My dear this is a prime example of nurses not only eating their young but also eating each other as another poster replied in the topic addressing that very subject.

Perhaps....not a nursing shortage but a JOB SHORTAGE, what do you think guys?!

Where i am today, there is oversupply of nurses and really not much jobs to offer for them.

If you must know Theala, I am currently living with and caring for my elderly grandmother who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the beginning of this year, hence the reason why I am not able to move right now. NO I won't go into further details because I don't feel like it's any of your business. I do not appreciate you calling me lazy and whining and assuming that I can do what you do.  I don't feel the need to explain myself to you either.  I didn't ask for help.  I asked a question.  Yes this message may come off as if I am angry, but I am done with this conversation.

Amber

BTW, I have not written anything before these two posts. -MMullican

Anonymous says ...

If you must know Theala, I am currently living with and caring for my elderly grandmother who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the beginning of this year, hence the reason why I am not able to move right now. NO I won't go into further details because I don't feel like it's any of your business. I do not appreciate you calling me lazy and whining and assuming that I can do what you do.  I don't feel the need to explain myself to you either.  I didn't ask for help.  I asked a question.  Yes this message may come off as if I am angry, but I am done with this conversation.

Amber

Sorry to hear about your situation.  I wasn't asking you to defend yourself, I was asking you to tell me more than "I can't."  But, as hard as this may be for you to hear (if you hear it), your choice to care for your family member is just that:  your choice.  With all the benefits and consequences thereto. 

You say you were merely asking a question--but you asked it angrily, as if it were a crime that you could not find a job, as if you had been lied to when you went to nursing school.  No one lied to you or misled you, and no one owes you a living.  It is not my fault that there are hiring freezes in your area, nor is it anyone else's fault you have to make choices between getting a job in your profession and caring for your ill family member.

Do you have other family members who can (or will) care for your grandmother, at least for a few months?  Are there any assistance programs offered by social services in your area?  Can you move your grandmother into an assisted living center or nursing home long enough for you to find a job, move, and then have her transported to where you set up shop? 

You are going to have to wake up to the awful fact we live in a world that can be harsh and unforgiving.  The world will have no sympathy for your situation, although I personally do sympathise with you.  But I can't get you a job, you have to do that on your own.  Ultimately, you have to decide what choices you can live with, and what choices you can't, and then live with the consequences whatever they may be.

If that means not getting a job locally, and getting deeper into financial straights because of it, because you can't figure a way to get creative then those consequences will be on you and no one else.

Look at it this way.  What happens if you don't find a job?  Does your grandmother own her home?  Can you pay the property taxes?  The mortgage (if one)?  Homeowner's insurance?  Rent?  Utility bills?  What happens when you run out of money?  Do you risk being evicted from your home?  At that point you will have no choice but to move.

I think it better to take control, and make a solution of your own than have one imposed upon me, but that's just me.

Theala

Anonymous says ...

So Basically i should bail on my 4.84% mortgage with 6 years left to pay, move to say Seattle, find an new house for what 500K and bury myself with a 30 year mortgage at 5.75% all so I can get a 40K/year job? Wake up and smell the coffee, the entire market has been tossed in the crapper by the SBON's by licensing so many programs. The problem is that its an employers market and they are going to use every bit of leverage to keep the profits for themselves. NO we did nothing wrong except buy into the LIE of a nursing shortage.............

In a word, YES.  You should give up a low rate mortgage for a higher rate one if you can't get a job to pay off the debt you currently owe.  It doesn't matter if you have 30 days left on a loan, don't make that last payment and they can still forclose on you, leave you with nothing but wrecked credit.   Your bank will not understand, "sorry, can't make my payment because I can't get a nursing job."  They'll tune you out after the "can't make my payment."

