If You Want A Job, Do Your Homework!

With the economy as it is and the nursing job market being tight, many nurses find themselves taking the first offer to have a job. You would be surprised how many nurses get into trouble in their job or with the JOBBoard working somewhere that is not a right fit for them.

I suggest that if you’re looking for a job, do your homework on where you are applying and before you accept an offer to make an informed decision.

1. If it is a nursing home, check out nursing homes under medicare.gov and look for “nursing home report card.” This website has all the Department of Health surveys for those facilities. If there are deficiencies in the surveys and the facility did not obtain a high score, especially under the area of quality of care, you may want to rethink about whether you want to work there. It could indicate short staffing.
2. Talk to people who actually have worked or are working there. When you interview and take a tour of the facility, the staff is going to want to impress you. However, I suggest that you ask your colleagues if they know anyone who is working at the facility or have worked at the facility. Former employees usually give you the most information about what it’s really like to work there. But remember it was only their experience. That way you can make an informed decision.
3. If the facility is constantly short-staffed, ask yourself if you really want to work there. Do you want to set yourself up for that environment in which you are going to work harder without adequate staffing? This can also lead to trouble with your license.
4. If there is a way to look up malpractice actions that have been filed against the facility, check it out! Here in Indiana, that information is public record available at www.indianapcf.com and you can look up any provider, organization or facility to see if any malpractice actions might have been filed and how many. Would you trust a doctor with your healthcare needs that had a lot of malpractice claims against him or her?

If you take a job in fear and scarcity and end up working in an environment that is not a good fit or possibly even unsafe, it may provide you an income temporarily but, in the long run, it could be a problem.

Do your homework first so that you can go in with open eyes as to what you may be getting yourself into rather than just taking the first opportunity as a result of a fear in this type of job market.

It is well worth it to be proactive.