So Who DO They Want to Hire?

[iluvdetroit]

I am an RN with just over 10 years of experience in an acute care hospital setting. I have always done a good, job, never gotten a negative performance review, and even gotten a few letters of commendation from former patients. However, I last worked as an RN in 2004. In the meantime, I have kept up my CEUs and taken an online accredited RN refresher program in which I achieved 98% proficiency. I recently applied at a large teaching hospital in my area that only has nine RN positions advertised on their website and was called the next day for an interview, which thrilled me to death. So today I go for the interview. My first interview was with the nurse recruiter from whom I got a really good vibe right away. She seemed really interested in me, and began explaining wage scale, benefits, etc. which I thought was really encouraging. She then called the unit supervisor of the unit for which I was interviewing and set up an on the spot interview with her. When I got into that interview, however, the unit manager kept mentioning that I hadn't had acute care experience since 2004. She asked what I have been doing since then to further my nursing career and all that I could tell her was that I have kept up my CEUs and taken the refresher course and done very well in it. She was very nice, but I just got a bad feeling about the interview, even though I acted confident, looked her in the eye, and answered every question. I kept telling myself that I am an experienced RN who cares about my patients and would be an asset to her unit. Now I have to wait to see if I "passed" that interview and can move on to the next step, a group interview in the nursing office.

This hospital has a policy in place right now that they will not hire new grads. I am an experienced RN who has been out of practice for a few years. So I guess my question is, just exactly who are they looking to hire, since they don't want new grads and the unit manager didn't seem too thrilled about me either? How many good nurses with very recent experience are out job hunting right now anyway, since that seems to be who they want to hire? If they are waiting for those kind of nurses to come along, won't they be waiting a while, since those nurses seem to already have all of the good jobs in nursing? I guess I am frustrated because I know that I am a good nurse, and I feel that I am still very competent. So much for a nursing shortage....

ETA: the unit supervisor did give me her card and wrote her personal office number on the back of it, told me to call her with any questions at all, and mentioned that the next step, if she decided to hire me, was the group interview. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill, in the sense that if she really didn't think I was good hiring material she probably wouldn't have given me a card with her personal # on it and mentioned the next step in the hiring process? I don't know how much sleep I will get tonight, lol!

[llg, PhD, RN]

Your instincts are probably right: they are looking for nurses with recent experience in the field. They don't want to rejec t you yet because they don't know if they are going to find EXACTLY what they want. So, you are "being seriously considered," but they are hoping that other applicants will show up with more recent experience -- or perhaps, someone who used to work for them in the past and did a good job, but left to take care of a new baby or something and now wants to come back.

Good luck to you. Maybe you'll end up at the top of their list.