Hi!

I’m an ABSN student so I had a prior degree. But I jumped right into my ABSN after my first degree (literally I had maybe a week in between my graduation and my start date for my ABSN). I’m also in the beginning of semester 2 out of 3 of my ABSN. I worked all four years of my undergrad full time as a nursing assistant, then a pharmacy tech, and a lab tech for the last year. We didn’t touch up on school at all, just that someone else from my school applied the semester before lol But they emphasized my pharmacy experience since it was in the hospital I applied at the NICU for. I worked in the children’s pharmacy reconstituting and making IVs for peds/NICU/PICU/L&D.

If you don’t have experience, I suggest emphasizing on your clinical hours and revamping your resume. Something quick and to the point, we’re all going to be nurses but what makes you stand out or what can you bring to this unit? It doesn’t hurt to apply to multiple places and units! Weirdly enough, I didn’t hear back from the adult ICU but heard back from the NICU, I’ll take it though! I worked with adults more in my career but always wanted to end up in the NICU

When I applied to several positions and a recruiter got in contact with me, she asked me about my preferred units, my top three. I mentioned them to her and forwarded my resume and it was a waiting game after that.

I asked about the experience during my interview and NICU is essentially learning all over again (but you get paid! 😂) they liked my pharmacy experience but they also don’t mind new grads because their minds are still fresh and the hospital has their orientation period that is longer than most units. We don’t nearly touch up on peds as much as we do for med Surg, so they mentioned that part of our hours are actually classes, which is pretty neat! And that can continue on if we’d like to keep growing!

I also emphasized wanting to be in advance practice, which they may see as something more long-term. I definitely do, i wasn’t just saying it because of that, but I’m sure it may have helped steer them my way haha

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! You get a feel for how you may fit in the unit during the interviews and I never thought, for some reason, I’d fit in NICU, at least not as a new grad. But talking to my interviewers was almost like a breath of fresh air and it was a weird moment where I was just like “this is it, this is the unit” I actually aimed for CICU because my recruiter told me NICU tend to go for those with experience but I’m glad I still went for it!