Ready to work in the nursing field? For someone who hasn’t thoroughly researched the options yet, the nursing education system can be a bit difficult to understand. Let’s take a look at the education you need to become a nurse at several different levels:

Certified Nurse Assistant: To become a CNA, you only need to complete a training program. For this career field, training takes four to six weeks in the classroom and 75 practical hours working with patients, so it is the fastest way to get started working in the nursing field.

Licensed Practical Nurse: Called licensed vocational nurses in some states, licensed practical nurses spend one to two years to school, depending on the program they attend. You’ll be able to do more tasks than a CNA, but on average, LPNs/LVNs don’t make as much money as registered nurses.

Registered Nurse: To become an RN, you have three different choices: First, you can join a hospital-run diploma program. Although these are becoming increasingly rare, it only takes about one year to graduate from this kind of program. A second approach you can consider is get an associate’s degree, which takes about two years to complete. Lastly, you can go for a bachelor’s degree, which is a great option if you want a leadership position or hope to earn a master’s degree eventually.

Advanced Practical Nurse: If you earn at least a master’s degree in nursing, which requires one to two years of work beyond a bachelor’s degree, you can become an advanced practical nurse. There are four main types of APNs:

• Nurse Practitioner: If you’re interested in working directly with patients, this is the route to take.
• Clinical Nurse Specialist: In this type of role, you could do practical work, but you’ll also work in teach, management, research, and other nursing fields.
• Nurse Anesthetist: As the name implies, this type of APN works with general and local anesthesia during medical procedures.
• Nurse Midwife: APNs who go down the nurse midwife path worth with expecting mothers, new families, and newborns.

In the coming years, APNs in all four categories will need to go beyond master’s degrees and earn a doctorate in the field before being licensed by the state.

Bridge Programs: Many nurses state off in lower-level positions and work in the field before going back to school. Rather than having to repeat your medical education from the beginning, some colleges offer bridge or accelerated programs for nurses. For example, an RN-to-MSN program is great for nurses who don’t yet have a bachelor’s degree, but who want to become an APN. With this type of program, you’ll earn your bachelor’s degree along the way without having to graduate and switch programs. Or, with an LPN-to-BSN program, you’ll earn a bachelor of science in nursing without repeating the basic classes you took during your LPN education. Bridge programs are perfect for working nurses who want to advance in their careers as quickly as possible.

Health care may be one of the most recession-proof industries out there, but hospitals and other care-providers are not immune to the current economic situation.

In fact, the American Hospital Association (AHA) recently reported that nine out of ten U.S. hospitals have made financial cutbacks since the start of 2009, and almost half of them have had to reduce staff.

Want to stay above the budget-cutting fray? If you are a nurse, a great way to make yourself (as) immune (as possible) to the bottom line is to work as a travel nurse. Traveling around the country may not work for every nurse in every situation, but if you think a bit of adventure and a lot of opportunity is up your alley, the Onward Healthcare blog has three great suggestions for landing a job:

1. Be flexible

What’s most important to you? Destination or salary? If you are a stickler for one, then be a bit more flexible on the other.

2. Be Licensed

Keep your current licensure up-to-date, and work toward additional ones at each new position.

3. Be positive

The impression you make on your current assignment will impact your ability to land your next job. So keep that impression professional, competent and positive. Be the nurse that everyone loves to work with!

Also be sure to check out Onward’s awesome list of 101 Travel Nursing Links. While we didn’t make their list (maybe next year!), we think that our blog post profiling Travel Nursing Jobs is pretty darn helpful, too!

Time Magazine’s feature story this week is a sobering report on double digit unemployment. The magazine asks, frighteningly, if double-digit unemployment is here to stay. Economists had long since told us that when growth returned, jobs would return. But now, top labor analysts are wondering whether this truism still rings true. Has something fundamental changed (been destroyed) in our economy?

What’s the solution? According to the Time reporter, it’s as “simple” as an employment-emergency bill, which will:

guarantee jobless workers a basic set of rights for two to three years: health care, access to retraining, subsidized mentoring for careers in high-end manufacturing or health services.

