Saturated market in Austin, TX

[lsid16]

Hello everyone,

So I'm a new grad ADN RN from Illinois who is relocating to Austin, TX in a few weeks. I hear the market is horrible for nurses down there. Hiring freezes, etc... can anyone give me any pointers to stay positive? Also, how many resumes and interviews did you all have to go through until you finally secured a job?

Thanks!

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

All I can say is don't move here until you have a job offer in hand.

[Purkinje]

Hello! I am an Austin GN as of this month. I won't lie, the Austin market is very difficult right now. Austin has multiple nursing schools pumping out GNs: University of Texas, Texas State, Texas Tech, Concordia, and ACC. And we have lots of people coming here from other places, too. It's very, very competitive.

I have a job, and pretty much all my classmates who were looking for work received offers. But our little group is a huge exception -- I did Hurst last week, and the hot topic was how everyone was struggling. Other campus groups from the same school (ACC) are not having the good luck we've had, unfortunately. I don't know specifics about how the folks from the BSN programs are doing, but it sounds like it's rough for them, too.

There are two big hospital systems in Austin, Seton and St. David's. Seton does a Versant GN fellowship three times a year. Right now they are accepting applications for their October cohort:

https://www.seton.net/employment/nursing/rn_residency/versant_rn_residency_form.asp

Not all the Seton facilities were accepting ADNs for the June cohort. And for any given cohort, you don't know ahead of time what facilities will be hiring and how many positions there are. Oh, and all ADNs hired have to sign an agreement that they will get their BSN within 5 years of hire.

The St. David's system doesn't have a formal internship program, so it can be harder to get a foot in the door. Most of people worked their connections to get jobs there -- the recruiters are upfront about the fact that most GN hires are either previous employees (techs) or they knew someone and that's how they got their interview. Most of my class accepted offers with St. David's facilities.

Scott & White hires GNs for their Temple location, through their GN internship program. I don't know much about it because I had no desire to work out there, but there are some threads about it on AN.

Austin State Hospital and some local pedi home health agencies will hire GNs. I didn't investigate non-hospital options, because I was hired pretty early in the semester for my first-choice facility. (I start next month.) Someone else might be able to chime in on that.

Your chances will be better outside of large metro areas. If you can stand small-town living, go that direction. It also helps if you are fluent in Spanish.

I feel like the GN job market here is getting tighter and tighter with every semester.

[DreamBig1027]

I am curious to find out. Did you obtain a position in Austin??