So often do we picture the tired floor nurse when the profession comes to mind. While RNs working on hospital floors or ERs bursting at the seams are common, they are far from the only way a nurse can apply for their license. There are literally dozens of career options out there. Opportunities to challenge yourself in new environments. Focus on the aspects of healthcare that excite you the most. Even earn more money.
How do you get specialized nursing jobs? It generally requires some extra education and standardized tests. Everyone’s favorite, right?
Don’t let that worry you. The barrier to entry, though not insignificant, is not insurmountable either. In this article, we provide a breakdown of how you can choose the right nursing path for you.
How to Start as a Nurse
Nurses all pretty much start out in the same place: getting their degrees. The traditional path is to enroll in a four-year university. Knock out your gen-eds. Get your clinical experience. Graduate after eight semesters.
The only exception is for people who are pivoting into a nursing career after having already obtained a bachelor’s degree in something else. In this case, you are eligible either for:
- Accelerated programs: Fast-paced curricula designed to let you get your certification in 18 months or less (actual completion times may vary based on the program). These opportunities allow you to start working as a nurse quickly, but they will also force you into the life of a full-time student. If that isn’t for you, you can work at your own pace through a….
- Certification-only program: Certification-only programs teach the same stuff as their accelerated alternatives but without a rushed timeline. With these, you can take classes at your own pace, working slowly to your degree.
With certification-only, you’re basically picking off college classes at your leisure. Your peers may be undergraduate students working on their degree the traditional route.
In many states, both options can be completed online. If you are going to take that path, make sure that the university you choose is both regionally and nationally accredited.
Regardless of what school or format you pick, you will need to fulfill the clinical requirements, which place you in actual hospitals.
Once you have done all of that, you still can’t quite work as a nurse. After graduation, you still have to pass the NCLEX— a beast of an exam that is the final step aspiring nurses must take to get their license.
The NCLEX can usually not be taken until 45 days after your graduation date. Use that time to get ready. While most people pass the NCLEX on their first try, it is a challenging test that demands respect.
Ok. Now what?
Once you’ve gotten your nursing license, you will usually start out working in the hospital setting. The vast majority of specialized career paths require specialized certifications. You may be able to work in a doctor’s office without any additional education, but for the most part, you will need to develop your resume a bit.
Putting in a year or two at a hospital will help you figure out what you are interested in and also improve your resume. Despite healthcare shortages all over the country, you may find that specialized positions are competitive for the simple reason that most communities only need a few people doing them.
The only case in which you might not go directly to a hospital is if you decide you want to get your master’s directly after completing your undergraduate work. If you are positive you want to become a nurse practitioner or another specialized position that requires an advanced credential, this is a good way to accelerate the timeline and begin your career with a competitively high salary.
The only issue is that it can be hard to know exactly what to specialize in if you haven’t been out in the real world of healthcare yet.
NPs generally get a specific endorsement. Psychiatric. Neonatal. Family. These specializations shape what you are allowed to do.
If you feel confident in your interests and the direction you wish to take your career it may be sensible to go directly into graduate school. This will increase your overall earning potential, allowing you to earn a significantly higher starting salary than you otherwise would have. Otherwise, give it a year or two. Specialized nursing jobs aren’t going anywhere.
How to get a Specialized Certification
Ok, so what does it take to get a specialized nursing certification? That will ultimately depend on what you are interested. The standard recipe is:
- Experience in the specific niche- If you are interested in forensic nursing, you’ll need to get forensic experience. If you are interested in a neonatal certification you’ll need—you guessed it—neonatal experience.
- Education- There will usually be educational requirements, including lectures and test work that need to be completed.
The educational requirements are often self-guided. Reading material. Lectures you watch online. Sometimes, they will involve seminars to sit through. The final ingredient is time. You don’t take those classes and get that experience overnight, right?
But I want instant gratification!
And you don’t want to wait for it either, right? You might not need to. Many hospitals are willing to hire established nurses into a provisional specialized role as long as they are actively working toward certification.
The breakdown is usually something like this: You take the job. You begin being trained by someone who already has that certification. You enroll in the required classes. Take the tests. Eventually—and this could be more than a year out—you get the certification.
Once you are officially certified you will usually have more freedom and possibly a pay increase.
Specialized nursing careers are a great way to both expand your opportunities and reinvigorate your passion. So many nurses leave the profession because they are exhausted by the punishing shifts inherent to the world of floor nursing. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you are passionate about healthcare, consider a specialized certification.