One thing I did notice was that the article once again pointed to recession-proof/growth industries as education, health care and other service industires. It’s the same areas we have been touting for months here. (Just a reminder, the JobMonkey is a great source of information on these growth careers, including our extension section on nursing jobs, teaching ESL jobs, and green jobs.)

Okay, now, politics aside (is that possible these days), what do you think? Go read the article on Time Magazine, and then share your opinions with us!

Business Week ran a fascinating article a few weeks ago about how to find a job during America’s economic recovery.

As I’ve long been harping on here at the JobMonkey, the earliest growth will be in one of four fields: health care, education, government employment, and green business. In fact, these four fields have been some of the most stable over the past 8 months of the recession, posting positive growth numbers over a number of months despite record-high layoffs in nearly every other field.

Here are some of the highlights from BWeek’s article on landing one of these “jobs of tomorrow”.

Healthcare

• New report by President’s Council of Economic Advisors says that healthcare will be largest source of U.S. job growth over the next seven years (through 2016)
• 3 million new jobs will be added annually, including hundreds of thousands of nursing job opportunities
• For students, internships at a hospital or other health-care related organization are a great way to establish some credibility; for current job-seekers, a volunteer position is a great way to augment your resume and get your foot in the door.

Education

• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is set to invest $90 billion in education, with half going to local school districts
• Students can gain classroom experience by working as a teacher’s aide or substitute teacher — neither of which require a college degree
• Seniors and current job-seekers should consider Teach for America

Green Collar Jobs

• Job growth within the green collar job industry is expected to exceed 50% by 2016 — four times the growth for all other sectors combined (yes, combined!)
• Billions in federal dollars being invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy research
• For students, industry-specific internships demonstrate genuine interest in the field

Federal Government Jobs

• Hundreds of thousands of federal government employees are expected to retire over the next five years
• Stimulus Plan will add 200,000 additional employees at Social Security Administration, the Veterans Affairs Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Defense Department and more
• Federal government jobs cover a range of 900 different occupations

Be sure to check out the rest of the Business Week article here. It really is a wealth of advice for landing a job in these turbulent times.

The state of New Jersey has developed an innovative program to help stem its projected nursing shortage: a $22 million scholarship fund known as the New Jersey Nursing Initiative.

The privately funded initiative provides tuition and living stipend to nurses going back to school for a MA or PhD in nursing. The catch is that recipients must commit to being nursing instructors at one of eight New Jersey schools for at least three years after they graduate.

According to a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the nursing shortage problem is not due to a  lack of interested nursing students, but rather a lack of nursing faculty. The article quotes Linda Aiken, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the nursing shortage, as saying that approximately 50,000 qualified applicants to nursing programs are turned down.

With a more robust faculty, more nurses could be trained every year.

The state of Pennsylvania responded to the nursing faculty crisis in 2004 with the Independence Blue Cross Nurse Scholars program, which provides grants to graduate students planning to become nursing educators. The program is set to continue through 2011.

So why do nurses need a push to enter academia? One reason is the nursing salary. According to the Inquirer article, nurses in clinical settings can earn $50,000 a year more than those in faculty positions.

If you are interested in going back to school to become a nurse (faculty or otherwise), I recently came across this list of nursing scholarships that you might want to check out.

My apologies for not getting this Hot Jobs posted yesterday. My Mac was in the shop! It’s going back this weekend for a more extended repair job, but thanks to Apple Care, I don’t pay a dime!

The JobMonkey Job Center is loaded this week with a numerous nursing jobs all over the country. I often think about going back to school to become a nurse — it’s a wonderful profession and a career that it generally quite recession-proof. Are you about to graduate with your nursing degree? Or are you an RN who is thinking about making a career change? Then you should definitely check out these three hot nursing jobs (and click on over the Job Center for dozens more)!

1. 12-hr Shift RN Weekender, Cleveland, OH

The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, OH is looking for a Registered Nurse to pick up 12-hour weekend shifts. This individual will serve under the general supervision of the Nurse Manager and be responsible for providing professional nursing care and other related duties as assigned.

To qualify, you must have your current license as a Registered Nurse in the State of Ohio and one year of nursing experience.

