Tips to Keep Up Skills For Unemployed New Grads

[nurseme3, LPN]

I like many of my fellow nurses am a recent graduate having quite the time finding an RN job that takes new grads. I wanted to start a post about ideas on how to keep skills up and continue to grow education wise just in case this unemployment does not pass within the next couple of weeks. Here are some of my ideas, but I would love any more that anyone has. Thanks!

1. Get ACLS or PALS certified

2. Volunteer as a camp nurse

3. Volunteer at a hospital, hospice, LTC facility, outpatient center

4. Study for the GRE

5. Teach classes at the American Red Cross or American Heart Association

6. Get certified as an EMT or paramedic

[CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN]

I wish you and all newbies the best of luck finding work and keeping up with your skills! This is a very good idea to trouble shoot whichever ways one can keep one's skills as a nurse when jobs are scarce.

Thank you for doing this!!!

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

My tip?

Hang in there! When I graduated in 1993 it was just like it is now. A year later and it had turned around and went hot and heavy until now.

[Multicollinearity, BSN, RN]

My thoughts aren't entirely developed on this, but I wish some sort of post-graduation internship/residency/fellowship was available (and optional) through our colleges of nursing. In what I am envisioning, we would pay a semester's tuition (ouch!) for an extended semester-long type of preceptorship where we would take a full load of patients and meet with a faculty mentor and perhaps a cohort of fellow students weekly.

In reality, it would be similar to the new grad training period the hospitals manage when they first employ new grads, except we'd not be hospital employees. We would be extended internship/fellowship students. It would be a way of getting more "finishing" training so we could operate at a higher level in our first new grad job. It would be valuable to receive a nursing instructor's (or mentor's) input and feedback.

What better way to prove to a hospital that you are a good investment to hire on as permanent staff? And we'd be more prepared for employment in that first new grad jobs, and better able to hit the floor running in our first employment, as the old diploma-program grads were. Does anything like this exist?

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

My thoughts aren't entirely developed on this, but I wish some sort of post-graduation internship/residency/fellowship was available (and optional) through our colleges of nursing. In what I am envisioning, we would pay a semester's tuition for an extended semester-long type of preceptorship where we take a full load of patients and meet with a faculty mentor and perhaps a cohort of fellow students weekly. In reality, it would be similar to the new grad training period the hospitals manage when they first employ new grads, except we'd not be hospital employees, but extended internship students. It would be a way of proving ourselves and getting more "finishing" training with a nursing instructor's input and feedback.

What better way to prove to a hospital that you are a good investment to hire on as permanent staff? And we'd be more prepared for employment in that first new grad job, and better able to hit the floor running in our first employment, as the old diploma-program grads were. Does anything like this exist?

That is an excellent suggestion. It would make people more prepared to enter into the real world when they have taken a full patient load.

[ChristyRN2009]

I have such a hard time understanding this situation because in my area nurses are still sorely needed, experienced or not, but good luck with everything. What a bummer!

[ac123, MSN, APRN]

I graduated in May 2008 and finally landed a job starting in about a week. During this past year I worked per diem for a corporate wellness company. All I did was travel to a corporate work site and perform the clinic that they needed that day. In the fall it was flu shot clinics. Other times of year I did BP clinics, body fat analysis, cholesterol checks, and more recently sun screens testing people for skim damage. It's very easy work, fun and pays well. I would have never known about this area of nursing if a nurse I knew didn't mention it to me. I would look into companies in your area that do these things. Some insurance companies also hire nurses per diem to perform these clinics.

[beachbutterfly]

Keep practicing on your family,manual blood pressure,heart sounds,hook up the IV bag on a coat rack and review the steps,read read read!!

[twinkerrs]

I am volunteering at a free clinic. Maybe when they get the grant they are working on they will remember me.

I am also continuing through with my education. I am taking an advanced health assessment class this summer and a few others this fall, then starting the RN to BSN on full scholarship. I know not everyone can be lucky and get a transfer scholarship from a community college to a university like I did, but furthering my education was my plan before I was awarded the scholarship. As long as I am in school, there are no student loan payments.

[beachbutterfly]

Yep,taking a class can really help to stay on the subject,I'm thinking of taking a pathophysiology class,since I'm jobless.