Treat Clinical Like a Job Interview (RN)

00:01 As we finish up learning about clinical, I want to give you possibly the most important advice of all.

00:08 I want you to treat your clinical like a job interview.

00:11 Your clinical is not just clinical.

00:13 It is your first real step into the world of marketing yourself for your first nursing job. Many nursing students will actually end up getting tech and nursing assistant jobs at the hospitals where they are students while they are still in school. And I have seen countless nursing school students end up becoming nursing assistants on our unit, who then later ended up being hired as new grad nurses.

00:38 They get those jobs because the nurses enjoyed working with them when they were nursing students. They were seen as professional.

00:45 And people threw their name in the ring when the supervisor came out and said, "Hey, Chris applied for a nursing assistant position job.

00:51 I know you were paired with him a few times as a student.

00:53 Did you like working with him?" So even if you don't like the unit and never in a million years would you ever want to come back and work here, I want you to treat your clinical like it's a job interview.

01:07 Because people in the hospital, it's kind of like its own little community.

01:12 They talk, and you never know when a good impression will come in handy.

01:15 Maybe you want to work in the PICU, but you did a clinical rotation on a pedes heme onc floor, and you made a really good impression on those nurses.

01:25 So when you go to apply for that job in the PICU, you could ask the nurses that you've worked with on the other unit to email the nurse manager of the PICU and put in a good word for you. Even though that nurse manager doesn't know you personally because you have never actually had any experiences on the unit, and maybe they've never... They probably don't even know the nurses that are emailing them since they're at the same institution, and they've had a positive experience, it just kind of validates it a little bit more.

01:54 It gives you someone to vouch for you in that space.

01:57 So how would you actually treat this like a job? Good news. Mostly, it's doing all of the things that we have already discussed in this playlist. You want to be conscious of others around you.

02:06 Be excited to be there.

02:08 Do not go and sit in the corner with your peers and talk together when you could be out there learning.

02:14 You have such limited time when it comes to clinical.

02:18 People will absolutely notice when you are using it to just sit there and chat with your friends instead of going and seeking out opportunities to learn.

02:26 And if you do like the actual unit that you are on for clinical and could maybe picture yourself working there in some capacity, go and ask to talk to the nursing manager or supervisor or whoever is involved in hiring as soon as you can. As soon as you identify, like, "whoo, I might want to work here." As soon as you can in the semester. This will give them the opportunity to kind of like scope you out and ask the nurses about you while you are still there, while they still remember you.

02:52 Because they...

02:53 I don't want to hurt your feelings, but they won't remember you after you're gone.

02:56 And even if there is no open position right now, drop off your resume and ask them to please keep you in mind for a future position if one does open . A known good team player, which would be what you are if you're doing all of these things, will almost always get prioritized in hiring versus someone that is like totally unknown and a random, okay? And those are all of the clinical tips that I have for you at the moment.

03:21 If you have any others though, please feel free to leave them in the comments below and I will see you soon in the next series about how to navigate skills and SIM lab.