Sorry Nurse Recruiters/Nurse Managers!

netglow, ASN, RN · Apr 19, 2012

In my area, hospitals can be notorious for leading nursing students on with the 'bust your butt and you will at least get an interview when you are licensed' trick. Actually some of these hospitals are really cruel in this little game they play. Heck, what nursing student isn't gonna bust orifice? They get an excellent employee with a nursing student -- much better than hiring someone who couldn't hack it at Walmart, right? But the RN positions will go to those who have family/admin blood contacts in the end. Lots of anger when these new nurses realize they've been had.

Patti_RN · Apr 19, 2012

When I was young and more stupid than I am now, I was offered a 'job' at an employment agency. I reported eagerly to work my first morning of my very first job and eagerly started making cold calls to companies asking if they had positions open. (To the uninitiated, cold calling is a horrible task with lots of rejection, lots of rude responses, and very few positive reactions. Imagine being the salesperson who is doing the calling when your phone rings at dinner time... yep, you got the picture!) After four hours of this torture the manager came to my desk and asked me to sign a paper agreeing that this day was an unpaid 'training day', being young and stupid, I didn't question why there were at least 25 signatures on the page already. At the end of the day, I was told that I 'didn't make the grade' and I wasn't being hired. Because I signed their paper, I basically worked for them for free that day (as did the other 25 people who signed that paper... and maybe 1,025 people who signed the same paper in the past years).

Some of these unfair and unscrupulous practices continue in some form and will do so well into the future. It's not fair, but it's sadly common. The best way to guard against it is to do what is reasonable as a student nurse; be attentive to your patients, make a good impression with the nurses on the floor, speak to the director if you have an opportunity (and if you're close to graduation, take a resume and cover letter with you and see her AFTER you're dismissed from clinical that day--not when you're supposed to be checking on your patients and passing meds!)

plumiegirl · Apr 19, 2012

Wow, some things never change. Nursing is a tough racket whether it is getting that first job or getting dumped on when working. Seems that a nurse rarely wins, plus there is always the stress of the job and the legalities that go along with it. That said, I remember finishing nursing school during the early 90's recession and they would only high a RN for the LVN positions and you were still held to your higher license for less $$. Since I gunned through school and my previous was was a flight attendant I had no work related skill experience except for the labs and clinicals. Did not matter that I took care of my father through his diabetitis, heart failure, dialysis....this did not count but I was real knowledgable. A friend who was a charge nurse at a local hospital tried to get me hired but they took another RN who lied and said she had skills and she could not even give a shot. I did get a handful of interviews back then and when a school district interviewed me they said I had all the right papers but no experience. I responded with someone hired you when you were in my posiition and the only way I can get experience is to try me out during the probation and if I am not capable you can let me go. Ironically the one thing that cinched the job was that I also could speak a 2nd language. Had this job for 16 years now and they may just budget cut nurses out of their jobs here. You wanna bet that if I went looking for a job that they would say I do not have hospital experience. I have severe handicapped students from liver transplants to catheters, g-tube feedings, trach suctioning, diabetics, and ventilator kids. Guess that won't count if the time comes... just hang in there, it will happen just not fast.

plumiegirl · Apr 19, 2012

that is terrible, did you report them to the nursing board or the better business bureau?

billyboblewis · Apr 20, 2012

I am sorry you feel sorry for yourself. Job hunting is not fun. If you keep looking someone will feel sorry for u and hire u

As I receive rejection after rejection for nursing jobs, I feel the need to apologize to nurse recruiters/managers who overlook my BSN because I lack patient care tech experience.
I am sorry I could not afford to take a job as a tech making 7 an hour. You see while attending school part-time, I needed to maintain a home, equipped with mortgage payments, children and all the other responsibilities of wife and mother.
I m sorry you cant see that I carried a gpa over 3.0 even with the all the responsibilities I have.
I'm sorry that you cant see that for past 2 ½ years of nursing school, I stayed up late each night studying or preparing care plans while working 40 hours a week.
I'm sorry that you can't see how I worked tirelessly in every aspect of my life to obtain a second degree.
I'm sorry that you can't see that despite a lack of patient care experience I am mature, driven, focused, ambitious and hard working.
I'm sorry that you can't see that I passed by NCLEX exam with 75 questions in under one hour. Not because of exceptional knowledge, because I studied tirelessly!
I'm sorry that you can't see how I was complimented time and time again by not only my clinical instructors but more importantly the patients who I cared for. I wish you could hear the amount of times a patient or the family said "you are going to be great nurse."
I'm really sorry you can't see past this lack of experience and have formed a judgment against me before knowing me.

mindlor · Apr 20, 2012

I am sorry you feel sorry for yourself. Job hunting is not fun. If you keep looking someone will feel sorry for u and hire u

Ya know I am shocked that more proctologists do not patrol these boards more frequently........

