The Ambitious Nurse | RN, Nursing Career, Nursing Job Opportunities
Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Maybe you want a change because you're too exhausted, burned out, or ready for different leadership. Do you want to make a change in your clinical career, but you're not sure what to do next?
You're in the right place. This podcast will help you get the clarity you need to grow so you can have the flexibility and autonomy you want while leveraging your voice and expertise.
I'm Bonnie Meadows a Board Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist, Influential Leader, Career Coach & Well-Being Coach. Since being in the nursing & healthcare profession since 2004, I have found myself ready to make the next step but felt stuck.
I got to a place where I dreaded going to work. I felt burnt out and unmotivated. I knew deep down I always wanted something else. But I had no clue how to even with the hope of a graduate degree to advance me.
I finally realized that growing in nursing is about the journey and not the destination. I finally stopped looking for a specific job to fill my cup.
I developed a framework I frequently implemented to get the clarity I needed for my career and catapulted me into areas of nursing and healthcare I never imagined. I am sharing it all with you.
If you are ready to find career strategies crafted as an experienced nurse using your gifts and abilities,
A guide to help you get clear on your next career steps,
Contentment and joy in your work-this podcast is for you!!
So get ready to kick off those Crocs, pop in those earbuds, and let's chat!!
The Ambitious Nurse | RN, Nursing Career, Nursing Job Opportunities
30 // Tired of Searching for the Right Nursing Job? Use these 2 Strategic Tips to Find Your Best Fit as a Nurse with a Master's Degree or DNP
What if you could identify the perfect job opportunities that align with your strengths and desires using just a piece of the SWOT analysis? Join me as I guide you through strategic planning for your nursing career growth.
We'll uncover how reflecting on your natural talents and considering feedback from others can help you make informed career decisions. I'll share tactical steps and specific questions from the SWOT analysis to help you gain clarity, ensuring you find a role that truly fits you.
Imagine pinpointing the ideal job opportunities that perfectly match your strengths and aspirations using just a part of the SWOT analysis. Join me as I lead you through strategic planning for your nursing career advancement.
We will explore how assessing your innate talents and considering input from others can empower you to make well-informed career choices. I will reveal practical steps and targeted questions from the SWOT analysis to help you gain clarity and ensure that you find a role that is truly tailored to you.
Uncover actionable insights to pursue the career you want, not the one you settle for.
Remember to share this episode with your fellow nurses and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Tune in next Thursday for more career-boosting revelations!
00:24 Identifying Career Challenges
02:46 Using SWOT Analysis for Career Growth
05:43 Exploring Job Opportunities
14:13 Networking and Shadowing Tips
Want to continue the conversation? Send me a text right here.
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In the previous episode I talked about using a SWOT analysis to figure out your next steps in your career. In this episode, we're going to use just a small piece of that SWOT analysis and we're going to figure out what job opportunities we should strategically be looking for next. Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Do you want to make a change in your nursing career but not sure what to do next? Exhausted, burnt out and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a Board Setter 5 Clinical Nurse, specialist, influential Leader, career coach and well-being coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table and to be a resource for others. I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed until I found clarity and career growth strategies for experienced nurses like me. In this podcast, you will find simple tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need, solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership, and guidelines for setting boundaries at work, so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants, pop in those earbuds and let's chat. If you want to hear more about how you can grow your career, I want to invite you to continue the conversation about the tips I share on the podcast. Connect and ask any questions you have about your career growth with the Ambitious Nurse Insider newsletter. Weekly emails from me with tips and tools on how to grow your nursing career, as well as be the first of any special offerings before anyone else Also. That's where I share any links I discuss on the show and I have a special bonus for those who become an insider. Sign up using the URL bitlylink L-I-N-K. Slash ambitiousnurseinsidercom. Again bitlylink slash ambitiousnurseinsidercom. The link is also found in the show notes below.
Speaker 1:When I was making the transition from my job in quality to a role as a nurse educator not the current role that I'm in, but this was a role where I was also preparing to go back to school to be a clinical nurse specialist when I'd made the decision to leave that particular job, I had to go through this process because that was my dream job. So I had to go through this process of really figuring out. What do I want to do next. Probably before that, I was starting to get some awareness about what I like to do, what I didn't like to do. There was some confidence building that I actually had to continue to stay on top of because I was in a lateral violence situation. So, in order to not kill my confidence, I had to continue to do my own personal building of my self-confidence and work through that in order to stay on top of my work, stay on top of growing in some way shape form or fashion. And with that I pretty much did just a small SWOT analysis which helped me to really narrow my scope, because at that point I was wide open.
