The nursing shortage in this country remains a major concern. Most healthcare organizations realize they need to do all they can to ensure their nurses are satisfied and remain on staff for as long as possible. According to a report from Nightingale Foundation, registered nurses who’ve been in their current job for less than a year have the highest turnover rates at 34%. However, the longer an RN has been on the job with their current employer, the statistics go down. A nurse who’s stayed with their employer for a decade or more is likely to remain. For those nurses, the turnover rate is just under 10%.
There’s a certain degree of comfort in staying in the same job for years. It’s predictable: you know your coworkers, protocols, and procedures are practically second nature, and the administration understands that you are a very valuable asset. However, some nurses begin feeling bored, stale, and ready for a change after a decade in the same job.
Reasons Nurses Change Jobs after Years
Leaving your long-term nursing role after more than a few years is a major decision. If you’re starting to feel it’s time to move forward and move on, then it probably is. Here are some critical signs it’s time for you to evaluate your current employment status before you experience career burnout.
- Dread: You consistently dread going to work, find it difficult to recover on your days off, and frequently consider calling out.
- Safety Concerns: You may be concerned about patient safety, or even your own safety, due to chronic understaffing or a toxic work environment.
- Your Empathy Wanes: When you begin feeling a lack of empathy and compassion for your patients, it may be time to change the environment.
- No Opportunity for Growth: If you feel the job lacks challenge or you’ve gone as far as you can, leaving may be your only option.
- Poor Compensation and Benefits Are Lacking: If you feel you’re not being compensated as the current market shows, or your benefits are lacking, then you won’t feel valued or respected.
- Life Changes: Maybe your family is growing, and you desire better work-life balance than you currently have at your job, or you’ve moved, and the commute is difficult, or your family decides to relocate.
Your Longevity is An Asset
When you decide to move on, whatever the reason, the thought of walking into a job interview can be more intimidating than calling a code. Especially if it’s been five, ten, or even twenty years since you’ve done so. You may have mastered patient care, running a unit, or precepting new nurses, but just the thought of talking to a group of managers and administrators causes you to break out in a cold sweat.
The good news is that your staying power works in your favor. Longevity is an asset, especially when you learn how to frame it. Here we offer some tips that help prepare you to walk into your next job interview with grace and confidence.
There’s no denying your ability to stay dedicated to your job for years is a show if strength. Seasoned professionals demonstrate stability and many other characteristics that employers are only too happy to have in a member of their nursing staff. Especially when those strengths encourage other staff to do the same. Here are just a few of the character strengths found in long-term nursing employees.
- Thorough Institutional Knowledge: Through longevity in the job, nurses show their ability to master protocols and procedures specific to their place of employment.
- Natural Mentors and Preceptors: Dedicated nurses are the backbone of any healthcare organization. To that end, when you demonstrate your loyalty through your long-term status, you show future employers you have that unique soft skill that helps you stay organized and communicate effectively. These are worthy characteristics that make you a natural as a mentor or preceptor.
- Better Patient Care: Research shows that the longer a nurse stays on the job, the better the patient outcomes. That means a nurse who has exhibited their ability to stay at a workplace long-term is a highly prized hire.
- Emotional Resilience: The atmosphere in any healthcare facility is one that’s emotionally charged. Your years of experience have shown you how to stay calm under the most unnerving stress, navigate emotional situations expertly, and maintain your professional attitude even during unexpected times of crisis.
- Strong Interpersonal Connections: Through your dedication to the job, you’ve developed successful ways to effectively communicate with your colleagues, administration, doctors, patients, and their families. This superpower also builds trust with your team as well as patients and their families.
Those skills you develop over years of staying with the same employer, or in the same facility, can’t be learned in a classroom or mastered through onboarding. You are a diamond, formed over years of stress and pressure, and a potential new employer recognizes that. Here’s how you can make that work for you in an interview, along with everything else you need to know if you haven’t changed jobs for years.
Start With Your Resume and Professional Profile
Putting yourself out there and interviewing for a new job after possibly decades can be overwhelming, even for the most confident nurse. Obviously, some of the rules have changed a bit, depending on how long it’s been since you interviewed. While preparing for an interview involves a lot more than simply updating your resume, that’s a good place to begin.
Long-tenured nurses may have resumes that haven’t been updated in years, and it probably shows. Before you even begin applying for a new job, update your resume to include any certifications, committee work, precepting roles, leadership positions, even informal or temporary leadership roles that weren’t formal promotions.
