Landing a job in the ICU as a new grad

Let me guess… all your nursing instructors told you that Med-Surg is the only type of nursing you should be doing when you first graduate nursing school. Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of people who love the Med-Surg world!! If it’s for you, then that’s great! I kept hearing, “if you go to the OR, you will lose your skills. If you go to the ER, you won’t get full head-to-toe assessment skills. If you go to the ICU, you won’t know how to take care of 5+ patients”. The list could go on… Am I right? As if it was some unwritten rule that nobody would hire you right out of nursing school.

I was told this by my professors too. I was told that it is not smart to start in the ICU first because if I can’t take care of 5+ patients, there is no way I would be able to take care of 2-3 extremely sick patients. While I kind of understood where they were coming from with assessment and time management skills, I knew Med-Surg was not for me. I am an adrenaline junkie and knew that critical care was for me. I didn’t know much about it, but I knew it was the unit I wanted to start in. I was about to try everything possible to land an ICU job from the beginning. I spent a lot of time researching what managers in ICUs ask in interviews, but most were for experienced nurses. “What would you do in a situation where ____ occurred?” Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t even know what ____ was. They don’t teach you critical care nursing in school, so how would I ever get this job? I decided to focus more on big-picture things. While I didn’t know what a specific scenario would bring, I could respond with “using my critical thinking skills, or my resources to…”.

Right now our job is not to know exactly what to do; because guess what? We don’t! (and here is a secret, they know that we don’t!) Our job is to know how to find out the information. Will you go to your preceptor? Your charge nurse? Check the policies online. This is a great way to answer this question because although you don’t necessarily know exactly what to do, you know your resources! As much as the interview is about you trying to get a job, you should also ask questions you sincerely want to know to ensure the hospital and unit are a good match. With the nursing world the way it is, you should want to know the turnover rate. Do new grads give good feedback on the preceptors you would be assigning me with? What is the experience level of the nurses on the floor? How long is my orientation? If I need more time are you willing to give it?

Hopefully, you will also have the chance to have a peer interview with actual nurses in the unit. This is always a good experience as well to be able to ask them questions about working here! During my peer interview, they asked me how I respond in emergency situations. I responded with an emergency that I experienced in one of my clinical rotations. Again, if you have not experienced any type of emergency, speak to how you would handle it. Or if there is another situation in your life you feel you responded well to, they just like to know that you work well under pressure! Here is the thing, ICU is not for everybody. But if you think it’s for you, give it a shot! If you start your orientation and realize that it’s not for you, they are always very understanding and will help you transfer to a different hospital area if possible. They want you to succeed
as a nurse, and so do we!

You got this!