Really, really surprised...........

[roser13]

..........by the increasing number of new grads/almost new grads who openly express a desire to take a job and undergo orientation, all the while planning to leave that position shortly after orientation. It's seemingly all about the short-term need for a paycheck, regardless of the impact on anyone else. No doubt, there have always been those who have no problem deceiving an employer, but I don't think they used to be so open about it.

I do realize that the days of benevolent employers are long over but it just doesn't seem right to knowingly short-change an employer. I'm starting to see that there are many components to the reality that employers are reluctant to hire new grads.

[melmarie23, MSN, RN]

I think that part of the problem is that often times, the only positions open to new grads is med/surg or LTC, which is not a specialty that most new grads want for the long term. The only job I could get hired into as a new grad was med/surg. Even though I was finally hired, I still was applying for L&D/Maternity because that is what I wanted to do and what I went into nursing for. I wont lie, I totally used my current position to get my dream one, and I dont feel bad about it at all (and I haven't quit-yet. I am still per diem, but just maintaining the minimum hours to stay on the roster). If more specialties were open to training new grads, then perhaps others such as med/surg and LTC wouldn't have such a high turnover. While I do find that med/surg has been a wonderful background and starting job, I don't think it was necessary before specializing elsewhere. I think that with proper orientation and training and being adequately precepted and mentored, that a new grad can most definitely thrive in specialized areas.

[netglow, ASN, RN]

Employers used to be more loyal, too. Now when they no longer need you, they'll send you packing without a second thought. Although I'm the type who likes to settle in and stay a while, I was taught to never be faithful to a business. I'll provide for them as long as I get what I want/need in exchange. I don't feel obligated to take it beyond that.

This is me to a "T"

Work is work. An employer is not family, so there is no "loyalty". I always deliver and I expect the same. I am very willing to dig in my heels for a great employer. But they must give back to me as well.

[rninme]

This is one of the reasons that hospitals are not hiring new grads. No one wants to invest thousands of dollars and man-hours into someone that isn't going to stick around.

[llg, PhD, RN]

[quote=roser13;5489485

I do realize that the days of benevolent employers are long over but it just doesn't seem right to knowingly short-change an employer. I'm starting to see that there are many components to the reality that employers are reluctant to hire new grads.

Yes, reality is pretty complicated. As employers showed less and less loyalty to their employees ... employees learned to show less and less loyalty to their employers. Both suffer in the long run.

[netglow, ASN, RN]

There is this wierdness about nurisng and jobs. I think of it as a kind of brainwashing cultish thought process.

As a second career nurse, I see this pervasive idea out there that someone must be doomed to poor treatment in the workplace. In fact it's almost as if one must be actually prove themselves as "deserving of poor treatment" in order to be accepted at times in nursing. Strange but true.

All this about orientation, how "special". No it's not special. I think it would be a good thing for nurses in general to look at the outside world. EVERY profession that requires an exclusive skillset will train it's newbies. I have a nephew that is entering the field of nuclear engineering. He is receiving most likely more intense and more expensive training in his first job than a new nurse can hope to get these days. As he progresses in his career, he will very likey change employers. This is not a shock folks. In my past career I worked for 5 different employers, was laid off twice as well as had my own business for 10 years.

Nursing employers are one of the, if not the most ridiculously FOS employer groups out there.

Please do a little self education on what working is about before you even venture out there for your first job out of college for your own sake - and, get a little pride in self, please.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Employers used to be more loyal, too. Now when they no longer need you, they'll send you packing without a second thought. Although I'm the type who likes to settle in and stay a while, I was taught to never be faithful to a business. I'll provide for them as long as I get what I want/need in exchange. I don't feel obligated to take it beyond that.

I agree, it goes both ways.

I've never seen a new grad express that they want/plan to leave shortly after orientation. I've seen the sentiment of leaving after putting in their year. But what would be the benefit to them by leaving after orientation? They would still be an inexperienced new grad. It wouldn't benefit them on their resume.

But IMO the idea of "looking out for number one" has always existed. For me, my loyalties go in this order:

1) Me and my family

2) My employer

When something benefits both #1 AND #2, great! But if I need to make a change to benefit #1, I will, as long as I'm not totally screwing over #2. I don't believe leaving a job, as long as proper notice is given, is screwing over the employer. People come, people go. It's always been that way.