Quantify your impact. How many new nurses have you mentored? What initiatives have you helped implement? How have you managed high patient loads? Make sure your LinkedIn profile reflects these accomplishments. If you haven’t touched your professional profile lately, go ahead and build it out.Hiring managers will look you up on this professional platform before an interview. An outdated, bare-bones, or empty profile undercuts your strengths and achievements, leaving a lukewarm impression.
Reframe Your Experience to Showcase Your Strengths and Skills
Interviewing for a new job when it’s been a while can make you feel like a fish out of water. The initial reaction is to apologize for your stability. It’s such a rare thing these days that your loyalty and consistency feel unusual. But, as we mentioned above, that is one of your superpowers, and you shouldn’t feel the need to explain or apologize. Instead of downplaying your years at one facility, stress what you’ve learned and the skills you’ve developed during your tenure.
Your interviewer may wonder about your decision to leave after so long. Make your answer honest but simple; you’ve gone as far as you can in your current role, you’re ready for a more diverse patient population, a new challenge, or a shift toward leadership and career development.
Update Your Interview Vocabulary
Healthcare has evolved over the last decade or two, and some of the vocabulary has changed along with that evolution. For example, terms like value-based care, patient satisfaction metrics, interdisciplinary rounding, and electronic healthcare records are terms you’re bound to hear during your interview. These words may sound entirely foreign to you, especially if your current facility was lax in adopting newer charting software or care models.
Spend some time reviewing and understanding these newer terms. It isn’t necessary to become an expert overnight, but having a grasp of these current healthcare buzzwords and practices demonstrates you are someone who stays current and is a fast and dedicated learner.
Practice the STAR Method
If it’s been a while since your last interview and you fear your interview skills are rusty, practice the STAR method to structure your answers. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result, and it’s a standard for behavioral interview questions. Given the experience you bring to the interview table, you have a well of stories from which to draw.
When the interviewer asks you to discuss a time when you had to advocate for a patient or had a conflict with a colleague (both common behavioral interview questions), pick a situation. Describe what happened, what you did to handle it, and what the outcome was. Practice a few responses in advance using the STAR method, but resist the urge to ramble.
Be Prepared for the “Why Now” Questions
Because you’ve been in your current job long-term, you will inevitably pique the curiosity of the hiring manager. They will want to know why you’re changing jobs now. As we stated, staying at the same job for an extended period of time is much more rare than job-hopping every 18 months. Don’t see the interest as suspicion as much as genuine curiosity.
Have a clear, honest, forward-facing answer ready. Maybe you want more opportunities to grow in your career, room for advancement, better work-life balance, or you’ve mastered as much as you can in your current position, and you’d like a challenge, or simply a new environment. Never criticize your current employer or air your frustrations, even if that is part of the reason you’re leaving. Frame your answer in a way that focuses on moving forward and the excitement that brings.
Bring Your Curiosity
An interview is less an interrogation and more an opportunity to get to know each other in terms of your profession. Leaving your current job after many years is a big decision. Once you’ve made that leap, it’s only natural to fall into a “please pick me” attitude. But remember, you are deciding if the new environment and workplace culture fit your needs as well.
To that end, have some thoughtful questions ready. Ask about staffing ratios, opportunities for advancement, and career development. What is the management style? What is their onboarding process like? Asking these questions provides you with the information you need to make an educated decision. Your curiosity also demonstrates confidence, which in itself makes a good impression.
Brush Up on The Latest Salary and Current Market Knowledge
For those nurses who’ve been at the same facility and working for the same healthcare organization for years, it’s easy to lose track of what the current market actually pays. Those incremental and possibly small annual raises may not reflect your true value in today’s market.
Do a little research and find out what you can expect given your region, experience, specialty, and credentials. That way you can negotiate your pay from an informed position instead of what you’re earning in your current job.
Long-term employees frequently are unaware of current salary trends. That means they lose power when negotiating a salary. It’s not uncommon for a nurse changing jobs after a long tenure to leave money on the table once the deal is done. Be prepared going into your interview.
You Hold Exceptional Value
Nurses are valuable in any market, at any time. But with the current nursing shortage and the growing patient population, if you’re considering a jump after years in the same job, now is an excellent time. Follow these tips for a successful interview, especially when you haven’t interviewed for a new job in years.
For more information on how you can find that perfect new job after years in a job that no longer fits, please reach out to BOS Medical Staffing.
