Nurses: How do you get experience after finishing school?

[Lisa R.]

When job descriptions say they want 3 years experience, do they mean three years of hospital floor experience? Can you get a job at an urgent care center or a job as a home health care nurse for three years and have the 3 years of experience these descriptions are looking for?

 

My dd will graduate with a BSN in a couple of months. The city where she is in school is an under-served community, so she could easily get a nursing job there even without experience. However, she does not want to stay in this city.

 

She would prefer to come back to the city in which we live. However, there seem to be fewer job openings for nurses here. The job listing say they want 1-3 years of experience for most jobs.

 

I'm also starting to wonder if the nursing job market is going to get saturated with all the people going back to nursing school. Here in Texas nursing schools are hard to get into with so few slots available. That is probably the only thing keeping the market from being flooded with nurses.

 

Thoughts?

[Lisa R.]

She's interested in pediatrics--if that matters.

[Beth S]

Our hsed dd was hired directly out of ASN nursing school for Labor & Delivery. However this is unusual. Usually they want a year of post-partum experience (and now we understand why)! L&D requires a lot of emergency judgment calls, which are made better with experience. :001_smile:

 

But your dd's MMV, esp. if she is applying for jobs in a different town than the school she attended. Around graduation time, our local hospital intentionally keeps positions open, so they can hire new (local) grads. I would even suggest that she apply to ANY of the positions she is interested in, several months prior to graduation.

 

Internships are smiled upon, and she can highlight the clinical experience she likely already has in pediatrics. Things like GPA, NCLEX test, good personality MAY cause them to hire her without all the experience. If not, a year of med-surg floor work can then convince the pediatric floor to hire her!

Edited August 15, 2012 by Beth S

[melissad2]

She should apply anyway. My manager often posts jobs asking for experience but also hires plenty of new grads. If she applies and does well in the interview experience may not matter. Often when a nursing job is asking for experience they are looking for someone with med-surg experience which is a good place to see a lot of different things and get broad spectrum experience. Lots of places won't hire a nurse until they get that under their belt first.

[dansamy]

Many hospitals have new grad programs. They're sort of a paid internship. There are more classes plus they work on each unit in the hospital and then choose where they want to go from the available openings. If she goes into a specialty area, there's more orientation and classes.

[Katy]

She should apply anyway. My manager often posts jobs asking for experience but also hires plenty of new grads. If she applies and does well in the interview experience may not matter. Often when a nursing job is asking for experience they are looking for someone with med-surg experience which is a good place to see a lot of different things and get broad spectrum experience. Lots of places won't hire a nurse until they get that under their belt first.

:iagree: Get her on to a med-surg floor, with a year of experience and good recommendations she can specialize. If she makes it clear she wants certain areas to her nurse manager, she may twist things a little so that when those departments need emergency floats she'll be the first option to float to those floors.

 

OR, take a job in the area where school is for a year and after a year or two of experience, take a travel nursing job in your area. Many travel nurses are hired on directly, and in the mean time make really good money.

[mommylaw]

I agree with the others. Her best bet would be to work on a Med-Surg floor. I know that my hospital would not hire someone with home health or urgent care experience for a specialized field such as Peds.

 

If possible she should stay where she can get a hospital job then transfer to the Peds dept. there. After a year of specialized experience she can move anywhere.

[kalanamak]

Many hospitals have new grad programs. They're sort of a paid internship. There are more classes plus they work on each unit in the hospital and then choose where they want to go from the available openings. If she goes into a specialty area, there's more orientation and classes.

 

:iagree:A good friend was "hand held" directly into the CCU, but he was from a stellar school, good grades and was a mature man in his 40s.

 

I have seen nurses come out to our big mental hospital to put 6 months or a year on their resume before moving on.

 

Does not her school have referral resources????

[AvasMom]

Depending on the area, the nursing market is indeed saturated. Some areas of the country are easy to get new grad jobs in, others are an exercise in banging your head on the wall. Honestly, I would recommend her getting a job where she is at for a year or so and then start looking at jobs where you are.

[AvasMom]

:iagree:A good friend was "hand held" directly into the CCU, but he was from a stellar school, good grades and was a mature man in his 40s.

 

I have seen nurses come out to our big mental hospital to put 6 months or a year on their resume before moving on.

 

Does not her school have referral resources????

 

I went right into the CCU at Johns Hopkins in a position that was for experienced nurses (my preceptor got me the job) as a brand new grad. It was crazy!! No idea why I tried that. Now I am firmly in the camp that says new grads should do a year of med-surg first and I never thought I would say that. Ah, experience...such a harsh schoolmaster. :lol:

[Lisa R.]

:

 

Does not her school have referral resources????

 

The school will have a job fair in November. She graduates in December but is not yet getting much information from the school.

 

Thanks everyone. Interesting about the med surg recommendation.

[dansamy]

Every nurse needs real med-surg experience. Peds is med-surg for children. A regular pediatric ward will give her both adult and pediatric med-surg experience. I graduated from nursing school and went straight to peds med-surg. I suppose one day, when my schedule doesn't have to work around homeschooling, I'll finally get that PICU job that I really want. Priorities, priorities.

[BugsMama]

Agreed- Go med-surg to get your foot in the door. Take a job where the job is, and then once she has that experience, try for the peds job in the town she wants.