Trouble getting hospital job with no acute care experience

[RUNBNursing]

Hello all! I need some advice on how to proceed in my current situation. I graduated with a BSN in 2017 and started my career in nursing with Nurse Family Partnership. My position is considered public health, I do home visits with first time, low income mothers. Lots of education involved (especially about pregnancy, breastfeeding, and newborn and infant care). However clinical duties are very minimal, I do manual blood pressures, infant measurements, health histories, and bit of "triage" when a client calls and ask what to do about a sick baby. I took this job because my son was just beginning preschool and with very little family support (single mom) this job fit perfectly with his schedule and gave me tons of flexibility.

I am staring a women's health DNP program this fall and have been applying to hospital jobs for 3 months now with no responses. I was advised that a hospital schedule (12 hours shifts) is easier to keep full time vs my current 9 to 5. I also want to get more clinical experience before I finish the program in 4 years. My son is older now and I have a great partner and working 12 hours shifts is finally a possibility for me. I have been exclusively applying to postpartum and antepartum jobs. I have applied to L&D but I know those are even harder to get. I have revised my resume countless of times, personalized all my cover letters to fit the hospital values, etc, and still nothing. I have probably put in over 40 applications to 6 different hospitals in at least 3 different health systems. It seems that my non acute RN experience is hindering me.

What else can I do? I would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

[RUNBNursing, BSN]

7 minutes ago, LibraNurse27 said:

Or maybe another specialty that you could tolerate better than med/surg that offers the schedule you're looking for? Do you need benefits or could you do per diem? I'm not sure if it's hard to find a job in any specialty you don't have experience in, or only certain schedules. I've seen some postings for 10/12 hr shifts for outpatient surgery, dialysis, and a few other things. Totally understand trying to stick with jobs that relate to your specialty though =(

I have definitely considered branching out to other specialties that are "easier" to get into. I definitely need benefits for myself and my son. I've looked into outpatient surgery but those positions seem to be even harder to get into than hospitals. I think working full time is more important to me than sticking to my specialty (need to pay rent and bills!) So I think branching out to other areas is definitely something I want to consider. Thanks ?

[Jamb5280]

Hi there! 

I hope you found another job and your journey is going well!  I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about NFP!  I'm a new grad and super interested in applying. 

[RUNBNursing, BSN]

1 hour ago, Jamb5280 said:

Hi there! 

I hope you found another job and your journey is going well!  I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about NFP!  I'm a new grad and super interested in applying. 

Hi!

Yes, I was able to get a job in mother/baby in a large hospital, I think my NFP experience helped me! I left NFP in October. Ask me anything!

[Jamb5280]

That's amazing! Congrats!  I'm new to allnurses so I'm unsure if I can message you.  I will just ask you stuff here! (this may be a long post) LOL 

I'm a new grad and really love the idea of doing NFP!  I was offered a job on an L&D unit at an amazing Hospital but I just hate the idea of working nights for a few years with my small children.  I guess I'm just curious what your schedule was like doing NFP.  You had mentioned it worked better when your son was younger but how if it was 5 days a week?  If it's 9-5 Monday-Friday are you in client's homes the whole day? Or is it flexible like you can do stuff in between work?  Also, was the pay similar to bedside nursing?  We're the benefits good?  Do you like doing bedside more?  

Thank you so much for answering my questions! <3 

 

[RUNBNursing, BSN]

1 hour ago, Jamb5280 said:

That's amazing! Congrats!  I'm new to allnurses so I'm unsure if I can message you.  I will just ask you stuff here! (this may be a long post) LOL 

I'm a new grad and really love the idea of doing NFP!  I was offered a job on an L&D unit at an amazing Hospital but I just hate the idea of working nights for a few years with my small children.  I guess I'm just curious what your schedule was like doing NFP.  You had mentioned it worked better when your son was younger but how if it was 5 days a week?  If it's 9-5 Monday-Friday are you in client's homes the whole day? Or is it flexible like you can do stuff in between work?  Also, was the pay similar to bedside nursing?  We're the benefits good?  Do you like doing bedside more?  

Thank you so much for answering my questions! ❤️

 

My son was 3 years old when I started with NFP so he was in preschool (free where I live). I could drop him off before work and for a time he stayed in an afternoon program and I picked him up at 5:30 but eventually I could schedule my visits so that I could pick him up at 3 and drop him off with family if I had more visits or go home and chart. It is very flexible and the way our program did it, there was no micromanagement as long as you got the work done and your visits in. I would do 2 to 4 visits a day (lasting 1hr to 1.5hrs) and would chart afterwards at home or would try to dedicate one day a week to charting. It really depends on your area. I speak Spanish so I would get a lot of the Spanish patients who also worked so they would need late visits (4, 5, even 6pm), eventually I started limiting the amount of patients a took that needed late visits. I would work 9 to 5 most days and one day a week 11 to 7 or something similar. Some days I would have my visits in the morning then go home for the rest of the day and chart, or go into the office in the morning and have visits later in the day, it was very flexible. With covid everything was virtual and to be honest, it bored me a lot and I hated being at home 24/7 which contributed to me leaving. 

Pay and benefits highly depend on your area. I heard that if the program is through the health department, pay is not great. Our program was through a home visiting agency so the pay was decent (almost the same to what I am making now as a bedside nurse). 

There are always pros and cons. I miss living a normal schedule and not working weekends and holidays and nights, but I like the actual work that I'm doing now better. This is very temporary for me while I'm in school. I plan to eventually work in primary care when I graduate which I feel is a middle ground between the two. Good luck!