Get that Dream Nursing Job!
With nursing jobs becoming harder and harder to get, what is the best way to separate yourself from the competition? How can you land your dream nursing job with so many others standing in the same line?
There are jobs out there, but they are asking for that thing that you don’t have yet: experience. So, if you can’t get hired without experience, and you can’t get experience without being hired, what do you do?
Here are a few tricks that will help you separate yourself from the other new grad nursing students:
- Rewrite your resume.
- Your first impression is not made when you walk in the room for your interview, it is made minutes before when your interview panel reads your resume. It should be one page at most, and must be very easy to scan quickly to get the main points. Have your friends or family review it for less than 60 seconds to see if they can give you important highlights. Finally, your resume should be on high-quality, off-white resume paper.
- Improve your resume
- If you don’t have clinical experience, you can have educational experience. Taking additional courses outside of the standard nursing curriculum will make you more useful when you are hired and it will show the interview panel that you take initiative. Some of these American Heart Association courses include ACLS certification (Advanced Cardiac Life Support), PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support), PEARS (Pediatric Emergency Assessment, Recognition, and Stabilization), ECG and Pharmacology, and NRP certification (Neonate Resuscitation Program). These classes are usually only 1 or 2 days long and some companies offer special student discounts.
- Do your research
- If you are serious about starting your new career, you must be able to demonstrate it in your interview. Do you know anything about the hospital or the department that you wish to work for? A hospital visit prior to your interview is a great idea. This way you can get more information, show extra initiative, and if you’re lucky, maybe meet the people who could be interviewing you.
- Practice your interview responses
- Interviewers have a standard base of questions that you must be prepared for. These include:
- Tell me about yourself
- Why do you want to work for this hospital?
- What have you done to prepare for this job?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- In closing, is there anything else you would like to add?
- There is a very good chance that some, if not all, of these questions will be asked during your interview. By having the answers to these questions planned out and rehearsed, you will be much more confident with your responses. This confidence will allow your personality to show through and give you an edge over the competition.
- Interviewers have a standard base of questions that you must be prepared for. These include:
- Look the part
- Just as you have invested in your education, you must invest in your appearance. When you are called into your interview, you must look professional. This means that new interview clothing is a must. Nothing will make you feel more confident than new clothing and a new haircut. You have spent years preparing for this moment, don’t ease up now.
These 5 steps can help you obtain the dream nursing job that you have been thinking about for years. Take the time to follow these steps and you will be treating patients in no time. Good luck!