Speaker 1:It was I was leaving a job that I really wanted to have and I decided that that wasn't the route for me to go. I was in a position where many of you may be, of what in the world do next. There were things that were pulling on me and tugging on my heart and I pretty much just really narrowed down where I wanted to go and then I went from there. And that's what I want to help you to do. I want to help you to narrow it down. Many of you have an idea of what route you want to go, but you're being very timid about it. You're afraid. You're fearful because you don't want to end up in the wrong thing, but you have to try and do your due diligence. The thing that the SWOT analysis gives you is the opportunity to at least make an educated decision on what your next move should be. And so now we're going to take that SWOT analysis and I'm going to give you really just one or two examples from one question in the SWOT analysis on how to then take that to figure out what your job opportunities are. So this one is going to be a pretty short episode. I say that sometimes and then I end up going longer than expected, but I think this is going to be pretty short.
Speaker 1:Once you've established those key traits that you're looking for in your next job, with that SWOT analysis you've at least answered the questions and they should give you some idea of oh well, maybe I should go this direction or this direction Then it's time to explore some job opportunities. So at this point so at this point you must explore what you could do based on a calculated process of your desires, your skill set and how you want to grow and you understand what you face. And so how do we do that? Well, we take one or two questions out of each section, starting with the strengths area, and then we narrow things down. So here's an example.
Speaker 1:One of the questions that I shared from the personal SWOT analysis last week was what am I naturally good at? It's a good question. You might say what if I don't know what I'm naturally good at? If you're early in your career, you might not know, but you have an idea. You have an idea of what you're naturally good at. And guess what? If you don't know, then you need to take a moment and reflect, and you can also ask others. But if you don't know, then that tells me you're not doing enough reflection and reflection is very important in our careers so that we can be able to either dispute what is not true about us or confirm what is true about us. Also, we don't want to be working in the blind either. What is true about us? Also, we don't want to be working in the blind either, and we don't want to have others say things about us and we're not at least exploring is that true or is that not true? So that question what am I naturally good at? If you're naturally good at planning and executing, now you could be good at one and not the other. If you're good at at least one, then the next question you want to ask yourself is do I like interacting with people? Do I want to stay in a clinical setting? What am I naturally good at? Okay, I'm naturally good at planning and executing. Or I'm naturally good at planning. I might not be a great executor, but I'm naturally good at executing. I'm not a great planner, but we're going to go with planning and executing. We're going to go with that. And then the next question you want to ask yourself do I like interacting with people? Do I want to stay clinical or do I not want to stay clinical?
Speaker 1:If you don't like interacting with many people, your focus should probably be on project management, managing projects in a sector where the subject matter experts need a guide to help them to stay on track. So some of that is jobs who usually fit in that category. There are actually jobs that are project management jobs. There are jobs within quality that are performance improvement or quality management jobs or quality improvement jobs. There are jobs within healthcare that are within healthcare, construction. That are project management jobs. So, if you get the gist, these are the jobs. Yes, you're interacting with a small amount of people, but your focus is more so just helping those subject matter experts who come to the table to stay on track.
Speaker 1:Another example of what you could do with this particular question of planning and executing if you do love interacting with people, then you might want to find a job and you don't want to stay in clinical. You might want to find a job with a foundation like the American Heart Association. So this foundation they plan events to raise money and raise awareness about heart disease pretty much disease prevention. The American Heart Association is a great place for you to go and work. Now there are project management jobs within our healthcare settings and they are usually in areas where you do have to raise a lot of money. So within the children's hospital or within oncology, they do a lot of fundraising, depending on how large the hospital is. So it could be those foundations or it's working within the hospital system.
Speaker 1:In one of those project management jobs where they do a lot of planning and executing, an advanced practice provider role that does a lot of planning and executing is a clinical nurse specialist role. It is the best of both worlds of. I'm staying clinical. I love planning and executing on quality improvement projects. So that is a good route for you to go. Even a nurse scientist, that's right. That's a route that is a good route for you to go. Even a nurse scientist, that's right. That's a route that is good. Usually nurse scientists they work at a not a slower pace but their work is just. It's so much more in depth that they can't go but so fast. So those are just some thoughts. Now, if you are someone who likes planning and executing but you also like your job, but you want to kind of grow, then here's where you should consider growing your career by joining some sort of committee within a professional organization, finding your way to a curriculum committee for a professional organization, usually a larger one, where they have conferences, where they have to plan the agendas. There you can provide input and help formulate the agenda for the conference and that is a way to grow and build up your skills. Like, if you don't have the opportunity to grow with where you are sometimes, you have to take that growth outside, like you stay where you are, but then you to take that growth outside, like you stay where you are, but then you find these extra activities within your professional organizations to where you can use those skills that you've developed.
