Is It Hard Getting An ER Tech Job?

[BirdIsTheWord]

Hey guys, for those of you who are ER Techs or Care Partners or whatever, was it hard to get your job? How many hours of previous experience did you have?

I just got my EMT cert, and while I know it would be a long-shot to land a job with virtually no experience, do I even have a chance?

Thanks

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[45408]

no experience = no chance when I was looking

 

[bucks2010]

your best bet is to get any job you can within a large hospital system (i.e. as an aide, transport, etc.), and then transfer internally once a position opens up. it will be much more difficult to get an ER tech position as an external applicant. look for aide & transport positions.

 

[pseudoknot]

Most places I've ever heard of want some field experience. Usually that also leads to contacts in the ED from bringing in patients. But you never know till you try.

 

[Bracey]

Hey guys, for those of you who are ER Techs or Care Partners or whatever, was it hard to get your job? How many hours of previous experience did you have?

I just got my EMT cert, and while I know it would be a long-shot to land a job with virtually no experience, do I even have a chance?

Thanks

I got the job at 19 with only an EMT cert and some volunteer time in the same ED.

 

[Bancrofti]

Why are you not just attempting to be an EMT? It's better pay (in most areas) and requires less work.

I'm a tech now, but I guess I got pretty lucky. I filled out the job app online and literally got a call back a day or two later about interviewing. At the time, I was working at a different hospital as a transporter. The hospital I was working at happened to be closing and I know in the last days there was a job fair and a few hospitals within a fairly close radius were there taking applications, not sure if there was some type of agreement to hire a certain number of my original hospital's employees.

I know over a dozen people that have applied for my position at the hospital and no one has been able to get in. There is ALWAYS an opening available. As employees we can see which floors have a vacancy and are allowed to fill out transfer requests. For the most part, it is a floor to floor transfer that fills the openings, or a lower level position - to tech position transfer.

My advice to anyone trying to get a job at a major hospital would be to apply for the lowest level position possible, put up for the crappy job for the first 3-6 months or whatever the minimum requirement is, then fill out a transfer request for your desired position. It's actually what I ended up doing inadvertently. I started at the new hospital as a Unit Clerk (secretary) and after about 5 my floor had a tech opening and I asked the head nurse if I could have the job and she said yea. Just had to go through the training for it.

 

[BirdIsTheWord]

Yikes, I applied for the major ambulance agency too and they updated their website saying they did not have openings the day after.

How is the pay for those crappy low tier jobs? I'm already making minimum wage now, but I do wish to make more

 

[bucks2010]

Not exactly sure, but you can get paid significantly more if you are PRN (the tradeoff is no benefits). PRN pays at least $2/hr more where I work.