That said, I am looking for an employer that really does value me as an individual, and if I find that, I will be the most loyal employee you could ever hope for. I just don't see that in large companies or hospitals.

[littleneoRN]

Honestly, I would have no problem with that strategy if it were what I needed to do to get to where I wanted to be.

I don't feel that I have to be loyal to an employer, especially one that would treat me poorly. BUT, this is just plain unprofessional and dishonest. I will not let a hospital pay to train me for a job that I have no intentions of staying in past orientation. I think it's sad that we have become a society (not just a profession) that's about ME ME ME and whatever serves ME best and not about honesty, integrity, hard work, and appropriate commitment. (And I'm only in my 20s, so I'm not just reminiscing of some olden golden day). Sorry, I'm not trying to flame you Orange Tree, but this is an unfortunately pervasive attitude amongst people now. If I was a hiring manager, someone would have to have a very excellent explanation for a short employment at a particular place. More than one short employment in a row would almost certainly be a reason to not hire. I know that would end up passing by a few good candidates, but it would also save the employer a lot of energy and money.

[Streamline2010]

What would be unusual or unethical about somebody finding a job in today's economy, and then leaving it for something more attractive, or better-located, or higher-paid? Absolutely nothing. That flexibility and freedom is part of the American workplace.

I agree with the people who said "Take a look at other professions, b/c nursing is the weird one, so far as expectations are concerned," lol. I think because R.N. has been a women's profession, and a very Mom-like profession, until really recently, medical employers expect an unusual degree of servitude from their nurses. I don't buy all of the religion and the self-sacrifice and the total altruism that I'm getting pumped with in school. Unless you have an employment contract that states otherwise, you are an at-will employee and thus neither you nor the employer are obligated to make it a forever-marriage.

So what if a hospital trains a new employee and loses him/her? They can gripe about all they want, but that's just a cost of doing business, and I'd bet that the hosp can write if off somehow. And I don't think that every hosp has such a unique and specialized skill set that whatever they train a new nurse is completely different from what other hospitals teach. In other words, i think if hosp A trains me, and then I later go to work for hosp B (or vice versa) some of that hospital-based training has to be readily convertible into transferable skills at the other hospital.

People find jobs, leave jobs, move around. I see ability to move around as one of the nice aspects of R.N.

[littleneoRN]

Having a job and then being offered something better is different than going into a job planning to stay only days or weeks. That was the phenomenon I was responding too. On that note though, my personal rule is that I qon't leave a job for something better until I've been there a year. This would not apply to situations that I deemed to be unsafe, illegal, or highly toxic.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Having a job and then being offered something better is different than going into a job planning to stay only days or weeks.

And there are new grads who do that? To what benefit? Until this thread, I've never ever heard of new grads who take a job with the intention of quitting weeks later. I still am skeptical that this is such a pervasive problem.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

When people need to have shelter and food, I wouldn't look down on them for taking a job they think is different than their dreams. People need to work. Are nurses faulted more than other professions for wanting to work even if it means they will move on if something more suitable comes up? Sometimes I think they are.

Those who take a job with no intention of working more than a few weeks or a bit more, are assuming they'll find a better job within that time span. I don't think ver many do that. I also think those that do will find it's more complicated than taking a job and then switching in a few weeks or so. Otherwise why wouldn't don't they wait just a bit?

These days, it's usual to see many changes in employers (or within what the employer offers) during a person's working years. That's part of how we become more expert in what we do. Why not work where we feel the best too, or continue to try things out to learn what we would feel the best doing?

When I went to school to become a nurse, I didn't expect to like it. I did it so I wouldn't be a bag lady. I was willing to do any work at all so I could survive. However, I fully intended to work toward finding what I liked the best. Employers eliminate people without loyalty sometimes. I've been "downsized" 3 times, so my loyalty to an employer includes realizing that it's a business, not a mission, for either the employer or me, as far as keeping me employed goes.

All in all, for most people, I think loyalty to self and survival of self and family (financially and emotionally) should be higher ranking than loyalty to employer. After all, we work to live, rather than live to work, don't we (most of us)?

[leslie :-D]

i will show my employer as much consideration, as they show me.

that's how it works.

leslie