Since there is a nurse shortage, it is
believed that this will insulate nursing grads from the economic
downturn. But contrary to belief, newly grads are having a hard time
looking for jobs.
According to Carylin Holsey, president
of the National Student Nurses' Association, those who find work are
turning to nursing homes, home health care or other settings because
they can't get the better-paying positions they'd hoped.
The National Student Nurses'
Association published an advisory for new grads, warning them that
the market is "flooded" with experienced RNs who have
resurrected from retirement, delayed retirement, or gone from
part-time to full-time employment due to recession.
Last year, the tightening of nursing
job market was felt. A June 2009 survey by the association found out
that of 2,112 spring RN graduates, 44% of which hadn't yet landed a
nursing job.
There are still large nurse shortages to be expected as aging Baby
Boomers need more care and in addition to that, under the country's
new health law, millions of additional Americans will get insurance
in 2014.
Even before the health law was passed, a Vanderbilt University
analysis last year forecasts that the U.S. will be short of more or
less 260,000 nurses by 2025.
A 2010 Emory nursing school graduate, Adam Houck, discovered
quickly how tough the market is. Houck received 27 rejection emails
from the 43 nursing positions he applied for in hospitals all over
Georgia.
But with Houck's perseverance, he was hired by Emory University
Hospital Midtown, as a medical intensive care unit nurse. He started
this July.
Houck offers an advice to other nursing grads frustrated with
their current job prospects that it would be best not to lose sight
of their dream job: "It may take a little while for you to get
there, but you can and you will get there."
Robert Hoover, associate dean of finance and administration for
Emory University Hospital Midtown, says that this year?s
graduates are more prepared for the realities of the job market.
Houck praised Emory's rigorous nursing program and said that it
provided him with quality clinical experience which got him ready for
the "real world of nursing." He said that he is prepared as
possibly as could be as a recent nursing grad and believe that his Alma
mater will be doing even more to prepare students for the current and
future job market.
Hoover explained that the trends in nursing are becoming more
diverse than in the past 20 years in research and science technology.
?We try to prepare our students for all the integral parts of
nursing. There?s so much more to do besides working in a hospital,"
Hoover said.
Just because that graduates may have a hard time getting jobs in
some hospitals, it doesn't mean that there aren't other opportunities
elsewhere. Some hospitals' hiring of new nurses remained steady.
Robin Mitchell, a human resources consultant at Gwinnett Medical
Center said, ?In the two years that I have been here, we?ve
stayed pretty consistent.?
Mitchell explained that it is important for students to prepare
for job interviews. She said that when hiring, she looks for highly
energetic candidates with the ability to maintain drive and passion
throughout their careers.
Mitchell shared that an effective track for getting a job at
Gwinnett Medical getting in its 10-week summer externship program,
here students work as nurse technicians and then are often hired into
the health system?s 12-week residency program as full-time nurses.
She further explains that if students need to go back to school after
the completion of the externship, they remember who was in the
program so they would likely to employ them once they graduate.