How to Level Up Your Nursing Career

by | Jul 10, 2023 | careers, Education, Guest Blog, Latest News

My Town Tutors is a great resource for parents & teachers. Find qualified tutors in your area today!

Leveling up your nursing career is an excellent way to boost your competence and become a more successful nursing professional. Finding ways to progress your career to the next level results in professional and personal growth, a better job title, a broader skill set, more responsibilities, and more pay. If you’re fueled by growth, advancing your nursing career can boost job satisfaction and open new opportunities.

To successfully level up your career, determine your career goals, plan your advancement, work towards growth, pursue advancement opportunities, and find ways to overcome obstacles. With the right strategies, you can quickly advance your nursing profession. Here’s how to level up your nursing career.

  1. Earn a post-master’s certificate

What is a post-master’s certificate? It’s a nursing program for registered nurses with doctoral or master’s degrees. Such a program furthers your education and lets you gain expertise in a new specialty. Earning a post-master’s certificate can help you qualify for the in-demand positions that require this certification when hiring. It’s also a great way to boost your practice and advance your career.

You can choose a family-focused primary care, mental/ psychiatric, or adult-gerontology care program. A post-master’s certificate enables you to assist more people, opens up more career opportunities, and could mean a broader scope of care. It also positions them to contribute to meeting the growing demand for primary care practitioners. Earning a post-master’s certificate prepares you for leadership roles and provides educational enrichment.

  1. Become certified

Nursing certifications are an excellent way to level up your skill set. They can lead to better earnings, career progression, and broader employment opportunities. As a certified nurse, you’re likely to offer improved patient care. Some of the certifications to consider include the following:

  • Basic Life Support: This certification covers appropriate emergency response such as CPR techniques, what to do when patients can breathe, and teaches how to identify life-threatening emergencies and use AED
  • Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS): It teaches nurses how to recognize distress in children and infants and give the correct breathing and cardiovascular interventions to save their lives
  • Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS): This training teaches standard drug therapy, life support skills, and team dynamics

Most nursing professionals, including those working in elderly care facilities and urgent, emergency, or critical care units, may need these certifications to be considered for employment.

  1. Consider specializing

While a nurse’s ability to be comfortable and flexible in changing environments is vital, specializing in a specific practice area can help you develop the skill set needed to effectively address patient needs in that area. Specializing in a particular nursing field boosts your expertise level, results in more satisfying work, and boosts your job prospects while setting up for growth.

Nursing is broad and complex, with many specialization areas, including travel nursing, health policy nursing, nursing informatics, ambulatory care nursing, and critical care nursing. You can also become a case management, dialysis, geriatric, neonatal, mental health, oncology, or pediatric nurse.

  1. Find a mentor

Advancing your nursing profession can be overwhelming. However, having a mentor, regardless of your nursing level, can be helpful. A mentor is more experienced than you in nursing and should be ready to share their time and knowledge to help you attain your goals. They offer guidance by providing advice and insights to keep you from making mistakes and succeeding sooner.

A good mentor helps you find solutions for nursing tasks you’re struggling with, gives you emotional support when overwhelmed or feeling confused, and helps boost your confidence by informing you when you’re making a mistake and doing great. Since mentors know more about nursing, they’ll help propel your career in the right direction and introduce you to their networks. They can even recommend you for better positions or inform you whenever new nursing opportunities arise.

  1. Join professional nursing organizations

Joining one or more professional nursing organizations can help you engage with other nursing professionals to maintain and develop competence, get support for career goal achievement, and improve your nursing practice. Becoming a nursing organization member connects you with your peers/ like-minded professionals and provides certification opportunities, continuing education/ learning, educational conferences, and role-based competencies.

Interacting with your peers can open new doors, offering better work opportunities. It contributes to professional growth and development and builds your leadership skills. There are many professional nursing organizations you can join, including the National League for Nursing, the American Nurses Association, the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, the National Nurses Student Association, the International Council of Nurses, and more. The best nursing organization to join should align with your career goals and needs.

  1. Look for new employment opportunities

While internal promotions are a perfect way to advance your nursing career, you might have to wait longer for an opportunity to arise. Additionally, once you go the specialization way to level up your profession, your current employer might not service patients within your specialization area. In such cases, seeking better employment opportunities elsewhere would be better. Consider looking for a new job if you’re no longer progressing in your current job or feel stagnated.

  1. Consider volunteering

Volunteering is an excellent way to accelerate your nursing career while impacting communities. Through strategic volunteering, you can learn more about the nursing tasks you enjoy, build connections, identify your strengths, and gain essential experiences and skills. If you’re unemployed, volunteering increases your chances of getting a job.

Through volunteering, you can access free resources and training, expand your knowledge of specific healthcare-related issues, bridge experience and knowledge gaps, and grow your professional network. You can also earn transferable experience and skills like budgeting, communication, advocacy, research, and campaigning.

Volunteering can help you gain public speaking, management/ leadership, mentoring, project management, and influencing and negotiation skills. If you’re already in nursing practice, you can find volunteer opportunities through community organizations or job boards. If you’re in nursing school, look for volunteer chances in NGOs, the American Red Cross, or intern at a local hospital.

  1. Take on additional nursing responsibilities

Taking on extra nursing responsibilities besides regular duties is helpful, especially when seeking a promotion. You can request more duties to prove your capability while building the skills you’ll need to thrive in a higher position.

Endnote

Advancing your nursing professional positions for better jobs prepares you for leadership and increases your pay. Consider using these tips to level up your nursing career.