Newly Graduated Nurses Find Difficulty Getting Jobs Despite Staffing Shortage

Staffing shortage is one of the issues nurses are facing today. However, despite the lack of nurses in the different areas of nursing specialty, newly graduated nurses are having a hard time getting employed in an institution. According to the article from advanceweb.com, part of the problem is because of economic recession, senior nurses return to work as regular staff, taking extra available shifts. Another reason is institutions prefer to hire nurses who are already experienced. Since new graduates must be precepted before they can work independently, it would be like an investment in the part of the institutions to train the new graduates.

Since new grads are having difficulty getting nursing jobs, they may resort to go back to school and get their next degree – from ADNs to BSN, BSNs to MSN- to increase their chances of being employed or hope that things would better by the time they finish their education. The downside is, while they enhance their knowledge in theory, they still lack the actual nursing experience that is always helpful and most benefit from performing bedside care. New graduates going on advanced education to become nurse educators or nurse administrators in the future is not a practical move because again, while theory is important, experience makes that theory relevant. It would be very difficult to go directly into nursing education or administration without some sort of clinical experience first.

It may take some time for a newly graduated nurse to be able to develop competency in institution policies as well as in nursing practice but this is the only way they can gain their experience. If all institutions would refuse to hire and train new graduates, then they will never be able to acquire the skills that institutions require for them to be qualified. It may be an investment at first but being able to develop a competent nurse who will be  a part of the health care team is enough return of their investment.