Having a family is a fantastic stage of your life, one that has bought its fair share of ups and downs but one that has left you with some fantastic lifelong memories. When you decided to have a family, you may have decided to give up on your nursing career. Trying to balance a highly demanding nursing role with a new or young family can be tricky and almost impossible, so you may have decided to pull out of nursing altogether. Now that your children are that bit older, things are a little bit easier, and it is much simpler to get out of the house and get back to a role or job that you loved doing, and that was rewarding too. Returning to nursing can be stressful, but there is no reason that it needs to be super stressful, as this would make you question your choices and decisions.
Making the Decision to Return Back to Nursing
You may have been thinking about returning to nursing for a while, but you may also have found that making that final decision is proving tougher to make than you thought it would. Of course, only you can make the decision to return to the world of nursing, but to help you along the way, you need to start weighing up the pros and cons. Weighing up your options and your choices with your family, if possible, will help you make the decision-making process that bit easier and quicker.
Knowing it is the Right Time to Get Back to Work
When you are deciding, you may ask yourself – How do I know it is the right time to return to work? Well, to answer this, you need to do a bit of soul searching, and you need to speak to members of your immediate family. Ask your children what they think about returning to work, and ask yourself if you are ready? Are you ready to get away from the house for longer periods? Are you ready to return to a demanding yet rewarding role? Are you itching to get back out there making a difference and helping people? Once you have asked yourself and your family these questions and more, you will be able to establish whether now the right time is or not.
Improving Your Career Prospects
Of course, things have changed since you were last a nurse, even if you have only been out a few years. To return to nursing and to hit the ground running, you need to improve your career prospects. To do this, you must look at taking on different roles and positions, and you must look at returning to education. Improving your knowledge and awareness and being able to apply this to a new role will increase both your job and career prospects.
Returning to Studying
It can be daunting thinking about returning to study, but it doesn’t need to be. You can study online from the comfort of your home and around your existing commitments, which is good as it will ease you back into a routine. When you look at studying, you need to make sure that you use a top provider. If you rush the process and go with a general educational provider as opposed to a more specialized one, you may later regret your decision. So, to get things right in the first place, you need to click here and establish what a difference it makes to your education and your future to study with the right provider. Balancing studying may be tricky in those first few weeks, but you must stick with it as it will improve your job prospects and give you the confidence and strength to find a nursing job that you deserve.
Finding a Job – Where to Start
After your studies are complete, the next step in the process is to find a job. Finding a job does not have to be stressful and should be seen as a positive step to take. To make sure you get the right job for you, then you must keep your options open. So, look at local centers and hospitals, look at leading job sites, but also look at out-of-state hospitals as the opportunities and chance for further progression might be even greater. If you are after a more flexible role and you are looking for temporary jobs, then consider signing up to a local nursing agency. When you are looking for new jobs, you need to make sure that your resume and interview skills are relevant, focused, and up-to-date. A refined resume will highlight your education and experience, and it will get you noticed above the other candidates, so make sure it reads well and looks good. Brushing up your interview skills by practicing on family and friends will make sure that you come across confident, knowledgeable, and fully aware in any interview that you get.
Top Tips for Settling Back into Work
Once you have landed a nursing job, you now have to get back into a routine. You must get used to leaving the house potentially more often, and you must get used to juggling even more things on your plates. To settle back into work, you need to take everything slowly and carefully. Trying to do too much at once can be counterproductive and can leave you feeling stressed and panicked. So, the best thing to do is take it day by day. Focus on doing your job well first and then focus on building work relationships and on meeting new work colleagues and friends.
Balancing Work and Family Life
One of the trickiest and most complicated things you will ever do is balance out the time spent between work and family. Keeping everyone happy and content can take a lot out of you and can leave you feeling exhausted and burnt out, so to ensure this doesn’t happen, regularly review how much time you are spending at work and at home and try and strike a happy balance where you can.
