International Graduate Nurse Tips and Tricks - Grad Nursing Success Series
International Graduate Nurse Tips and Tricks - Grad Nursing Success Series
Are you a graduate international nurse? Do you dream of landing your dream job in nursing but feel limited by negative comments from peers about the unique challenges you face as an international graduate? If so, this episode is for you!
In this episode, I offered practical advice and encouragement to help international graduate nurses achieve their nursing goals. From dispelling myths about job options to sharing success stories of other international graduate nurses who have landed their dream jobs.
I also talked about the unique challenges that international graduate nurses face, such as language barriers and cultural differences, and how to overcome them. Plus, you will learn what to avoid when looking for a job and how to craft unique applications that showcase your strengths.
So, if you're a graduate international nurse looking to land your dream job, this episode is a must-listen. Don't miss out on the valuable insights and tips that can help you achieve your nursing goals. Tune in now and start taking steps towards your dream job!
Key takeaways:
03:09 - What options are available to you?
04:57 - How do you stand out?
05:20 - The unique challenges that you're gonna face and a success story of an international graduate nurse
13:35 - What not to do as an international graduate nurse
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**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.**
Liam Caswell:
Hello. Welcome back to the Graduate Nurse Success Series podcast with your host, Liam Caswell. I hope you're well. I'm so excited to be here. This is episode three of the Grad Nurse Success series. I would love for you to come and tell me over on Instagram at High Performance Nursing. If you're not following us, what are you doing?
Come and tell us what you are taking away from this podcast series, my intention with this is to help you succeed in your graduate applications in 2023. And I hope to serve all of you in some way, shape, or form. So please, you sharing this with your peers, your university, your nursing society. Is an amazing, amazing thing and I'm truly, truly grateful.
I see some of you sharing it online. Thank you very much. The more people that see this, the more people that will get the help. Please don't gate keep, cause someone told me this week I'm not sharing it because it's too, it's too good and I don't want other people to know all the tips, tricks. That's not a nice nursing thing to do.
Okay. Telling you off , don't do that. Share it. Everybody deserves support and help.
Okay, so today we're talking about landing a grad as an international nurse. So we've talked about graduate programs, we've talked about specialty programs. Now I want to cover how you land a job as an international graduate nurse.
And I want to say hello to the international graduate nurses because I am an international nurse. I'm not an international graduate nurse, but I was an international nurse, just like you had to come to Australia, navigate it all, work it all. Learn the systems question why everything was totally different.
Question some Australian veteran control practices, but we won't go there. And then I had to get my R and get a job in all of the things. So although I didn't do this as a graduate, . I have lived experience doing it as a nurse, so I feel best placed to help you achieve your graduate nursing goals. So what I want you to tackle today, couple of things.
Four main things. What options are available to you as an international graduate nurse? How do you stand out from the peg? The unique challenges that you're gonna face as an international graduate nurse that others will not face and what not to do, okay. As we move forward, and if you stick to the end, I'll give you some tips about how I can help you make sure that you land your dream graduate role.
So, number one, what options are available to you? Now, if you're like every other graduate nurse that I've spoken to, international graduate nurse, You are gonna tell me things like, I'm an international graduate nurse, I can't get a graduate program. I've heard that I can't do a specialty program. I'm not able to do X, Y, and Z.
It's really difficult for me to get a job. And then my question always is, who told you that? And usually it's your peers, right? Usually it's other people, or maybe it's graduates that have gone before you. But what I wanna offer to you is that those graduates don't have high performance nursing. in their back pocket, helping them move through everything.
So times are changing my friend. And yeah, maybe at some point in time it was really, really difficult for international graduate nurses to land their dream job. But what I want to offer to you today is that you can do whatever the hell you want. You can do all of it. If you want to get into the public system, you can't.
If you want to get into the private system, you totally can. You wanna go to a community or a specialty program? You can do all of it. I know it's fabulous. . Okay, so let's not believe all of the rubbish that is floating around all of these thoughts that people try and impose on you that are trying to keep you in this scarcity, worried mindset where you're thinking, I've just spent a hundred thousand dollars to do a degree and now I can't get a job because nowhere will take me.
It's totally possible and doable. Okay, so we have worked with people just like yourself that are international nurses from Korea, China, India, the Philippines, Nepal, all over Europe, New Zealand International. It's international , right? All of these people, and we've worked with all of them and we've helped them land their dream graduate.
So how do you do this? How do you stand out from the pack? If you've been on our website, you'll notice that we have a couple of video testimonials. I strongly encourage you to go and watch one of those if you're an international nurse and you need to build belief in your abilities to do it.
Because we worked with an incredible, we've worked with incre. Heaps of incredible internationals, but Rosa was kind enough to do us a video testimonial. I want you to go and watch that video. Testimonial Rosa joined us. She's an international graduate nurse. She's based up in Queensland, and she came to me with all of the fears that all of you have.
I'm not confident. I'm not capable. My English isn't good and I also don't know that I can get my dream job, which was pediatrics because I don't, I mean, in international, and I've heard that everybody says you can't. Drain job in, in pediatrics. And she came to me and I said, sure, not a problem. Let's help you if she joined our graduate career launch program, by the way, which is open at the moment.
