How Do Student Nurses Get Jobs After Graduation?

Nursing is one of the most lucrative professions, and so it makes sense that there are more and more nursing students around the country. While some articles cover the importance of choosing a particular nursing school over another, this article is more geared towards discussing jobs post-graduation.

While some nursing schools have robust career centers that are helpful for making connections and landing their nurses jobs, other nursing schools have lackluster career centers and poor guidance centers. So, it’s always helpful for future nurses to know exactly what their options are when it comes to find a job.

Let’s review the important steps that a nursing student will have to understand in order to get a job.

The Starting Piece: The Nursing Degree

The first thing a nurse needs in order to work as a professional nurse is a degree. It’s illegal to work as a nurse without a nursing degree and a license.

There are different types of nurses, including LPN and other practical nurses. But for the sake of this article, we’re going to be discussing Registered Nurses.

Without a completed nursing degree, you cannot work as a nurse. Though there have been many cases of people pretending to be nurses, when they are caught there are serious legal implications. If you’re interested in how hard it is to get into a nursing program, this article goes into more depth.

Most nurses will find work as soon as they complete their course work. The following sections will cover that in more detail.

Clinicals: Hands on Job Experience

Nurses have the great advantage of clinicals. Unlike students who attend universities and colleges and have to compete for highly competitive internships, nursing students are mandated clinicals.

Clinicals are essential because they show that the nurse has had some real world, hands on experience in a hospital. This will show that they are somewhat familiar with a working environment.

In many cases the clinical role will turn into a real job upon graduation. Nurses are in such demand in the current climate, that hospitals often hire any nurse that has minimum experience and passes drug and background tests.

Networking and Professional Associations:

Many nurses fall into the easy trap of signing up with a nurse recruiter and simply letting them send over contracts. It does work, and it’s certainly easy when you are starting out. However, it’s not the only way to work.

While it is true that most nurses don’t use professional networking sites like LinkedIn, there are other networks to use such as the ANA and other nursing centered sites. These can help nurses move around from hospital to hospital.

The truth is that a professional nurse network is one of the best ways for nurses to find work in hospitals and other high paying, competitive roles. These networks weed out nurses who are considered problem nurses.

Use Job Posting Sites

Nurse jobs are posted every hour, every day, 365 days a year. Every jobsite online is filled with nursing positions. If you review Indeed, Craigslist, or any other online job site, you’re going to see endless postings for nurses.

The reasons why nursing roles are so prolific is complex—it has to do with the funding and insurance behind hospitals and mandated nurse roles. However, the end result for nurses is the same. A nurse can log on to any job site and find a job within a day. So, it makes sense to use nursing job sites.

Resume and Cover Letter Crafting

Most nurses do not appreciate how important a resume is. The truth is that hiring managers and nurse recruiters will tell you that the difference between a professional nurse and a bad nurse can be seen in their resume.

Most nursing schools have a department that will help nursing students write their resume. The problem with this line of behavior is that many of the resumes look identical.

The other bad method of creating a resume is to simply take the job details from an online job posting (like one of the many that are found on indeed) and tack that onto a resume. It shows no effort, and sloppy work.

A good hiring manager or recruiter will be able to tell a professionally made resume from one that was cobbled together with job descriptions.

Nursing students who want to succeed and find a placement in a reputable hospital or clinic will need to craft a well written resume and also a cover letter.

Nursing roles are one of the few areas where a cover letter might actually be important. The truth is that many nursing students do not have the same writing skills as a traditional university graduate, which is to be expected since they focus on clinical work and trade related studies. They do not have a liberal arts education.

So, if a nurse is applying for a position, a good cover can really improve their chances of being hired.

Nursing Related Job Fairs and Recruitment Events

Nursing schools all have the ability to host job fairs and recruiting events. These are great ways for small clinics, non-profits, and even hospitals to come in and meet with future nurses.

These are great events for nurses who do not want to work at the place where they did their clinicals. If, for instance, a nurse wants to work at a private doctors office, then they will get exposure to them at a job fair—since most nurses do clinicals are hospitals and nursing homes and do not normally get exposure to small, private clinics.