2. Staff Nurse RN Job, Pediatric Specialty, St. Louis, MO

The Inpatient Neuroscience Unit of the St. Louis Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO is seeking a staff nurse to coordinate and lead the patient care team in the assessment, development, implementation, and evaluation of care for this pediatric specialty unit. The ideal candidate will be a graduate of an Accredited Registered Nursing (RN) Program (or anticipates graduation within 12 months or less), will have current RN licensure in Missouri or Illinois, will have Basic Life Support (BLS) Certification, and will have basic computer skills.

3. Nurse Anesthetist Job, Birmingham, AL

The University of Alabama Hospital is seeking a nurse anesthetist to provide anesthesia under the direction of an anesthesiologist for diverse surgical procedures and diagnostic tests, or cardio-thoracic surgical procedures and cardiac catheterizations. The ideal candidate will be an Alabama Certified Registered Nurse with his or her anesthetist license. (Tip: If you are looking for a high paying nursing job, nurse anesthetists are some of the highest paid in the field. It does require additional training and the aptitude to work in a high pressure surgical ward, but the rewards — financial and otherwise — are great.)

With a worldwide shortage of nurses set to reach peak proportions in the next three to five years, the demand has never been greater for qualified nurses.

If serving the greater good is important to you — and job security is pretty significant as well — then nursing is a great career choice. Here’s a look at four of the highest in-demand nursing positions.

1. Nurse Anesthetist
Nurse anesthetists are some of the highest paid in the nursing area, thanks to their advanced degrees, and high level of autonomy and responsibility. Certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) may practice in hospitals, dental offices, ambulatory surgical centers, military facilities and any other place anesthesia is administered. To become a CRNA, you must first obtain your Bachelors degree in Nursing and then a Masters degree in Nurse Anesthesia. A national certification must be passed, and then CRNAs have to undergo recertification every two years.

2. School Nurses
Unlike high paid CRNAs, school nurses earn slightly below the average salary for an RN. But they work 9-month schedules and are finished by mid-afternoon, making the job perfect for parents with young children at home. The primary responsibility of a school nurse is to advance health education, including protecting student and staff safety and promoting healthy living. Additional job duties include assessing injuries and illnesses, administering medication, and assisting in crisis intervention.

3. Hospice Nurses
Hospice nurses provide comprehensive physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual care to terminally ill patients and their families. This highly demanding work pays slightly higher than the average home health care position. Hospice nurses typically work on a team with other health care professionals, including social workers, clergy and meal providers, all of whom together provide a support system to one another.

4. Nurse Executives
One of the highest earning nursing jobs, nurse executives often earn $100,000 plus salaries. Their jobs are largely administrative, providing nursing consultation within various settings such as to the insurance industry, hospitals, and nursing unions. Nurse executives are typically involved in setting and implementing policy, with the potential to affect broad changes in health care settings. A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree is required for these positions, although most nurse executives hold a Master’s degree or even PhD in nursing as well. Many also have MBAs or Masters degrees in Public Policy.

Are you interesting in becoming a nurse? Be sure to learn more about this life-saving and -changing profession from the JobMonkey’s Guide to Nursing Jobs.

It’s a scorcher out there! But it’s even hotter in here (hahaha) with these red hot jobs this week! All punning aside, as you probably know by now, Wednesday is Hot Jobs day here at the JobMonkey blog.

That’s when I post three hot new job openings from our job database at the JobMonkey Job Center.

There are a ton of great new job leads over at the Job Center right now, including many exciting nursing positions. If you are interested in learning more about the nursing profession, and particularly about opportunities for traveling nurses, be sure to check out JobMonkey’s Guide to Nursing Jobs.

1. Nurse Clinician Job, Duke University Health System, Durham, NC
Duke University is seeking a nurse clinician to coordinate plans for the professional development of the nursing staff and to practice specialized patient care. The ideal candidate will hold a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, an Associate Degree in Nursing or a Nursing Diploma program, as well as State of North Carolina RN licensure.  Additionally, the candidate must have at least three years of registered nursing (RN) experience.

