crok63

Your REAL new zealand R N university course will get you a Associate Degree ( 2 year ) not 4 years. This is because it will be virtually impossible for you to accumulate enough OFFICIAL clinical placement hours during your course . . . But you will be able to work normally with an assoc degree as an RN once you pass the NCLEX, so you will be Ok for RN work ...

OK, so here we are Aussie Registered Nurse wanting to work in the USA / North America, Canada is almost the same as United States . . . You must be a REGISTERED NURSE, EEN etc are not eligible, this is a DOL ruling saying us jobs are only available to DEGREE professions regardless of experience. Your academic grades need to be converted into american via a transcript agency, this will involve many hundreds of dollars and take a few months. the university results must be posted DiRECTLY from your college, send them REGISTERED MAIL since mine were ' misplaced ' twice. you must nominate the USA State you wish to work in since each state is licenced seperately, there is a national licence avail for the middle 25 states, but generally coastal states each req a sep lic. once your grades are converted you will be an ASSOCIATE degree nurse, usually because most Oz RN courses lack hours in maternity, mental and peads. once your grades are converted your USA state will give you permission to test for the NCLEX. the NCLEX is to make sure your safe to practice (only 30% of first time international nurses pass first time ) i passed after six hours and 245 questions, 85% of usa nurses pass in one hour with 150 questions. you only must pass the nclex once in your lifetime, renewal for each state is 2 years and has several mandatory CPD subjects, hours are similar to Oz RN rego. you CANNOT pick up your licence without a SS# social security number [ this is what ended my attempts ]. you need a sponsor and they are hard to find. they must prove they cannot find a USA RN and generally most employers will not go to that extra effort for you. i was offered a three year contract in nebraska or NYC to get a free and clear usa social security number but i am over 50 and did not pursue that avenue. generally sponsorships are for less desirable placements. holidays and salary are via negotiation, expect 2 or 3 weeks and do not expect working conditions like you would find in Oz. Generally it is best to specialise and get some experience in your chosen speciality and then ; yes you guessed it . . . sit a special exam as a credential that certifies your speciality nursing skills. But normally this requires 2 or 3 years of work within that chosen field. so here comes the " catch 22 " you need a sponsor, they do the paperwork for you to work for them as an RN. But you cannot collect your state licence until you have a SS#. thus you cannot call yourself an RN ( penalty is 7 years jail ). And without your licence you cannot apply for a job as an RN in order to find a sponsoring employer ... Should you actually find a sponsor you can apply for a work H1B1 visa, this is by application only to be completed within your home country (Australia ) generally this takes 3 or more likely 5 years since your competing against all professions for all countries. However Aussies can get an E3 visa work this can be applied for from within the USA and lasts 2 years. There are 10,000 E3 visas available and never have more than 5,ooo been used in any one year. You must prove you plan on leaving america at the end of your two year tour ( that you always will plan on exiting america ) at the end of your 2 year E3 visa tour. But E3 visas are renewable indefinitely ... most usa nursing agencies req one year of experience as an RN within north america. most placement agencies require you to be permanently employed in Australia for greater than one year currently before they will advance your application to a USA employer . . . you can always apply to emigrate to the USA as an RN if you have two years experience ( in the past 5 years ) of current professional RN work history. You can always apply yearly for the green card lottery ( for FREE ) but this is pure luck, no one can help you get a greater chance to win this lottery; it is only open for one month per year, generally around October ... LoL and of course you can get married to an American , this is an involved process and carries heavy penalties both for you and the American if immigration considers your marriage not to be genuine. In addition , you can visit USA for 90 days only via your passport, a visa requires an interview in sydney and is valid for travel for 6 months. Do not overstay your visa; again huge penalties ! ! !

