In most cities, hospitals are one of the major employers. If you live outside of major cities with large business centers, then it’s almost a certainty that the hospital will be the main employer in the town.
Because of this, a lot of people wonder how to get a job at a hospital. It seems odd, then, that it’s so confusing and hard to get a job at a hospital.
But it makes sense when you break it down. Hospitals are almost all funded by government programs and have union staff. Even private hospitals by and large subsist on huge federal and state funding and programs.
So, in essence, working at a hospital is similar to having a government job. That means good pay, great benefits, job security and an easy workload.
What it also means is that, like government work, it’s hard to get your foot in the door. As we will discuss, most hospitals hire staff through temporary staffing agencies so that they don’t have to deal with more union workers than necessary.
The coveted union staff jobs, be they administrative roles or nursing roles, are harder to get.
But let’s take a closer look at the whole situation.
No Experience, No Problem: Friends and Family
The fastest way to get hired at a hospital is to have a friend or family member already on staff. It’s not something that’s publicly discussed, but it is the normal method of things.
If a spot opens in a hospital for a full time union employee, it’s almost unheard of that the spot will be filled using an ad placed online or in a career site. Those postings that you see are all for temporary non-union roles.
The union spots are always given to friends and family members of the hospital workers.
This is how people with no experience, absolutely no work experience, land union jobs working in hospital administration offices or registrar departments. As I've discussed in prior articles, it can be very difficult to get a job with no experience.
So, my best advice is to reach out to any friends or family members who you might have that already have union jobs in a hospital.
While it’s not impossible to get a job at a hospital through Indeed or a Staffing firm, it’s much easier to go through other channels.
Is Working at a Hospital a Good Job?
It depends on what you consider good? It’s not a professional environment. Many of the full time union members are not college educated, many have their jobs due to family members hiring them, and there is a strong job protection so many sub-par workers are on staff.
The quality of life for those working in most hospitals is quite poor. However, there are upsides.
If you are someone who does not have the academic background to work in a professional setting, and you are comfortable with the day to day routine of a hospital role, then you will enjoy the job protection and financial benefits.
The drawbacks to working at a hospital mainly revolve around the low level of professional that you will have to deal with.
The upsides, though are many.
First, hospital workers who are in the union do not have to ever negotiate salary or even, for the most part, work harder than necessary. Unions protect workers and part of that protection is that they will guarantee pay raises due to time on the job, not job performance.
Secondly, retirement benefits are a major upside. The private sector almost never has anything more than a 401k. In hospitals, staff in unions are locked into pensions which are far superior to anything that the private sector has to offer.
Thirdly, hospital members are allowed to take long vacations where they do not have to handle work related issues. In the private sector, people are often forced to handle work related issues on their off days.
So, as you can see working at a hospital has many benefits and it’s reasonable that the average person would do quite well there.
How Much Do Hospital Jobs Pay
Here’s where there is a bit of a drawback. Hospital roles might not pay as much as the private sector. For instance, an administrative assistant working at a major hospital might make 55k a year, while someone working for a Finance firm or Tech firm might make 70k.
However, the workload is drastically different. Hospital administrative work is incredibly straightforward and requires very little in the way of a specialized skillset.
But while the hospital role might not pay as much in straight salary, the benefits that come along with it often times make up for it. Hospital staff, as mentioned, receive incredibly benefits including full medical insurance, health care opportunities, retirement funds, and extended vacations.
Is Working at a Hospital Hard?
Not really. There are some jobs such as the maintenance crews and the janitorial staff where the work is unpleasant, and nursing work is unpleasant, but the work itself is not hard. There are union required lunch breaks and regular breaks throughout the day.
Any time worked over a regulation week is going to be treated as overtime, which private sector employees don’t have the benefit of.
Also, there is always surplus staff involved in the hospital work. Most of the union staff are supplemented by additional temporary and contact staff. Every position at a hospital from the janitor and maintenance crew, to administrative and registers, to the nursing staff are supplemented by staffing agency temp workers.
In fact, ask any travel nurse and you will hear a common complaint. That complaint is that the staff nurses refuse to carry their weight when travelers are brought onto the floor. Most of that is due to animosity related to the exceptional salary that the travelers are paid. However, it goes to show that hospital staff are always double and tripled up.
The reason that hospitals can afford to hire so many full time staff, both union and the non-unionized temporary and contact workers is that the hospitals benefit from huge governmental spending.
Again, the question of if working at a hospital is hard is a bit of a relative statement. If you are someone who went to a good college and has your eye set on a professional environment, then yes working at a hospital would be difficult.
It’s more common to experience crime, violence, and general unpleasant business while working at a hospital. These stories, for example, are not unique and it’s quite common for incidents like these to occur.
Hospital Employee Steal Dying Patients ID for Fraud
Nurse Arrested For Falsfiying DnR Form
Nurse arrested on Sex and Drug Charges
Is Working at a Hospital a Government Job?
Not unless you are working for a city or state hospital. However, for many people there is very little difference. If you are working in a large metropolitan area and happen to end up working for a hospital, then you’ll be in a union that has a strong presence.
In cities such as LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, government elections are often decided by who has the hospital union endorsement.
Recent mayor electors in places like NYC show this. Eric Adams, who performed poorly in debates and had major challenges from several esteemed candidates was able to secure the Mayoral election due to winning the endorsement of NYC public employees and hospital workers.
The security at a hospital, even when in a union, isn’t as strong as a true government job. That said, if you are able to land in one of the major city run hospitals and find yourself in the union, then you’re going to still be entitled to amazing benefits.
How Do You Get a Hospital Job with No Experience?
This is the really hard question to answer. The trurh of the matter is that there are many, many people who get hospital jobs with no experience. In fact, for many people who get right out of high school, it's their first entry level job.
The catch? Most of these people have a relative on the job. Like we mentioned, internal positions tend to get filled from friends of friends.
However, that’s strictly speaking the union roles. There are other roles in hospitals, namely contract roles and temporary roles.
These roles are abundant. They sometimes pay pretty good, but you won’t have any benefits.
If you’re searching online for work in hospitals, you will notice that most jobs are posted online both on the hospital website, as well as external job boards like Indeed as well as staffing agencies.
First off, you should note that applying directly to the jobs posted on the hospitals website is a waste of time. Hospital staff never use these job postings to hire people. It’s almost unheard of.
If the role is a full time union role, it will be filled by a friend or family member or someone already working in the hospital.
If you see the job posted on a job posting site like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, or if you see a staffing firm post the job, then you can be sure that it’s almost certainly are dealing with a temporary or contract role.
That doesn’t mean that you should neglect that role. You might want to take that role. Once you are working as a temporary worker at a hospital, the best approach to become a full time union employee is to befriend someone who works there full time in a union role.
After you’re networked your way in the hospital, then you can be first in line for when a union role becomes available.
The only problem with this situation is that if you’ve taken a contract job through a staffing agency, then you are not going to be able to accept a union spot. Staffing agencies that work with hospitals have contracts in place that prevent people from becoming permanent employees. They do this because they do not want to lose the employee as a source of revenue.
Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to know ahead of time how long the temporary agency would try and keep you on their payroll. Many medical staffing firms are notorious in the industry for removing temps who demand to become permanent employees and simply swap in a new employee to take the role.
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