Why does it take so long to find a job?

Editorial Team / Admin · May 14, 2015

Many areas are seeing an oversupply of nurses, especially new grads. Long gone are the days of walking in off the street and walking out with a job offer. To improve your chances of

gerting a job after graduation, I highly recommend these few strategies as well as anything else others can think of:

1. Try to find a job in healthcare. Whether it's as a CNA or unit secretary or whatever, it will help you establish a relationship with a healthcare employer, make connections with those who can serve as references, and provide access to internal job

postings.

2. Networking. Sometimes it's more who you know than what you know that can help get that first job. Join your state nursing association, join the specialty organizations that interest you. Many offer discounted rates for students.

3. Realize that in the current job environment, it is very unlikely that you will get a job in the specialty of your choice. Experience beats a stale new grad who's never worked a day as a nurse, so take the job you get offered. Again, provides access to internal job postings, gets crucial experience, and establishes an employment history.

loriangel14, RN · May 14, 2015

It takes a long time to find a job because there are more applicants than there are jobs.

Mavrick, BSN, RN · May 14, 2015

Be prepared to take your shiney new BSN on the road and move to an area less saturated with hundreds of other shiney (or not so shiney) newly minted BSNs.

Consider nights, weekends and holidays as just another working day taking care of people who don't schedule sickness around nights, weekends and holidays.

If you do get an interview show up in professional attire, tone down the piercings, cover the tats and ask intelligent questions that indicate you know something about the facility you are applying to.

Oops, after re-reading your question, I'm getting ahead of myself. These are excellent suggestions, if I do say so myself, but not what you can really do while in school.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.........

Mavrick, BSN, RN · May 14, 2015

ooooh, I did think of something useful.

If you do well in your clinicals and are at all interested in working for one of those facilities, be friendly to the staff and mangement. They may help you later on.

I worked part time as a student/tech and got my first RN/GN job offer from the clinical facility I had worked at.

caliotter3 · May 14, 2015

Don't be afraid to engage in conversations with your preceptors and unit managers at places where you do clinical placements about the viability of you finding a position there after graduation. Many of the graduates who get jobs, obtain those jobs while at those placements.

calivianya, BSN, RN · May 15, 2015

I have worked with plenty of nurses who worked during ABSN programs and did well. Don't write off working altogether just because you're going for an ABSN program; it really is the best way to get your foot in the door as a RN once you graduate. If you are planning on not working for another reason, feel free to disregard.

turtlesRcool · May 15, 2015

I'm curious as to why you think you cannot work at all during the program. Work connections really seem to be the best way to get a job after graduation. My classmates who worked as CNAs/PCTs had RN jobs locked in before graduation.

I graduated from an accelerated BSN program in December, and even though we were advised not to work, many people did. And those that didn't usually had other responsibilities (often young children). I have two kids, and I know I spent more time on childcare than my classmates spent at jobs. It's totally possible to do well and work. You just have to make studying a priority over, say, hanging out with friends all weekend or watching TV every night.

If working in health care isn't going to happen, focus on networking at your clinical sites. I know several people who got jobs because they made it a point to get to know the nurse managers. One even brought the NM cookies and asked if she'd look at her resume for pointers - she is now employed at that hospital.

Also, if you have a clinical instructor that you work really well with, you might ask him/her for suggestions. Sometimes he or she works as a bedside nurse as well, so you might be able to network into that facility through your instructor's contacts there.

Also, because some jobs, especially grad residency programs, usually ask for letters of recommendation, you might want to ask clinical instructors for a letter as you get to the end of that clinical. If you've established a good relationship with him or her, it's much easier for the instructor to write a letter for you when his/her memories of you are fresh, than if you track him or her down 6 months or a year later and ask for a rec.

eris08, BSN, RN · May 15, 2015

Great! Thank you everybody! :) I was advised not to work since the program is rigorous. The program that I am doing is a 12 month program, which is less time than most other programs. My school is in Jersey City, but I eventually want to work in central jersey. Preferably at Robert wood Johnson or St. Peter's so I don't know if working in Jersey city as a CNA would help me if I don't want to be employed there after I graduate.

I currently work with doctors that are professors at Robert wood Johnson medical school so I don't know if that would help. What do you guys think? I am just worried since I really can't afford to be unemployed for so long.

Red Kryptonite · May 15, 2015

I currently work with doctors that are professors at Robert wood Johnson medical school so I don't know if that would help. What do you guys think?

I can't imagine it hurts! Since you mentioned that as one of the places you want to work, ask them for reference letters you can attach to your applications. The good word of professors who teach in their medical school will go far, and as they say, in health care it's not what you know, it's who you know.

toERortonot · May 15, 2015

-nobody wants to spend $$$ to train new graduates.

-few nurses want the additional workload to train a new graduate.

they are somewhat correlated.

when i punch in my zip code 90012/Los Angeles and "registered nurse" i get about 20+ pages at 50 jobs per page (50 mile radius). HOWEVER, the majority want experience because of the reasons i listed above. simple fix = $$$