So hello . . . so u R an american RN, first of all i am going to tell you to go home and forget about working in Australia ! ! ! The reason ? ? ? I am an ex-advanced care paramedic with 20 years service in Queensland and now a RN, plus i have lived ( not worked ) in America [ Florida ]. So simply put , if you land any nursing gig in Oz it is probably going to be two or three times better than 75% of gigs you will eventually have to go back to in the USA ... Basically AU is a societal / welfare driven nation and America is primarily driven by the dollar factor. Thus most likely your always going to work harder in USA than Australia ; so if you do work here do not expect such treatments / conditions when you go back to N. A. Next is YOU, i am going to post info for a 25 year old female ; please understand i am in my fifties and a guy, but been in Oz QLD HC my entire life ... med/surg is your best bet, i will assume you do not want prisons or aged care or psych , they tend to be the big three people stay away from here. So they are an almost guaranteed placement 4 u. But they will not give you transferable skills. Agencies will not touch you, simply because their placement contracts mandate one or two years experience. Thus they are an excellent place to try first to give you more knowledge of interviewing and making contacts ... if you go rural you might find a j-o-b in a smaller hospital. my first job was a town of 999 people. if you go this small you get to RUN the hospital LiTERALLY. the doctor is offsite ( but close ) and once the NuM / DoN is offduty you run everything, thus by yourself with an EEN you get the ER / Acute / pharmacy / adminstration = EVERYTHING !!! Hospitals around 20,ooo pop you might get FREE accommodation in demountables for the length of your short contracts ( under 6 months ) . If you go for anything over pop of 25,ooo your going to strike larger units and a rather competitive entry interview. Anything in a large town or city is going to be very limited since your going to either have to kill an experienced nurse to get in or compete against highly skilled exp nurses. Do not even think about TRUE rural, these hirings are NOT for you ! ! ! " the outback " [ literally , beyond the ' black-stump ' ] ( its an old tree ) is NOT the place for you unless your a VERY resourceful and skilled nurse ... places like the N.T. and north W.A. want an absolute min of 3 years experience. Most will hang up on you unless they smell 4 or 5 years experience. i work only for QH. they will want TWO CURRENT references, probably proof of immunizations and they will do a police background check. You might need a working with kids card but most RN's are exempt ... ( oh i forgot to mention , i used to run an nurses website for preparing for the NCLEX ; which i have passed in USA BTW, just as info i mention that ). Do NOT worry about anything from AHPRA, your details will be online ; you do not need anything in writing saying your a nurse or not. You will be on the national registration database ... my advice . . . run home to the usa and get another 6 months RECENT experience. try anything and everything, but med / surg is the best bet ... if you cannot land anything then try volunteering and networking ( which you should be already trying now ) . In nursing it is NOT what you know it is WHO you know for new grads ! ! ! as an RN you CANNOT work as a EEN (LPN) nor as an AiN ( Asst in Nursing ), that is an AHPRA rule [ ie : your 'over-qualified' ] ... if you cannot find work within six or 9 months as a new grad, then go home N.A. and get experience ; or CANCEL your RN AHPRA rego and get a j-o-b as an AiN. Then make connections within units that you have already worked within and once your known and accepted if your offered an RN job simply RENEW your AHPRA RN Lic. [ do NOT tell AHPRA your going to work as an AiN etc, ] You MUST do a separate different course to be a EN / (LPN) in Oz. in fact if you thought that was some bad news, expect experienced nurses to be caty and demanding. Nurses Literally " eat their young ", as you should already know by now ... in addition, new grad positions are generally by special application and those processes are restricted to nurses with less than 2 years since graduating AND/or less than 6 months experience. so just be aware of that ... my advice, really spick up your resume and make it relevant for the EXACT position your applying for, plus have generic resumes since MANY people will want to read your resume and 99.9 % of them will NEVER give you any feedback or acknowledgement. show recent learnings ( i use nurse.com [ US$ 50/ year ] ) and get a copy of every short course i complete. show your a life long learner and the best thing you have going for you is an upbeat attitude, be a people person, politically correct and self-confidence ! ! ! FAKE it till you MAKE it is the golden principle in nursing and especially for getting a job ! ! ! be aware there are literally HUNDREDS of " pack nurses " in Oz, these are experienced nurses who travel around australia doing short term contracts 3-6 months for nursing agency's. If your planning on killing anyone you will need to knock these off since they are the ones holding jobs in your most likely hiring spots ... I myself have a secret weapon to getting hired ( i have 15 months of exp in three locations now ) and no sorry i am not publicizing it ! ! ! oh it is not bribery nor blackmail :) Contact those who are LEAST likely to hire you and sniff around working your way from the outside INWARD. eg: if you want a job in some preferred location then start at outlying places and make contact as you work inward so your primed up and organised / ready for the real interview at your real preferred location. expect questions about patient care . generally they ask your initial actions in a sudden collapse, how you would handle an unexpected physical or medical or personal emergency. be aware of things like elder abuse/ mandatory child suspect neglect reporting and the mental health act etc... above all , do not burn yourself out ; if you keep hitting brick walls in applications , well SH** HAPPENS ; pick yourself up and dust yourself off and police your positive attitude off and prep better for the next rejection ! !! good luck and keep going . . . / Hugz ...

Having a BSN is something the government wants nurses to have, but reality says employers want working experienced professional nurses. Mainly it is simply a waste of time having a BSN, sure you might earn an extra dollar an hour for having it; but given the time, effort and cost of going that extra 25 yards; why bother. Always work for the experience and then take a small break to recharge your life's batteries while you work on your BSN... I will always take a professional experienced nurse over a professional educated nurse, every single time... So; go get a job...

