Thinking about transferring. Just looking for some input.

I'm a medical floor nurse, and I'm beginning to feel like it's time for a change. I work in a small hospital, our medical floor has some tele and our average census is 24 patients. I was an LPN in this setting for 4 years, and I've been an RN now, still on this floor, for 2 1/2 years. I'm ACLS certified, but on our floor we don't read our own tele strips or EKGs-the ICU tele tech and ICU nurses do. The hospital is in a smallish town that is flanked by larger cities with many hospitals, several with level III trauma center designation. My hospital doesn't do open heart, transplants, or spinal or neurosurgeries. Just to give you an idea of my experience.

I would like to move up to an ICU, but I'm not really interested in the ICU in my hospital. It is very small, they typically only have 3-5 patients in the entire unit, and they do a lot of floating to step down (which wouldn't be bad at all) or throughout the hospital, or sometimes they just get called off. I'm interested in moving on to a larger hospital, in their CCU or MICU.

I have a couple of concerns. I'm not a new grad, so I've learned some old-dog tricks. I'm concerned that my medical floor experience will be expected to count for more than it does. Yes, I'm ACLS certified, but no, unless a patient is in sinus rhythm, ST, Vtach, or SR with PVCs, I really can't read it. I know my drugs that I usually give, but I've never hung any cardiac meds.

Why hire me, not a new grad but not a nurse with any sort of ICU experience, when you can hire a new grad for less money, who hasn't learned any bad habits, who has no preconceived notion of how a unit or shift should run?

I guess what I'm asking is, how do you all feel about your new hires, particularly your new hires who are experienced nurses, but who do not have any prior experience in a critical care setting? How can I make myself more attractive to a CCU/MICU, and what common pitfalls or mistakes do you see in nurses with my background, so I can be aware and try to avoid them?

Thanks for your time!