StarryEyed, RN · Apr 20, 2012

To the hospitals that I have poured many hours into, made many connections, only to be dismissed by HR? I'm sorry, I wanted to work there, but I will no longer apply. I am no longer interested in working for someone who doesn't want me there. It is what it is.

Agreed! I tried applying the the hospital my mom worked at when I was a new grad and they said "no", that they prefer to take the new grads from the community college down the street from them who did preceptorship there.

okay... So I got hired elsewhere where I had no connections, knew no one there but I took the time to fill out a paper application (which I was actually thankful for).

So my mom floated to Peds a couple months ago and they all know her daughter had been wanting Peds and they tell her "Your daughter already has a year of experience, right? Tell her to apply here!" I love my mom... she told them, "I think she loves where she is." :-) I do. They took a chance on me, trained me, and I love it there.

allnurses Guide · Apr 20, 2012

But there are other agencies that would.

Yes, it was quite a shock when I started working with home health agencies in the metropolis I live in. Some are great, some only care about profit, and some are downright shady. When you feel the urge to ask your interviewer if they shouldn't be more concerned about demonstrated competencies you know it's bad. Sometimes I think if we could hand pick from some of the nurse's who run an ethical shop it would be a dream.

It seems to me, in my humble, minimal experience that hospitals want RN's to function as glorified CNA's and not as RN's. Thus the importance of CNA experience......

I think we're seeing a blend of healthcare workers becoming stratified. A hiring manager might think it's important, but a very large number of students are told they need to learn to delegate, and avoid doing those tasks themselves. No wonder people get mixed messages

Assuming you don't mean "glorified CNA" as an allusion to the crappy treatment CNAs often get.

I think what is likely to happen is that hospitals will hire RNs to supervise an evergrowing number of UAPs, and CNAs will be a subgroup of that. The RN will spend most of the day entering data into the computer. I was out of nursing for a while, so whatever gradual changes occurred I did not see. When I read that a CNA is not allowed to know a patient's diagnosis I was surprised by that. I understand the rationale (sort of) but that took some getting used to. Seems like stuff like that would be counter-productive.

SuburbanGypsy · Apr 20, 2012

Let the OP vent. I totally know where they are coming from.

I was in a BSN program while also working FULL time in a non healthcare field while going to school, and it is a truly eye opening experience when you realize that the degree you fought so hard for and struggled to achieve, has done absolutely NOTHING for you.

I know exactly how that feels. I know what it's like to want to provide a better life for myself and my family, and what it's like to have the door leading to that better life, slammed shut in your face repeatedly, via rejection after rejection.

It was a sad day when nursing degrees officially became part of the for profit education SCAM that is going on in this country.

People indebted to student loans for life. Degrees that don't earn you anything to help pay them off.

Why bother?

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Apr 20, 2012

In my area, hospitals can be notorious for leading nursing students on with the 'bust your butt and you will at least get an interview when you are licensed' trick. Actually some of these hospitals are really cruel in this little game they play. Heck, what nursing student isn't gonna bust orifice? They get an excellent employee with a nursing student -- much better than hiring someone who couldn't hack it at Walmart, right? But the RN positions will go to those who have family/admin blood contacts in the end. Lots of anger when these new nurses realize they've been had.

I've never had a problem getting job offers as a RN, and I have no family in health care. It may be true that having inside connections can get one an interview, and perhaps the job. It is NOT true that those who don't have family/admin blood contacts cannot get a job.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Apr 20, 2012

I could not even get an interview with a hospital when I graduated. 4.0 all through nursing school, passed NCLEX in 75 questions in less than an hour, glowing recommendations from everyone I worked with along the way.

Okay, why would anyone care that an applicant passed their NCLEX in 75 questions in less than an hour? Is this something people are putting on resumes now? I've seen this referenced 3 times in this thread, that people hiring weren't impressed with the fact that an applicant passed NCLEX in x amount of questions. Of course they aren't!

MN-Nurse, ASN, RN · Apr 20, 2012

Having worked in that field for 6 years I would be very very afraid of a graduate nurse who starts in home health.

I worked alongside at least two new grad RNs at a home health agency who were assigned patients appropriately, used their resources well and did a great job.

A couple years later, they are both currently Case Managers and doing fantastic. No disasters, codependency or other foul-ups along the way.

I also have quite a few new grad classmates, and one new grad relative who have been working in home health since graduation - two years in one case and almost a year in 10 other cases and doing just fine.

The disaster predictions I see on this board are simply not coming true in the Twin Cities, MN area for new grad Home Health RNs.