Speaker 1:I was talking to a nurse who I mentor from time to time. She has a doctorate degree. It was working in an environment where it just wasn't conducive for her to be able to use the skill set that she has. She knew what she was bringing to the table and so what she ended up doing was and she had these brilliant ideas taking her ideas to the professional organization and they are then using many of her ideas, or they hear her talk and they're like, oh, she'd be good at this or oh, she'd be good at that. Well, guess where her impact span is? It's no longer just at the hospital level, but her impact span is now over a whole specialty because she took that skill set, still working where she works and still doing what she does on a daily basis. But she took that skill set and she applied it to the professional organization, where they have room for her to grow and to use her skill set.
Speaker 1:So sometimes we can't be mad because the people and the place where we work is not doesn't have the opportunity that we're wanting. Sometimes we just have to look elsewhere. We don't always have to leave the role. Sometimes it's growing outward and not upward. They may not be able to do what you in-depthly want to do, or they may not have the capacity to do it. But if you like where you work and there's just some nuances to what you want to do, take that to your professional organization, because they are the ones who are really driving the work and the standards for what you do on a daily basis, especially clinically.
Speaker 1:Once you have established your strategy of what jobs you might want to do, then here's the other thing you need to do. You want to seek out opportunities to network and shadow. It is not enough, especially for those who have a master's degree in nursing or a doctorate degree in nursing, for you to just submit an application. It's more about who you know the higher you go in your career. Now some people take that and they think, oh well, here we go. Like these people, they just hire their own, or whatever the case may be, it's not necessarily about hiring your own. It's hiring who you're familiar with. Oh well, that's not inclusive and this, that and the other. And they are including inclusive practices? Yes, they are.
Speaker 1:But why not make it easier for yourself to just go ahead and get your face out there. Go ahead and get your name out there. Go ahead and get your name out there so that people can at least have a familiarity already with how you work. If you're able to do that Now, sometimes you're not, but if you're able to do that, then do it. So there are many ways to network.
Speaker 1:The one main way that I suggest is professional organizations. With professional organizations there are a few things. Say, you've had this job in mind, that maybe you want to be a project manager, or whatever the case may be, and you're looking to figure out, well, what kind of jobs do they have? Or what do they sometimes include in their resumes? Or what should I prepare for? As I am preparing my resume to then go on an interview, one of the things you can do is just go to find the professional organization for project managers, go to one of their meetings or attend one of their webinars. You can go to a conference so that you can hear the different facets of project management, or you can join the actual professional organization and get engaged on their committees. They're always looking for someone to come on board and help with growing the profession. So these are all opportunities for you to connect with like-minded individuals who may be either two steps ahead of you or 10 steps ahead of you, but you're able to get an idea of. Is this the work that I want to do, or yes, this is the work I want to do? Here's how I can prepare for that next step.
Speaker 1:And then shadowing. Shadowing can happen in two ways. You can ask someone who already does the work that you want to do. Ask them if you can hang out for a day. Or you could go to the area, like call up the manager, say I'm interested in this, especially if the position is already up and available. Call up the manager and actually go to the area and see how the work is being done for where you might want to work. And here's my bonus point, and this is a next level tactic Ask that someone who you see that is doing the work, build a rapport with them and then ask them out for lunch.
Speaker 1:Say hey, would you? And this is not, this is, I mean this. You can use this tactic if you're working at the bedside, but this is more so for people who are working five days a week. They are in that office life and looking to go to the next level. You ask them out that, that is, you're shifting into healthcare corporate work. You ask them to go out to lunch just so that you can have a conversation about the work that they do and get some ideas, even ask them for some ideas on how you can break into the industry, especially if it's a totally different industry than what you're currently doing. Build up the courage to ask them out for lunch and see what they say, and then it'll give you an idea if that's the right direction for you or if it's not.
Speaker 1:So to wrap up, once you've established your key traits that you're looking for in your next job, then you explore your job opportunities by looking at the questions in your SWOT analysis and doing an analysis to say, oh well, these are the job qualities that connect to my SWOT analysis. And then you start to ask yourself some other questions of do I want to stay clinical or not clinical? Do I like interacting with people or do I not like interacting with people? And I think that question applies to whatever you decide that you want to do, whatever it is that you're good at, because even if you're good at the clinical aspect of it, sometimes you don't like interacting with people and there is other work that you can do and still stay clinical. So do that, start looking for those jobs and include those elements.
Speaker 1:And then, two, seek opportunities to network and shadow.
Speaker 1:And I give you two opportunities to do two ways that you can do that. Networking, one being professional organizations, getting connected with those, because that's where you're going to find that niche of people in that job category that you're looking for. And then two, shadowing being either go to where the work is being done or ask someone in that area if you can have a sit down with them and talk about that particular job so that you can make an educated decision. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Otherwise, see you next time. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you. Now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for, and I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon.
