New Graduate RN Positions: Landing Your Dream Medical Job

New Graduate RN Positions: Landing Your Dream Medical Job 

You survived nursing school, and you passed the NCLEX. Here’s how to jumpstart your medical career. 

Introduction

We need to talk about the biggest lie in healthcare recruitment: entry-level positions that require 1-2 years of experience.

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Make. it. make. Sense.

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Turns out, this catch-22 isn't meant to put fear into new nurses on the hunt for their first new grad RN positions. Hospitals are actually desperate for nurses, especially new graduate RNs—but they often experience resource limitations that bar them from properly training the new grads they bring on.

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Their solution? 

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Post ghosty job openings that may or may not be open, then quietly hire new graduates anyway on a trickle basis—whether or not there’s comprehensive onboarding or training in place. 

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(TL;DR: The system is broken, not you.)

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At Real Hire, we’re prepared to help hospitals and new grad nurses break the mold with innovative recruitment solutions that work—making the turbulent medical hiring process a thing of the past. Read on to learn the industry playbook that experienced nurses wish someone had handed them, and learn about the exact steps you can take to transition successfully into your new graduate registered nurse job.

From Buried to Booked: Making Your New Grad RN Application Stand Out to Recruiters

Applying to new graduate registered nurse jobs means facing an unfortunate reality: You're competing against 200+ other new nurses who all did the same clinicals, took and passed the NCLEX, and are making the same promises about "passion for patient care" in their cover letters. 

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It's time to break away from the group and make your application package stand out. 

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Pull From Your Clinical Experiences 

The first step to landing new grad registered nurse jobs? Ditching those student nurse clichés, and quantifying everything you've done in your relevant experience. Your previous mandatory clinical rotations work as an experience gold mine if you frame them right. 

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For example: 

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• "Managed care for 4-6 patient assignments in a critical care unit." 
• "Coordinated treatment plans for 120+ patients across three clinical rotations." 
•  "Spent 8 weeks providing comprehensive care on a 36-bed telemetry unit with high-acuity cardiac patients."

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If you haven't already, work through your course catalog and class notes and detail out the skills you mastered and accomplishments you made in each course.

Create Your Video Resume 

500+ applications for 20 positions is a statistical nightmare—which is exactly why you need a video resume to cut through the chorus of new-grad nurse applications. 

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While it might seem unconventional, take a moment to consider: Nursing school tested your book and clinical knowledge, and the NCLEX solidified it to employers. The only missing piece is a well-crafted video resume that introduces potential employers to who YOU are as a person, and that brings your application to life for them in a tangible way. 

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Tools like Real Hire help you do this for free, helping you shorten your search. 

Beyond the Hospital: Alternative Routes to Your First RN Position 

Sometimes, as you search, you'll find that you're no longer interested in the traditional hospital RN role. It can be disorienting to realize—but we want to be the first to tell you that it's a completely normal part of the process.

If that's you, there are plenty of other nursing job alternatives to consider, including:

• Nursing at long-term care facilities: Long-term care facilities offer great opportunities for new grad nurses to master medication management for complex patients over time. In these roles, you'll hone your time management skills, build case load tolerance, and have opportunities to engage with patients beyond the 2-3 day hospital stay. You can make the most of these opportunities by cross-training and volunteering for different patients and opportunities.

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• Clinic positions, home health, and other non-bedside opportunities: Outpatient clinics offer the mythical Monday-Friday schedule that so many new grad RNs are looking for, and they often come with holidays off, autonomy, and routine that can't be beat. Sure, you'll trade the adrenaline of hospital life for consistent patient relationships and documentation mountains—but for some nurses, that's preferable.

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• Rural and underserved nursing roles: These roles often come with incentives and bonuses, and are nursing's best-kept secret for fast-tracking your skills. If you take on this new grad role, you'll likely be working within a greater scope of practice, managing administrative tasks, and strengthening your knowledge of the range of nursing’s scope of care.

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Ultimately, your nursing career is a marathon, not a sprint. That first job is just the starting line, and it doesn't define your career-long job choice. All you have to do is choose the route that builds transferable skills the fastest, and that gets you closer to your end goal—whatever that might be. 

Takeaway 

New grad RN positions are hard to find and even harder to land—but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. All you have to do is find an actual way to stand out, show off your clinical expertise, and show who YOU are. 

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(Tall order, right?) 

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Not really. Tools like Real Hire are free, simple, and are ultimately the best way to hit all three of these marks. Create your profile for free today—then explore our other blog topics to help you on your job search journey.