If you want to be a nurse, you’ll have choices to make at all stages of your career. One that you’ll need to make close to the start of your nursing career, however, is how you want your career to progress.
You might want to qualify as an RN and start and end your nursing career in the same place – if you do, that’s no problem, and it’s your decision. However, you might want to get a promotion and advance your career, and if that’s the case, you’ll need to know where you want to go and how to get there. With that in mind, here are some career progression tips for nurses to help you understand some of the things you’ll need to do.
Do Research
Unless you know precisely what it is you are going to head towards, it’s going to be hard to make any plans at all. That’s why, if you want your career as a nurse to progress, you need to research what options are available to you. Do you want to specialize, for example, and study for an MSN FNP online? Do you want to become a nurse leader? Do you want to be a travel nurse or a nurse in a private clinic?
Depending on what it is you want to do, you can take the next necessary steps. What you don’t want to do is find you are moving in one direction when you want to be going in another. It’s far better to take your time to research first so you can avoid wasted time.
Go Back to School
When you know what it is you want to do, it might be (and probably will be) that you need a specific qualification to help you get there. This will be in addition to gaining as much experience and knowledge on the job as you can. If your research tells you that this is the case, you can find a number of excellent schools to study at to help you on your way to your career goals.
Of course, the issue is that this study, although important, can impede your experience-gathering or cause you to have a difficult work-life balance. That’s why online courses are so popular, as you can do it all when you apply for one.
Network
Networking sounds like something someone would do to win a business deal or find some kind of corporate job, but it can be useful in nursing as well. It can show you new opportunities or give you ideas you never had before. At the very least, it can help you determine what it is you want to do.
Speaking to other nurses can be beneficial when it comes to your career progression in a practical sense as well. Shadowing is a great way to learn more about a certain career path, and if you can connect with someone who is already working where you feel you want to be, you could shadow them and learn so much more. This could be the catalyst you need to push you forward (or to help you change your mind if need be).