Application to a Hospital as an RN

I am a newly registered nurse. Despite the pride and joy the title "RN" brings, I must admit, I feel ashamed at some point because I am not a practicing nurse. Through my job hunting, I realized how little the government acknowledges the presence of nurses in our country. There are hundreds of thousands of us but only few actually practice the profession in the clinical setting. Some of us are stuck in call centers, in industries far from what we have studied and in institutions that pay less if none at all.

Though we are degree-holders, board passers and even licensed in various training such as Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiovascular Support, Intravenous Therapy, among others, we still cannot get into our dream job. Most of us are not wearing that scrubs, or that neatly pressed nursing uniforms because the hospitals we dreamed of entering are either "not hiring" or just accepting "nurse volunteers".

Through checking blogs and threads on the Internet about how to get hired in a hospital, I learned that getting hired sometimes is so hard- you really have endure lots of patience and God's mercy if I may say so.

I learned that in order to get hired you either apply first as a nurse trainee, or a volunteer. Well, after you have passed the initial exam to get into the nurse trainee program, you must pass the interview too. Then after a few weeks of in-house training, you must pass another series of exams and interview before you can be included in the manpooling process.

Crazy, huh? But that's the way it is nowadays. Oh, did I mention that you have to pay too? They range from P6,000-P15,000.00 depending on the level of care that institution provides. If you really want to get into those big and famous hospitals, you have to prepare at least P10,000.00 from what I heard. And this payment is not a guarantee you will be hired.

There is this so-called rule, "No registered nurse immediately gets hired as a regular staff nurse." According to the threads that I have read, no one gets into a hospital without undergoing a Nurse Training Program. If you want to be hired, you must undergo the training provided by the hospital and pass the training.  Though not all institutions implement it, but there are those who claim that there are indeed institutions that follow that simple rule.

Nevertheless, I, together with thousands of registered nurses all over the country, follow the rules and comply with the requirements just to get into a hospital. Just because, it was the only way to get in.  Unless, you have been pre-selected by the HR simply because you have a backer who has a high position in that hospital you wish to apply to.