| | As an OR nurse, Marie Torlincasi, RN, was making good money. But when she started her family, she quit her job. Although she knew it might be hard to get back into the profession later, she was willing to take her chances.When her youngest child went to kindergarten, she tried her hand at starting her own business, but realized she still wanted to be a nurse. “Only now nobody would hire me,” she says. “OR had changed a lot in the years I had been away, and I had no experience in any other field.” That’s when she decided to rethink her priorities. “I didn’t have to work in OR–I didn’t like the high stress,” she says. She decided to market her clinical skills in a different specialty and landed a job as a staff nurse at a skilled nursing facility in Long Island, N.Y.Getting back into the work force after taking time off to have a family or start a business may be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Industry experts say following three guidelines–be creative, be proactive, and be honest–can help you successfully re-enter the work force.”I look for a reasonable and honest explanation for the gap in your resume,” says rehabilitation nurse Pam Conlon-Sandhu, RN, nurse manager for the Center for Rehab at Mills Peninsula Health Services in San Mateo, California. “And why you have decided to come back.”In addition, she recommends finding out how technology has changed in your field, regardless of whether it is physical therapy or floor nursing. Now, everything has a silicon chip in it. And if you are not computer literate, it’s going to be a lot harder to be a competitive job candidate. Conlon-Sandhu’s suggestion: Take a computer class. “It shows you are not afraid to try something new.”Keeping your license current is important, but it is not enough. Many managers are impressed when they see a refresher course on the resume. But investigate the different options available before you decide on which course suits your career path the best. “I look for whether the refresher course has a clinical component, or is it restricted to the classroom,” says Renee Tomasello, a recruiter for Stanford Health Services in California.Identify areas where your skills have gotten rusty. If your IV skills need brushing up, take a class to get more comfortable. Not only do you learn something new, it’s a good way to showcase your initiative for your prospective employer.Find a mentor, suggests Marilyn D. Phillips, MS, PT, Director of Professional Development at the American Physical Therapy Association. “Someone who can guide and provide you with background and feedback on professional performance,” she says. In addition, she recommends using assessment tools that are published by professional organizations like APTA. “These are designed for advanced clinical practice but would certainly give someone a baseline within a certain area of practice.”Make yourself more marketable by highlighting volunteer and other activities that you have been involved in over the years–whether it’s helping the school nurse at your child’s preschool or volunteering at a healthcare facility.Bobbie Young, RN, at the neurosurgery unit at Stanford didn’t start working as a nurse till her youngest was in high school and she had been out of nursing school for more than two decades. As part of her refresher course, she did a training stint at Stanford, and when she was offered a part-time job as a staff nurse, she took it. But that was 15 years ago, and she’s not sure she could pull it off in today’s technocentric healthcare industry. “Now I am gone for a month, and we have a new machine, new documents, and new procedures,” she says.Understand where the healthcare industry is going and decide if you want to be headed in the same direction. “Nursing 101 is not going to be the same as it was five years ago,” says Joanne Martens, senior consultant in corporate services at the Career Action Center in Cupertino, California.Research the trends and requirements of the profession and reevaluate your work experience and skills with that in mind. Experts say sicker patients, high levels of job stress, and a constant concern with where every dollar is spent are some of the biggest changes in the healthcare industry over the years. People who are not comfortable with these changes need to consider whether health care is where they want to earn their living.Informational interviews can be a great resource. They can help you find out what skills are needed today for a job that you did five years ago.You can also find out what additional training you would need to leverage the skills you already have.”A resume that merely says who you were and what you did is of no value; it is a historical document,” Martens says. Once you identify your strengths and gaps, you can reframe your experience in the context of the future. “And design a marketing tool that says this is what I am today and here is what I can do for you.” |
