Where's the tipping point???

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Hi, Another new nurse here who can't find a job. Sorry that I chose this path. Left one career for this one, knowing that "nurses are in short supply", "They're always looking for new nurses", "Nursing is a recession proof career"> Well I was wrong. After sending out about 30 resumes in 5 months, and getting called by one hospital for an interview that went great, and I knew I had the job, I still didn't get the job.

Now every nurse I speak to tells me, "well it's cyclical, you just have to be patient and it'll come around". So where's the tipping point, when hospitals come looking for us. I heard that before the recession, hospitals were so short that they recruited out of nursing schools. Will that day ever come again???

Many of the hospitals I applied to didn't even respond with a, "thank you for your interest..." type email.

Time to seek out some other future because I fear that by the time I do get that call, everything i've learned in nursing school will be forgotten.

I hope all of you are having better luck. I will not recommend this as a viable career option to anyone for a long, long time.

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I graduated in 2011. It took me six months to actually secure employment. This was not even employment in an area I desired to work. Now two years later I still have not secured a position I am happy with. Since I have some chronic health issues that are limiting my ability to do floor nursing for much longer, I have been looking for a position where I can work from home or behind a desk. Of course all my nursing experience thus far is in an area that is not helpful in securing any of these types of positions. It really is unfair that we pay all this money for nursing school to get out of jobs we were miserable in just to secure nursing jobs that make us miserable.. I hope things work out for you!

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OP - you are still within the window to be considered by nurse residencies. They are looking for new nurses. TBH - i think part of it is how you come across. You have to get their attention first, and keep it next. You have to stand out above a lot of other applicants. I start one in Feb 2014. :)

To 2011RN - try getting a position at a nursing home. Put in a few months and you can be an RNAC or nursing supervisor if a position opens up.

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Thanks for the advice sunshyne.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

I m so sorry you were essentially sold an empty promise..... nurses are not (and have not) been in short supply for quite a while. But of course, it seems that academia is so insulated that very little reality tends to penetrate their defenses.

IMHO, it's going to get worse. ACA is bringing changes, including greater access to health care (hopefully) but that means there will be more jobs in non-acute areas such as primary care clinics, LTC and public health.... NOT Hospitals. At the same time, hospitals are coping with continuously decreasing reimbursement so they have to eliminate costs as much as possible. One of the most common ways to decrease cost is by reducing the number of RN positions... and increasing the number of unlicensed 'RN Extender' jobs. AHA data shows that 20k hospital jobs were lost from Jan - Oct 2013.... and it isn't over yet.

I am not encouraging anyone to go into nursing unless it is his/her true passion. Otherwise, the return on investment (time, effort, money) just isn't worth it.

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

30 applications in 5 months really isn't a lot, especially if you're in an even quasi-competitive area. Open hospital jobs for new grads tend to peak with graduating classes. I think I was sending out 2-3 applications a DAY during those periods, and still managing to fire off or deliver a few applications to non-hospital jobs that I'd stumble across a week.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
30 applications in 5 months really isn't a lot especially if you're in an even quasi-competitive area. [/quote']

This.....try 200. :blink:

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This.....try 200. :blink:

Yeah, me too :banghead:

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Specializes in Critical Care, Postpartum.

OP, I'm a career changer too. It took me about 10 months to land a job after I graduated, partly due to me moving to a different state where they preferred to hire ADNs from their own colleges than a BSN from out of state. It was extremely frustrating for me and I sent out way more than 5 applications per month to finally land a job.

The field is saturated and I realized this when I enrolled in my local community college to take my prerequisites. I knew then there was no nursing shortage but I still decided to pursue it because I wanted to be a nurse. When I started working, I did forget a lot of things I learned in school and for a few weeks, I felt like a new nursing student than a new nurse, but you do get better and smarter over time. Don't be shy to ask lots of questions.

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That's what I'm afraid of, forgetting things!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Postpartum.

I never sold my med-surg books so it was a good source to review.

Sent via Glad2baRN's iPhone using allnurses.com

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30 applications in 5 months really isn't a lot, especially if you're in an even quasi-competitive area.

Thanks Dirty Hippie, I should have been more clear, I applied to 30 hospitals. That's how many hospitals there are within a 60 mile radius from where I live. Some of those hospitals I applied to multiple times for various job postings that they advertised. But even so, 1 out of 30 ratio for getting a call back for a an interview is pretty poor. And I can tell you, every one of those job postings required 1 to 3 or 3 to five years experience. I'll also tell you this, the quasi competitive area that I live in is New York and even today if you go on indeed.com and search RN "new grads welcome, you will come up with 0 jobs. So rather than disrupt my whole family's lives trekking across the country for a career that may or may not come to be, I will begin seeking other employment. Beside that, I have also started applying to nursing homes which I would love to work in if given the opportunity. But their ads say the same thing. Anyway, just griping. Not that it'll change anything but.....

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