Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!

I hope every one had a wonderful time with family and friends during the holiday season and through the New Year.

This break was really only a semi-break.  On Katie Cruit’s (JHUSONs career counselor, council head, and overall super woman) recommendation I shadowed nurses and met with hospital recruiters all over the Bay Area.  It was a pretty intense learning experiences, not only did I help birth a baby, visit some pretty young cancer patients, but I also got to sit in on several vascular procedures- no rest for the wicked, as my mom would say.

Wondering what those recruiters said about the nursing job market, are you? I’m sure everyone has heard how tough the market is for nurses right now, and they’re not wrong.  However, there are jobs out there if you look, gain some good experiences, and if you make the right connections.  The nursing job market has always gone up and down- the recession has certainly put hospitals and health care in more of a slump then they would “normally” be.  Nurses who would normally be ready to retire are hanging on a little longer. In a few years, the market will be back up and hospitals will not have enough hands to grab as many nurses as they need.  Until then, for us new grads struggling to find a new grad program or just a job, we have to sit tight and work a little harder.

My suggestion?  Always keep it in the back of your mind; get your resume ready early, make appointments with recruiters, and shadow nursing friends and colleagues. Making those connections, especially before you start a program might just be the connection you need to your dream job- every little bit helps! Don’t have time? Try to volunteer at a hospital, a health care organization, or a Skilled Nursing Facility a few hours a week.  It doesn’t take much time, but it can make that much of a difference, for you and the patients.

This semester should be full of adventures; Pediatric and OB rotations are happening my first seven weeks, along with (finally!) beginning my American Cancer Society internship. Somewhere in there I’ll be running a 5k or two, and prepping myself for snow… yikes!

Here’s a happy, hopeful, and busy new year!