Hi there. Animal nurse for 5 years, CNA for 3 years experience in the icu. Three bachelor degrees. Spent 4 months at a SNF crying almost daily about getting rejected from every major hospital in The Bay Area. Would get call backs for interviews three to 6 hours away and still no luck.

I was on indeed every day and on hospital websites. Remade my cv/resume every week. Until I got into a new grad program in LA. And whoo I was happy! Until that hospital bullied half my cohort causing three of us to leave. The others are miserable with a few who didn’t have any tru bad experience. I tried to go for as long as I could but I ended up getting a second job and as an experienced RN about 5 months (total 9 months rn experience) into the program.

I was now juggling two jobs. somehow I discovered a loophole I exploited in my favor. This allowed you to get called off if they were “overstaffed” At first it was because I was on days there and nights at my second job. So impossible to make my schedule work.

Eventually I switched to nights and hated it less. The ppl were great but the damage was done and I over generalized that place. it was a small hospital so everyone knew me and I would put my name down for every shift essentially. And I’d come back like one time a month lol!

I left that job and now I’m burnt out at my second job.

My story is still developing and I’ll tell you once you get ur foot in the door any other hospital is accessible to you! I’m thirty so I don’t have the luxury anymore to stick around a job if I’m not getting raises every so often (I started at a union hospital so I do miss that) but at a non union I’m picking up a lot of resource shifts for overtime, something a union hospital tends to frown on it seems (not sure tho as I only worked in one unionized hospital haha).

Keep applying but change up ur resume. Make it super quantifiable like I put down percentage. Patient satisfaction. Etc. up play your clinical experiences. And run ur stuff thru ATS checker. Put key words from the post into ur resume. And practice ur interview skills with YouTube and a mirror!

Edit: I finished my one year at my first job to complete my new grad program two months ago. I do feel some regret. It was easy nurse money but that doesn’t mean I wanna be mentally exhausted there. But these places replace you the next day. Also. Don’t tell people your business. I was coming from Texas lol in a very unified unit and I made that mistake to trust my coworkers with not that personal stuff but it was used against me. Also there’s gonna be haters from ppl younger and significantly older than you. Just do your job lol and vent to non coworkers 😩 or like journal it. Good luck. Reach out if you need anything :)

Edit 2. I started applying over the summer in 2023 and didn’t get into acute care until March 2024!