I am impressed you have such a low rate loan with only six years to pay, such a thing is unheard of.  But if you only have six years left to pay, then you will get equity out of the home when you sell.  Rent the home while it is on the market if the market is slow, or sell it as a rent to own.  That will free up income to pay rent on a place in Seattle or wherever until you sell the old home.  Then you can take your time picking a new place.  With the equity you ought to have in a home with a low interest rate and only six years left to pay, you should have so much for a downpayment that banks beat a path to YOUR door to get your business.

Odds are if you move to Seattle, you will make 60K/year to start.

There is still a nursing shortage.  Hospitals are not filling open positions, forcing nurses to work short.  They're restricting hiring in an effort to contain training costs.  And they can get away with it (for now) because they know they have their nurses by the short hairs:  husbands have been laid off, making the nurse the only income in the household.  Eventually that will flip 180 degrees.  I expect hospitals will be screaming for nurses in 1-2 years.  Businesses are already rehiring, and nurses won't have to be the sole source of support for the family anymore.

There is a worse shortage of nursing instructors.  You have to have at least a master's degree to teach full time in most places.  Some places even want part time clinical instructors to have a master's.  No one wants to put the time and expense into a master's degree and get paid 35K/year.  That has made the nursing shortage worse because the schools can't put out enough graduates to fill the demand.  They still can't fill the demand, but the demand is and always has been regional.

Try the ANA website as well. They are always updating their job section, and it is free. Just select the city of state you live in, and take it from there. While not completely up to one's standards, be open to areas you may not have considered before, i.e. psych instead of med-surg. For the records, I don't believe that the person who asked about the location is out of line. Living as a couple for 10 years, with a house and a Masters and 15 years experience, I was pretty set on working in my original med-tele area. I could not find something within my physical restrictions in Illinois, and thus ended up settling in New England! I love the area, but obviously it was not my initial choice. Rural areas, and Northern Alaska are looking for nurses as well in small community hospitals. Also, check sites like http://www.indeed.com/. When I checked this week, they had over 6,000 nursing jobs open. There is no doubt about it. The market has changed! The reality is that we need to work around it the best we can. Good luck to all with your job searches!

         to OP......  I am an old LPN, been working in nursing homes and rural hospitals since 1971, and was recently laid off from a position in a hospital that I had held , full time, for the last 26 years.      The employer was needing to down size due to the economy and figured it would be cheaper for them to go with all RNs .  So, they laid off all the LPNs and CNAs.            NOBODY was happy with this arrangement!

         Except administration.          I have been telling nursing students for years, to go all the way to getting their RN instead of stopping at LPN. I have always been envious of the RN's title.   Also told them that they would NEVER be without a job , unless they chose to be,       And it has always been true, until lately. But it will be true again.        Nursing is a good profession to choose.  Ofcourse, like all the people who have commented on this site, it won't always be some patients who are difficult to work with.  Sometimes you have to work with nurses that think the quickest way to help you get experience is the sink or swim method, and hopefully, the patient makes it too.      Other nurses will offer to help you with everything, but you might quickly see that they aren't as bright as they seemed, and are making mistakes.        You need to be sure of what you are doing, check and double check.      Jobs will come.      

Maybe now you need to be at home, and work  at whatever will keep you in your home.  I had to care for my mother a couple years ago, and moving her to an unfamiliar place was not an option.    She was too old to make the change, and I could understand that at the end of her life, a comfortable , familiar home was the most important thing to her.

       Also remember that sometimes even the ornery nurses can help.     If they have been in the profession for a long time, you might learn more from watching them with patients and procedures.  They have learned a lot of things that aren't necessarily taught any more.  If you can get past the crabby un-helpful exteriors, you will often find a better nurse than any in your graduating class.       

Anonymous says ...