2. Camp Nursing Jobs, Shaffer’s High Sierra Camp, Tahoe National Forest, CA
Shaffer’s High Sierra Camp is seeking a number of licensed registered nurses for its summer camp. The job duties will include monitoring the health care of campers; implementing the camp’s health screening for arriving campers; providing first aid to campers as necessary; maintaining the camp’s health records; arranging for emergency medical care; and implementing the camp health care plan. The ideal candidate will have current CPR and first aid certifications, be trained in universal precautions for infection control, have experience working with children in a wilderness setting.

3. Registered Nurse for Cardiovascular Intensive Care, University Medical Center, Tucson, AZ
Tucson’s University Medical Center is seeking an RN for its Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit to provide basic nursing care to patients. The ideal candidate will be licensed to practice professional nursing in the state of Arizona, have at least one year of recent acute care experience required, and preferably have one year cardiac care or telemetry experience.

Becoming a registered nurse or RN takes a good amount of specialized education to be sure. First you get your undergraduate degree. Then you must get into a nursing school. And before you can do that there are a number of prerequisites needed. It’s a process! But most nurses agree that it’s a great profession that provides superior job stability, good pay and benefits, and the potential for flexible scheduling.

You can learn more about nursing careers on JobMonkey. We’ve got a whole content section devoted to the topic. Find out about the many different types of nurses,

When you’re done looking over that information be sure to check our new nursing job board, which is full of job postings.

Each Thursday, I get to do my favorite thing on this blog: Answer your questions about your job search. I love hearing what’s on your mind, so please don’t be shy! Send me an email or leave me your question in the comments section.

Just this week, I fielded two separate questions about how to find work in America when you are not an American citizen. I am going to feature one of the letters here today — but please know that the advice about work visas applies to any non-citizen interested in working in the United States.

Dear JobMonkey,

I have completed MBBS MD Physicians degree with honours. I am looking for a travel nurse job. I am ready to work from April ’til the end of August. I am doing a Masters in Radiology at the moment. I can speak Hindi, Urdu, English and Russian languages very fluently.

Thanks,
Dr. Hafiz

Dear Dr. Hafiz,

Thanks for your letter. It seems as though you are quite an accomplished academic! You mentioned that you are looking for a travel nurse job, which is a great way to earn some money on a short-term basis.

And given America’s ongoing nursing shortage (yes, despite the recession, the U.S. is still currently short tens of thousands of nurses!), you have chosen a great field.

I see that you hold an MD, which clearly qualifies you to work in the medical profession, but do you also hold a nursing degree? I ask because most travel nursing agencies require their clients to not only hold a degree in nursing, but also to have RN certification. If you do not have either, you may need to spend a few months working toward certification, which an agency can help you figure out.

Given your British spelling of “honours,” I am guessing that you are not a U.S. citizen. If I’m wrong, great… you shouldn’t have any problem finding a short-term assignment. But if my assumption is correct, then you will also need to make sure that you have the appropriate visas to be able to work in the United States.

Even if you are pursuing your Masters of Radiology here in the U.S. and you therefore already have a student visa, you must still procure a work visa in order to legally earn income in America. Again, the travel nursing agency can help you sort through the paperwork on this.

As far as finding an agency to work with, just run a quick Google search. There are hundreds of agencies out there, so be sure to do your due diligence. Check with the Better Business Bureau to be certain that the agency is legit. And be sure to ask upfront whether the agency will be able to help you procure your work visa and possibly your nursing certification (if you, in fact, need that).

Sometimes agencies charge a flat fee, but more common is assessing a percentage of the contract from both the employer and the nurse. Be prepared that these fees will eat into your salary somewhat. But given your short time frame and possible red tape hang-ups, I think you are better off utilizing the services of an agency than trying to find a travel nursing assignment on your own.

Here are a few more resources to get you going in your search:

>> Information on foreign worker visas from JobMonkey

>> An article from CNN Money, reporting that foreign worker visa applications are down this year — which could spell good news for you and others looking to get an H-1B application (work permit) in 2009

>> More information on how to petition for the HB-1 Visa from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website

>> Tons of information on travel nurses (AKA licensed nurses who travel around the United States taking on temporary and typically high-paid nursing jobs)

Good luck to you, Dr. Hafiz. I hope you are able to find the right fit — and quick!