Article

Selecting Your First Employer
Mickey Mullin RN, BSN, OCN^®
Nursing Career Specialist, Fox Chase Cancer Center

Selecting your first employer is a critical decision in navigating your career path. Although you are not bound to your first employer for life, many of the opinions you develop about nursing are based on your early experiences. The national nursing shortage provides you with a plethora of job opportunities, but are they all good? Certainly, all new nursing graduates will find jobs, but how do you select the perfect match for you? Your goal should be to find the position that most reflects your personal and professional goals. Thinking about your interests and career goals should help you to narrow the search. Some of the first questions you should ask yourself include

• What setting am I looking for? Acute care, long-term care, inpatient, outpatient, home care, and community are just a few of the settings new graduates may be interested in investigating.
• Do I want to start in a specialty area?
• What type of facility am I looking for? (university-based or teaching hospital, community hospital, specialty facility)
• Where do I want to look? (city, suburban, or rural setting)

Mullin shares career opportunities available at Fox Chase with conference attendees.

Specialty: The most important part of this process is selecting something that will make you happy. You may believe, after struggling through school, that just drawing a salary will be enough. That feeling wears off quickly if you are not happy in your position. Start with your nursing school experience: What did you enjoy the most? Did you found one clinical more rewarding than others? If you are one of the students who discovered your passion in nursing school, consider yourself lucky! Many students approach graduation and are not sure what path to choose. If you are unsure, start with the basics; many nurse recruiters still hold the belief that a year or two of medical-surgical nursing is the best foundation. Starting with medical-surgical nursing gives you the opportunity to see a wide variety of diseases and patients. You may find yourself particularly drawn to specific types of patients, and this may help you in selecting a future area for expertise. One of the most appealing factors about the nursing profession is its versatility. If you select for example, a position in pediatrics, and find after a few years that it is no longer fulfilling, you can try a new specialty. Some hospitals provide training programs for hard-to-fill specialty areas. Again, you need not make a lifetime commitment to a specialty, but you will form opinions at this impressionable time in your career. Many nurses begin their career path with their first position and slowly develop their career around these early experiences. For example, a nurse can start as a graduate nurse on a pediatric floor, move to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), return to school for an MSN, and then become the clinical nurse specialist or manager for the PICU.

Career fair: Once you have an idea about the type of nursing you would like to be in, attend the career fair at your school. Most nursing programs hold career fairs so that employers have the opportunity to recruit students. Although you are probably very comfortable with your clinical site affiliates, the career fair is an opportunity for you to look at facilities with which you are not familiar. You may discuss your career goals with representatives from a variety of facilities in one setting.

• Only include clinical rotation information if your resume is thin or the information may be valuable in obtaining this first job (your resume should never be more than two pages).
• Include dates in employment history.
• Include expected date of graduation.
• Include GPA if greater than 3.5.
• Proofread for spelling and grammatical errors. Have a respected friend or colleague with a critical eye also review the resume. These types of errors are red flags to a recruiter.
• Include a detailed, individualized cover letter.

Many Web sites offer help in writing your resume. Also, the Career Center or your advisor at school can help you with this process.

• What are the nurse-patient ratios?
• Describe your orientation process for new graduates.
• How do nurses advance professionally? Do you use career ladders?
• What opportunities are provided for nurse input?
• What type of continuing education is available?

• Dress professionally.
• Don’t be late.
• Have your resume easily available.
• Don’t bring anyone with you.
• Be honest, concise, and informative.
• Give concrete examples of your skills and qualities.
• Be prepared; know basic information about the hospital and nursing department.
• Don’t ask about the salary until you are offered the job.

If everything has gone perfect and you are offered the job, be patient and think about it for a day. Be as objective as you can in your assessment of this new job, and, if it is definitely what you want, enthusiastically accept! If you don’t get the “dream job,” don’t lose perspective. Make the most of the employment opportunity you are offered, learn everything you can from the job you accept, and give it all you’ve got; it will always come back to serve you well.

In summary, selecting the best first job for you is about finding the right fit. You want to find an employer that offers a culture that you find appealing, a professional environment that you find supportive, and a position that you find stimulating and rewarding.

Good luck!