"Im Sorry But We Dont Hire New Nurses"

misdetermined, LPN · Apr 4, 2010

Thanks August that was some story...congratulations to you and i have some hope after reading all these post..thank you guys for the pep talk Im gonna keep my head up and just stay persistant and keep applying.

Guest343211 · Apr 4, 2010

I think there is some confusion going on with this. Places are on hiring freezes or hiring less period.

Now, when they do hire, many times, they are more apt to hire a new GN if they have the right things in place than an experienced nurse.

We have been seeing that across the country. Thing is, you need to be as close to 4.0 and attending the college job fairs. That is what the recruiters are using a lot. You have to make contact and you have to have high gpa.

The experienced nurses cost more money, and they can't be jerked around and controlled as easily many times. Now, if they don't have an tight orienting and educational system in place, they will first choose experienced nurses, however, they will bypass the nurses with loads of experience just b/c they took a break from nursing. It's utter insanity. If you have a very strong foundation, you might have to be refreshed on somethings, but the clinical insight, experience, and judgment is there, period.

So you will see many positions with x amount of "recent" experience. It only means so much in reality. I had been away from a specialized area for a while. Sure I was nervous my first week or so back, and darn they even gave me some pretty sick pts with the preceptor. But you know what, you update any changes, and really it is like riding a bike. My foundation and years of experience were so strong, it all came back to me.

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But I had all kinds of goof balls telling me I wasn't recent enough, in spite of my total experiences.

I am convinced it all comes down to really a few things:

1. Cost of salary (even in light of orientation--they can write off a lot, and with Intranet, it is not as costly as it used to me b/c the hire can do a lot of stuff online.

2. Likeability - The established people want new hires they can control and push around many times. I am not telling you not to think for yourself, but be careful with this. Politically they may conclude that you may not be a "team player" with MAY translate to their fear that you might give them a run for the money in terms of attention, smarts, whatever, and thus they can't control you as much. People want the illusion of control and wapower. Anything you do which suggests that they may not be able to easily maintain that may put your ability to be hired or stay hired in jeopardy.

3.They may only want to give a new hire a week or so of orientation and they throw them in--and they may have to do this on schedules and shifts where there is less supervision and support. If they are not putting or willing to use the various monies from department to unit to invest in you and give the keys to success, they will hire someone with more recent experience--but this of course is no guarantee.

4. Mostly specialized positions are out unless you know someone,period.

This is the dynamics of the current environment. And in the past Nurse Manager's would be more apt to hear from applicants personally, but all things in terms of initial hiring have been taken over by HR--and some of the HR people really have insight into te field and specialties and some of them don't. So they go by some standard bottom line, and really your application isn't given more than a 40 second glance.

Welcome to nursing. This will jump up to bite them on the butt, but not anytime soon in this economy. It was already a tough field to work in, now it's ridiculous to get into or stay in, and the sucky aspects have only gotten suckier, while unfortunately salaries are more stagnate. They will remain this way for quite some time, and those with decent experience aren't going to have it much better than the GNs they chooses to hire.

Some place have "internships," which are all about having the upper hand, and it's exactly why they won't take RNs with strong experience into them. Eventually they too will get a bad reputation for this in time. Nurses in general will put it together, b/c it tells nurses exactly how hightly they thing of nurses and nursing in general. They can say what they want, but how they treat nurses as individuals, or not, says a lot about how they true look at the profession and how they decide to manage people. Beware when individuality is poo poo'd in the culture--and there is a lot of it in nursing, in spite of all the talk about diversity. The diversity is simply about EEOC coverage, not about respect for nurses as individuals.

southernbelle08 · Apr 4, 2010

I am wishing you all luck!!

My advice is much like others have given, apply to EVERYTHING no matter what the requirements tell you. Just because it says you need experience, doesn't always mean the manager will stick to that.

Guest343211 · Apr 5, 2010

I actually had a couple of nurse recruiters laugh at me, and I have loads of experience, but but had a hiatus from nursing. No matter what, that is completely unprofessional, but it tells you some things about the place I think. You can apply to everything, but they can afford to be real picky if they want to be. Thus if there is a four-point check off in their minds, and you don't meet it from the time they pick up you resume/app, toss it goes. This IS our current reality. People are moving into homecare; but even some of them can be ridiculous with "current" issues. I know darn well that I have forgotten more than what a number of newer nurses know. I know my experiences and the acuity involved. They don't, and they don't give a crap.

I'm starting to suggest to people what they suggest with people that think they want to go into medicine. That is this. Only go into it if you cannot possibly see yourself doing something else.

And with that, a number of experienced nurses will tell you, it doesn't take decades to see yourself doing something else.

The field has changed a lot in terms of general attitude and professionalism in 20 years, and with all the advanced "education," the irony is, by and large, it has not changed for the better.