RN moving to Edmonton

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Mar 31, 2019

There are vacancies within the system; Covenant is more difficult than AHS to get a foot in the door because the majority of their postings are for Covenant internal applicants only. The only way you're going to know is to put yourself out there. Apply for anything and everything regular and temporary positions - everything. Be prepared for a long period of waiting for any kind of response. It takes weeks to know if you're going to get an interview (you have to meet certain criteria to make the interview list), then more weeks after the interview before you know if you're getting the job. There will be times when you're sure your application got lost. And it probably has. But you won't get anywhere if you don't make the effort.

Fiona59 · Mar 31, 2019

Don't move unless you have a place to stay and some savings.

My last job move timetable is pretty strange. From application to start date was 105 days. I was an internal applicant.

Parrhesia, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2019

Thank you for your input. I'm open to doing casual /temporary positions to start off with. Do you know if nurses in Alberta often work multiple jobs just to get full time hours?

4 hours ago, NotReady4PrimeTime said:
There are vacancies within the system; Covenant is more difficult than AHS to get a foot in the door because the majority of their postings are for Covenant internal applicants only. The only way you're going to know is to put yourself out there. Apply for anything and everything regular and temporary positions - everything. Be prepared for a long period of waiting for any kind of response. It takes weeks to know if you're going to get an interview (you have to meet certain criteria to make the interview list), then more weeks after the interview before you know if you're getting the job. There will be times when you're sure your application got lost. And it probably has. But you won't get anywhere if you don't make the effort.

Parrhesia, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2019

3 hours ago, Fiona59 said:
Don't move unless you have a place to stay and some savings.
My last job move timetable is pretty strange. From application to start date was 105 days. I was an internal applicant.

Oh wow, that's pretty rough. Is AHS pretty saturated with nurses rn?
Do you know what makes the process take so long?

Parrhesia, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2019

4 hours ago, NotReady4PrimeTime said:
There are vacancies within the system; Covenant is more difficult than AHS to get a foot in the door because the majority of their postings are for Covenant internal applicants only. The only way you're going to know is to put yourself out there. Apply for anything and everything regular and temporary positions - everything. Be prepared for a long period of waiting for any kind of response. It takes weeks to know if you're going to get an interview (you have to meet certain criteria to make the interview list), then more weeks after the interview before you know if you're getting the job. There will be times when you're sure your application got lost. And it probably has. But you won't get anywhere if you don't make the effort.

May I also ask what the "certain criteria" means? Do I have to completely fit the job profile. When they say it's is required to have....etc. experience in the job posting, are they flexible in terms of willingness to train you ? Thanks so much !

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 1, 2019

To answer your first question, yes there are more than a few newer nurses working more than one job to get their hours in.

To answer your second question, AHS is a HUGE organization and a lot of administrative stuff has been centralized. There's a series of steps each application goes through before it gets to the hiring manager and it can be removed from the queue at any of these steps. The sheer volume of work for each of the human resources personnel is quite high and they can only do so many applications in a day. It's not uncommon for someone to make an application in January and not hear anything until March, by which time they've figured they're out of the running... even for people making lateral moves.

And for your third question, the hiring manager will sometimes write the posting in such terms as to narrow the field to ensure their personal pick is the only one who meets the criteria. Screening of applications is initially done by a computer - as all applications must be sumitted electronically - where the computer is looking for key words and phrases in the application. If they're not found, the application is removed. Then it goes to a second manual screening where the qualifications specified in the posting are sought again. By the time the applications get to the hiring manager, 100 applications might have been whittled down to 10. Then the hiring manager looks at the applications more closely for qualifications and characteristics s/he's looking for. Then there's the interview process, followed by shortlisting, followed by reference checks and THEN they'll decide which applicant gets the job.

At the moment there isn't a lot of opportunity for regular (permanent) urban jobs, and with an election in 17 days, who knows what's coming. A change in government could be disastrous for health care and for nursing.

Parrhesia, BSN, RN · Apr 2, 2019

22 hours ago, NotReady4PrimeTime said:
To answer your first question, yes there are more than a few newer nurses working more than one job to get their hours in.
To answer your second question, AHS is a HUGE organization and a lot of administrative stuff has been centralized. There's a series of steps each application goes through before it gets to the hiring manager and it can be removed from the queue at any of these steps. The sheer volume of work for each of the human resources personnel is quite high and they can only do so many applications in a day. It's not uncommon for someone to make an application in January and not hear anything until March, by which time they've figured they're out of the running... even for people making lateral moves.
And for your third question, the hiring manager will sometimes write the posting in such terms as to narrow the field to ensure their personal pick is the only one who meets the criteria. Screening of applications is initially done by a computer - as all applications must be sumitted electronically - where the computer is looking for key words and phrases in the application. If they're not found, the application is removed. Then it goes to a second manual screening where the qualifications specified in the posting are sought again. By the time the applications get to the hiring manager, 100 applications might have been whittled down to 10. Then the hiring manager looks at the applications more closely for qualifications and characteristics s/he's looking for. Then there's the interview process, followed by shortlisting, followed by reference checks and THEN they'll decide which applicant gets the job.
At the moment there isn't a lot of opportunity for regular (permanent) urban jobs, and with an election in 17 days, who knows what's coming. A change in government could be disastrous for health care and for nursing.

Thank you so much for this info! This is incredibly helpful!
Are you aware at this time if AHS/ Covenant is hiring med/surg nurses?
When you say keywords, are they the keywords used on the specific job profile posting? ex.) public health nurse = #immunizations #communicabledisease or is it more like general terms #teamplayer #clinical #care or both?

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 3, 2019

There are always positions posted on the AHS career website. Whether the postings are filled or not is anybody's guess. All I can tell you is to apply to the ones you're qualified for.

Keywords will be specific qualifications such as "minimum 2 years acute care experience in adult medicine", "ACLS certified", "graduate of post-basic perioperative course" and things like that. They're not going to care about the "team player" type of soft qualities that would be more important during the interview phase.