So we got to work in the G C P and how she stood out from the pack was that, first of all, this is what most of you are skipping over. We built her belief. We built her belief in her abilities. To be able to achieve her dream graduate role. So we started working on her mindset. We started challenging thoughts like, I'm not good at speaking English, which was total rubbish.
Go watch the video. Her English is incredible. Thoughts like, I'm not capable of getting my dream pediatric job. Again, total rubbish. Go watch the video, right? . So I want you to really think about what is it that you're telling yourself that's not actually true? What are you telling yourself that's stopping you from being able to make your dreams a reality?
That's the first thing. The second thing was we jazzed up her applications. So we took our cv, hair cover letter, her selection criteria, and. Astros are what made her unique and different, and as we identified all of these things, her strengths, the things that really make her unique for an employer to want, we started crafting out this amazing high performing CV cover letter selection criteria.
And from there she started building more belief in her abilities. To land her dream graduate job. And then as we moved through and we started applying for more and more jobs, she started getting really positive feedback from the hospitals. Now I want to make this crystal clear. She did not put out the same CV Cav letter selection criteria to all of the jobs.
She applied for 10 roles. She put out tailored and tweaked and adapted application documents for each one. She took the time to tailor and tweak them all instead of just spraying and praying. Okay, if you spray and pray and you send your application out into all of these programs, and they're all the same as an international graduate nurse.
They will sniff it out a mile away and they will not give you the opportunity. So we tailored and tweaked each one of them and we supported her with that in the G C P cause she was busy on internship. Right. So we supported her through that. We applied for these programs and she started building more belief because she started getting interview requests for public and private hospitals.
I know imagine that not only did she get interview requests from public and private hospitals in Queensland, she also got them in New South. S c t Tasmania, I believe. And I think she did WA and Victoria as well. I might have missed one, but did you just hear what I said? She had multiple interviews for multiple public and private graduate programs across the country.
So if you're an international nurses in here thinking, I've gotta do each care, I really don't want to do it. It's my only option. Send this to an international nurse that you know that needs to hear this today. Because what Rosa did was she just really lent into our process that we teach in the G C O P.
She applied, she tailored, she tweaked, she made herself irresistible to the employer. She made it silly for them to say no. Okay? And when she did that, when she positioned herself as one of the best quality hires in this process, and then she went to interview and she used everything that we taught her in the interview coaching process.
She nailed it. So she applied for 10 jobs. I think she had eight interviews and she got five Job offers. Five job offers as an international graduate nurse. Now, this is not unique to Rosa. We've had multiple graduate nurses that are internationals come in and get multiple job offers in public and private programs.
So it, it's just not factually true. I'm just gonna keep repeating. It's not true that you can. You can with the right strategy, tools, and support. So Rosa got five job offers and not only did she get five job offers, right? She got an incredible, incredible offer in a public hospital system in Queensland.
And she was at the only, she text me on the day that she started her job and she said, Liam, I've just realized I'm so emotional because I've just realized that I am the only international graduate nurse that they. In the pediatric public hospital program in Queensland. Let that drop the only one. Now, there's lots of thoughts that I have about that because we should be taking more.
I think that's very important to acknowledge diversity in all of that. And don't even get me started on diversity in hiring and all of the things, because when you look at these pictures of graduate programs and a lot of these states and territories, there are a lot of people that look like. Very white , white and pasty, and I don't don't think that we're representative of the diversity of the graduate workforce in Australia, but that's for another date.
I digress. But what I want you to acknowledge here and to hear is that, She was able to get to that place because she went all in on her dreams. She didn't think it was gonna just land on her lap. She also didn't just spray and pray. She didn't believe all of the brain rubbish. That was, she was, our brain was giving her like all those negative thoughts.
She had worked through all of them. She exposed herself to multiple opportunities. She kept trying and trying and trying. She applied. She interviewed for eight of them and got five job offers, and she landed her dream pediatric offer. Things like that don't just happen through luck. So if you're somebody that's thinking she's lucky, she's just lucky.
It's not like my friend. It is strategy. It's hard work, it's perseverance, it's trying, it's being willing to move forward, and it's being willing to risk not getting it. That is how you set yourself apart from other people. As an international graduate nurse now. Rosa in her testimonial says if she didn't have the G C P, she doesn't know what would've happened.
And I truly believe that to be true. The reason why we've set this program up is because people like Rosa were coming to me many years ago and they were out of work. They didn't have jobs. Okay, so this is some of the unique challenges that are faced by international graduate nurses, and we have some graduate nurses in our program that didn't come and join the G C P, and then they applied for the grad programs.
And then they didn't get their dream graduate program and what happened is that they were left jobless and they were in this place where they were like, what do I do? How do I move forward? I dunno what I'm doing.
I did all this training, I spent all this money and now I'm not making any money. So that's one of the unique challenges that you guys are gonna face as international nurses is there is discrimination, there is bias. Towards Australian nationals, which now is good and bad. There's pros and cons to that for sure.
