I am graduating in May and I attended my first career fair for student and graduate nurses yesterday and I am very discouraged. I am a 35 year old African-American female (wow am I giving report or what!?? LOL) and I have 6 years of experience as a medical assistant in clinics, 7 years of hospital experience as a patient care associate on a peds unit and I was a nurse extern over the summer on an observation unit. I must say that I was extremely professional yesterday, nice black pants suit, portfolio with resumes, smiles and handshakes. I watched my counterparts do on the spot interviews and get hired on the spot. I listened in to some of the interviews as I was waiting to talk to managers and some of these people were clueless, no hospital or patient care experience or dressed in jeans. They were hired on the spot.
I went to my first area: Cardiac/Renal. That is not my first choice but I go and speak to the manager because no one was waiting. WOW!! She tried everything to dissuade me from choosing her unit!!! She made it sound like it was Hades. My confidence was almost shattered until I realized that was not the area I wanted anyway! But she didn't know that.
I finally got the chance to interview with one of the 6 managers representing the different Med/Surg units. Actually, I sat down with the Director of all the med/surg units. She seemed to like me and asked which Med/Surg I was interested in and I never really thought past General Med/Surg, so I told her that I was open for now. She told me about all the different med/surg units and then she told me about "a special, new unit that was created this summer, a med/surg unit for substance abusers. But it is not for everybody." She want me to just think about it. I have no problems with substance abusers and I know that I will deal with SA on any type of unit (I even dealt w/ SA in Peds) but I don't think that would be a good fit for me. I didn't say that to her but my facial expression said it all.
After that she told me that she liked me. She like my personality and my style. She said that she thinks that I would be a good fit in the med/surg department. My resume would be sent to all the other managers and if I don't hear from one of them in one week call her back and she would get things moving for me. She offered to start me as a nurse tech until I graduate but would actually customize my orientation to be: 1.) the new grad orientation and not the tech orientation and 2.) around my school schedule (they normally require a straight week orientation-which I don't have right now.
All of that was overshadowed by the fact that she only directly offered me the SA med/surg. My problem is why did she feel that I would like that position? Why did she think that would be a good fit for me? or Did she just offer it to everyone because it is a new unit and need staffing? Am I reading into this too much?
thank you all for your responses. i am over this now. i do not think that it was racially motivated that she offered me the position and i also am aware that people would say and do anything to fill hard to fill position. i have lived long enough to know when people are putting the "shine" on me:icon_roll:. the reality of the situation is that i was at this job fair when it started and it was at least a 100 other candidates and she did not have to offer anything to me. i will make the right decision for my career. i have worked very hard in school and it took me years to achieve this goal. and i am very proud of myself and hope that i will be a great nurse to clients in whatever area of nursing that "i choose" to go into.
missgigius, RN
190 Posts
thank you all for your responses. i am over this now. i do not think that it was racially motivated that she offered me the position and i also am aware that people would say and do anything to fill hard to fill position. i have lived long enough to know when people are putting the "shine" on me:icon_roll:
. the reality of the situation is that i was at this job fair when it started and it was at least a 100 other candidates and she did not have to offer anything to me. i will make the right decision for my career. i have worked very hard in school and it took me years to achieve this goal. and i am very proud of myself and hope that i will be a great nurse to clients in whatever area of nursing that "i choose" to go into.