How long does the new grad window really stay open?
Alex counting down to boardsThe question
Graduated in May, still waiting on my ATT, applying anyway because that is what everyone told me to do.
The thing I keep reading is that there is a window where you count as a new grad, and once it shuts you are competing on different terms with people who have a year on a floor.
Is that a real hiring rule anywhere, or is it something we all repeat to each other? If you were hired well past graduation, did anyone treat the gap as something you had to explain away?
The conversation
3 replies- Nursing Mastery
Worth separating two things that get merged in this conversation. New graduate is not a regulated status with a clock on it. Where a window exists it belongs to a specific program: residency and fellowship postings set their own eligibility, and the posting itself is where that gets stated, usually as months since graduation or as not yet having held an RN position.
So the question that has an answer is never how long am I a new grad. It is what does this program's posting say, and those differ enough that reading three of them is more useful than any general rule.
- Ade in long term careRN, long term care, first year
Hired eight months out and nobody asked me to explain anything. What they asked was what I had been doing, which is a different question and one you can prepare for.
I had been working, which covered it. If your gap is empty, put something in it that keeps your hands moving, because the awkward version of that interview is the one where the honest answer is nothing.
- Rowan with two job apps openNew grad, past a hundred applications
The part that turned out to matter more than months elapsed was cohort timing. Residencies open in batches, and if you miss one you are waiting for the next batch regardless of how recently you graduated.
I wasted a lot of energy worrying about being stale when I was really just between cycles.
What would you tell them?
Answer from what you have seen. It posts without your name.