The other thing that you're facing is that if you do not get into a first round, like into a graduate program, it is harder to land a job after you miss that boat. So if you don't get into a graduate program, public or private, and then you're trying to find roles after they've all closed and they've all fulfilled the positions, trust me, we have people in our programs that are working through that.
It's hard. It's very, very hard. So I want you to hear me loud and clear. It is better to go all in at the start when these programs are open and you have all the opportunities then to wait and just hope that you're gonna make it and then wait until after. Trust me. It doesn't matter how many people tell you.
We're desperate for nurses, we have nurses hemorrhaging left, right, and center. We need more nurses. It doesn't matter. They only have a certain number of graduate FTE positions available within each program that they can hire to. And once they've filled that quota, , it doesn't matter if there's 300 vacancies in that hospital, they're not gonna open them up mostly to graduate nurses.
They're gonna fill them, try and fill them other ways before they'll take graduates into them. So I want you to be crystal clear on the fact that you will face unique challenges as an international nurse and that it's better for you to set yourself up for success preventatively proactively than reactively.
At the end when you're like, oh my God, I've got a hundred chemo off of debt. How do I do this? What do I do? Where do I go? Now, one thing that I need to tell you, all of what not to do is one, wait until you've not landed the job to take it seriously, okay? So don't do that proactively. Do all of the work ahead of time and make the time to set yourself up for success.
The other thing that I need to just make crystal clear here is that I don't want you to do is I don't want you to finish your degree and then go and apply for what I've heard in the industry is a work ready support program where you pay another $10,000, another 10 k to do four weeks of unpaid work where you may or you may not get a job at the end of event.
I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with international nurses who have come to me and said, Oh, I didn't land a job and I don't know what to do, and I've signed up for this work ready support program and it's like 10 grand. It's ridiculous. It's so much money and you're basically paying to go and work in a hospital for free.
So you're paying for another placement, but you've already done three years of placement, so why do you need another placement to prove that you're good enough? It makes no logical sense for me. Most of these people that do these programs don't my jobs. Some of them do okay, but I've worked with a handful of them that have not.
I also have a huge pool of people that come to me that say, Liam, I've done this program and I haven't got a job. What do I do next? And I say, we've gotta apply. We're gonna make sure that you're irresistible to the employer. We've gotta do your CV, cover selection criteria. We've gotta get creative. We've gotta show them why you're the best fit.
and they quit on themselves because they're so fed up of having to keep working for free that they don't even think it's possible, that they've lost all belief. So please promise me as an international nurse, you will not do one of these programs. There are cheaper, more effective guaranteed ways to get you into the job system as a nurse into the industry where you don't have to sell yourself and you don't have to work for.
Okay, so please, please don't do that to yourself, okay? I'm begging you don't do that, and I'm not begging you to not do that, to come work with me. If you choose to come work with me, that's incredible cause we guarantee your results. But if you don't choose to come work with me, just please don't, don't go and work with those other people.
Don't do that to yourself. You don't need that. You just need a better application. You need a better cv. Cover letter selection criteria. You need better interview tactics and strategies, and you need to learn how to sell yourself. That's what you need. You don't need another four weeks of busting your guts on the ward being treated like an i n for four weeks.
When you're a qualified e n or rn, don't do it to yourself. Okay? So if you're an international graduate nurse, there are so many options available to you. It's very exciting. Never before has there been options like there are now for you. So I want you to really hear that. You can do public private, you can do, you can nurse on your terms.
You can create a nursing career that you want. And that you will love. We're just gotta jump over some other hurdles. Okay? Of course, one hurdle I didn't mention, which is a given, is visa and getting people to sign you onto Visa, but most of you tend to have that sort. Just keep that in the forefront of your mind.
If you're asking someone to sponsor you for a Visa, you're gonna make it super appealing. You can't just be like, I need a nursing job. You've gotta show them why you're the best person to sponsor. Okay? So if you're 70, that is an international nurse, you're finishing your grads this year in 2023, and you're thinking, what the hell?
Where do I go? What do I do? How do I apply? I've never done a CV before. I've never done a cover letter. I don't know how to write selection criteria. I'm stressed about interview. Will I get a job? Won't I get a job? I've got bills to pay. Come and talk to me. Come and join. First of all, you need to download our International Graduate Nurse Career application guide.
Download that. It's free. It will get you started. Okay? But it's just a starting point. And then from there, I want you to book a call with me to have a chat about your career, your options, and how we can best help you. Go to our website, www.liamcaswell.com/gclp c. Look at our G C P program.
Hit me an email. Ask me any questions. Come onto Instagram. Let's chat. Let's explore where you are in your international graduate nursing career and make sure that you have. all of the options available to you when you finish up. Imagine getting five job offers for public and private programs that you really, really want.
That is possible for you, my friend. As an international graduate nurse, we can help you achieve all of that within the G clp. If you are somebody that wants all the support, come and join us. Let's have a chat and we'll take it from there. But otherwise, if you're not an international graduate nurse, please share this with a classmate because I.
You've got an international graduate nurse in your class, please share it with them. I will be forever grateful and I will see you in next week's graduate nurse success series.