I am an RN,BSN.  I graduated in December 2008.  I received my RN license in January '09 and have yet to find a job.  I have applied for numerous positions at numerous places (internships, hospitals, clinics, dr. offices etc.)  and have found nothing!  Every response I get is "we're looking for experienced nurses, we cant afford to hire new nurses right now, more qualified people have applied, we have a hiring freeze etc."  I've even applied for LPN and CNA positions, and still nothing! I am at wits end.  Getting a nursing job was supposed to be easy since there is such a "huge" nursing shortage, but I have found that this is NOT the case.  Within the past two months, there have been NO job postings for nurses in my area (and when I say area I mean in a 70 mile radius).  NONE!!  I've been volunteering at a free clinic for about 2 months now, but I need a job!  I need money!  I have bills I need to pay!  Is this a common problem going on across the nation?  Is there really a nursing shortage or was this all a lie????

I think a little venting is allowed.  :)  You're frustrated.  It's a frustrating thing.  This isn't your cover letter, it's a message board, and part of it is supporting each other.

Getting past the vitriol in the previous posts...*sigh*...... You may have to go with unconventional ways of contacting these people and following up on the resumes you send in.  Do as much "in person" as you can... Some companies may not want to deal with that, but some are OK with it.  Seeing a face instead of just a resume and cover letter may be an advantage.  Maybe you could take jobs in health-related places that aren't nursing jobs, or anywhere even remotely close to something in health care... In the meantime....  Make sure your resume is PERFECT (I'm talking about grammar and spelling)-- any little thing that makes you stand out even a notch higher than another person... I don't know what else to add there...

And when you hear "hiring freeze", make sure it is not just on non-RN personnel.  For example, another parent I met at my daughter's school works for the VA and said there's a hiring freeze at the VA in TN, but NOT for nurses.

( Personally, I would love it if there were jobs in PA and not in TN, so that I could convince my fiance to move us back home to where my family lives.... But there seem to be jobs here in Nashville, TN. )

~ Lori (not-so-anonymous!)

This is all kinda scary because I haven't even started nursing shool.  But you do have to be a little realistic.  1, Thousands of people have flooded the nursing field because it's safe and in demand.  2, Nurses that were assumed to retire which would add to the shortage aren't retiring.  And 3, the economy is in the toilet. 

I worked with a nurse that told me how she interviewed a highly qualified woman (RN) three different times before before she hired her.  And that was before the economy went to hell and prospective nurses began piling up.  She was a little anal and might not reflect the standard hiring practices of most  nurse supervisors, but it can give you a little bit of what the picture might look like when the number of applicants tripples.  

Maybe some of you just might have to consider up and moving.  Even though it might not be what you want, becoming a nurse didn't guarantee you a job either.  

Well good, then when you leave the field there will be room for one more. If thats how you really feel about it you dont belong doing this Job! Sure some days are hell, but at the end of the day you still love your job because you care and because you are good at it! NOT because you thought you would make more money and it would guarante you a job all the time. I personally will stand up and applaud when you quit!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  The shortage is a lie perpetrated by the schools and SBONS to keep the money flowing. When people used to say " I could never do your job" now I know what they meant. The job is shatty both literally and figuratively.

Sorry to say the problem is wide spread. I laugh when I see the ads for nursing and the shortage. A friend of mine is a traving nurse due to the fact that she couldn't get a full time job.  Then agency was only giving her a mininimal amout of hours each week. She had to travel and then some of her contracts were cancelled with a piss poor excuse so now she's in the Bahamas. So moral to this story is don't always believe what you HEAR focus on what you SEE and experience then go from there. I've been in the medical field for many years and NEVER thought the medical field would ever be hit like this a complete mess so go figure.

Theala, I admire your calling it like  you see it.   I am not cutting the OP down or any others who posted.  I am just saying everything you said makes sense, and instead of sugar coating things you lay it out there in a non-derogatory way.

MReade

If one is really looking for work and are willing to go where the work mis, there ia a lot of work for for you, If you are not willing to move then you might not find any opening. I can tell you from experience that there really are jobs in Hospital, and Nursing Homes, & Dr offices. True one might not get the "Job" they wanted, but there are jobs in all fields. If you would like help in finding jobs, email me & I wiull do what I can for you. aol.com">Wshrock114@aol.com