that we will have a med-surg rotation, an OB rotation, and some preceptor experiences that will vary. For the preceptor thing, we had a choice of 3 different areas, such as clinic, ER, ICU, home health, etc., and they will try to schedule each of us for 1 of our choices. I think that's how it will work. I think it's a scheduling nightmare for them so we will probably not know right away.

One can get Guillain Barre after having a bout of the actual flu, also, not just the flu shot. Just thought I'd throw that in.