Hello discouraged, first let me say, I feel your pain... Secondly, I do not know you, you are not my friend. So let me say, man-up girlie, nursing is damn hard work, even if u decide not to try and have a real life on the side. Simply juggling everything you may want over time will make nursing school look like easy street. Everyone reading about your frustration has faced huge heartache landing their jobs, but we all did it. Even for the oldies who did it before the economy tanked did not have it that easy... So again man-up and make some plans, which u r already doing visiting here for advice and ideas. Hospials usually from online applications so you need five different resumes for the type of automatic wasted online application you are gonna try and snag. I say wasted since u r on fishin the new grad ocean... Personally I enrolonline and do one hour subjects that issue a certificate for my online learning, then I put those certicates in my gdrive and include the link on myapplications. This shows me as a continual learner and tech savey with comps so that helps me stand out from others... Next land any job you can surrounding nursing including vomunteering or whatever to use that trash job to build and pad your resume... Make sure you have researched emergency action plans and job relevant questions. If you have something special in mind research and contact a potential employer. Next land any job including if you must temporiliy move location. Next forget your wish list, 50% of nurses want to treat kids, so make sure youunderstand u r going to have to murder people or bribe them tocreate your desired opening, simply accept you must start at the bottom amd spend one or three years to move into some positioms. Sorry for the spelling it am not on a keyboard at the moment, understand that I graduated as a brand new reg nurse and travelleda, I had been a paramedic 20 years, but never seen a bed pan almost. My first job was my own hospital complete with an away local on call doctor and an lpn and six patients plus a 2 bay emergency department... Over four months I managed not to kill anyone but suffice to saythe boss was far from happy at times, once I had to put the floor cleaner in charge of an emergency bradycardia of 48 bpm... So again I say accept things will be veryhard to get into nursing and hard even when u land your early jobs, but I stayed 4 months as long as I could to build and pad my resume, now I have far better places and far more choices... Do not give up; plan and fight and ananyse yourself and network and market yourself to make yourself a more attractive hire. Nursing ain't easy but its notimpossible either unless u give up and waste the years u spemt getting here... Plus there is an insider secret to nursing, employers are often seeking certain jobs... Like the experienced nurse says she lets the agency send her places, in my field there are four hiring periods each lasting 2 months approx, I always find jobs in these periods when employers are desperate, outside of these blocks jobs do not exist. So I plan on having a job to tide me over these no-hiring windows... And no telling you more info about these jobs would not help you sorry, my situation is a bit unique, sorry n good luck... So spend two months doing everything to land a job, then have a months rest to recharge your batteries, but no morethan a short break then hit the bustards again, time on to keep momentum, time off briefly to avoid burnout... Just my idea...

hello this is relating to nursing in Australia and a bit of my story. The worldwide depression has hit Australia slightly hard, so while this GFC has not hurt Australia or nursing as bad as other industries. I really need to tell other nurses what its like as a new grad in Australia (Oct 2012). The depression has resulted in health cutbacks so some EXPERIENCED nurses have been let go. This means that there is no place for new grads in Australia and my guess is each new grad training position possibly has 10-20 appling for that one position. I am 49 year old male, grad RN last year; i have 20+ years as Advanced Care city paramedic and worked in health care my whole life. This means i have some 50,000 hours of health experience or maybe closer to 75,000 hours. But employers always respond with we require one year of post grad experience, so require 2 years or 3 years. What this means to you, especially if you are overseas; stay there :) (do not come here and take my jobs lol) seriously employers here can afford to be picky when choosing new staff. So they want clean presentable babies who smell clean instead of a fat, bald old man (i am being a bit unfair to myself). Personally a lot of Asian nurses work here and are awesome nurses with the only exception they do have trouble speaking the language. This would cause some employers to be more reluctant to employ some nurses due to this issue. So if you have trouble writing reading or speaking English PRACTICE, avoid speaking your native language unless you have to. practice by finding people in real life or on skype; whatever you must do. But get it set for your future career. If you are Asian, USA or UK seriously you are in for a lot of shocks here and a lot of adventures. You will get out of it what you put in. DO NOT even consider going remote nursing it is a very different world. make sure you research remote nursing well; and then forget it. rural nursing might be ok if you come from a small place but these places have less than 10,000 and most of those people are not all in the "towns". Your visas will take months to years and you will need assistance here or a lot of money behind you so start that searching now. If you have awesome experience you probably will need one year of experience to land an interview. Otherwise 2 or 3 years. So stay away from Australia or truly get organised, find whatever work you can land at home or in Australia and remember your dream of being a nurse might take a lot longer, but persevere and you will get there after a long expensive journey. So keep trying and fight for your career or give up now and stay home. (just kidding) good luck...