Job Obtained!

I finally got a job working as an RRT! It's a relatively small hospital--let's call it Hospital X on the internet for privacy's sake. I had my interview about 2 and a half weeks ago and found out I got the job about 5 days ago. My interview consisted of 3 tiers, for lack of a better word. The first part of the interview was with the human resources representative. She asked all the standard questions you'd expect to hear in an interview. After I was done interviewing with her, she wanted me to meet with the manager of the respiratory care department. Now, I had my very first clinical rotation at Hospital X and had met the manager once, but other than an introduction that one time, I didn't know him. His interview was different from the one I just finished. He mostly asked me what I would do in certain situations that could come up. One of the questions I remember was, "You're doing a treatment on a patient when you get three urgent calls one after the other. What would you do?" Another question involved how I would compromise with physicians. That part went well. He told me I did a good job and said he wanted me to meet with some of the other people in the department. I figured I must have been looking good to have me spend so much time there.

The third tier of the interview was the most nerve-wracking of all of them. Three people came into the room. Thankfully I knew two of them already. One was the clinical education instructor who was with me when I was there for my clinicals. The second person was a therapist who had taken me and my classmates when the instructor couldn't, and the third person I recognized by her face, but I had never met her. Anyway, all three of them were asking me questions in turn about anything and everything. I felt less confident when I was leaving this part of the interview because it seemed like a lot of questions were about my lack of experience. When I was walking back to my car, I honestly didn't think I'd get the job. I haven't had any formal job experience in the field, and it had been 6 months since I had any experience in clinicals. I thought that if anything held me back from getting the job, it would be the experience factor.

Needless to say that when I got the call this week (which was right before my shift at the store), I was very surprised. I think what helped is that I made a good impression during my clinicals there two years ago. It must have been a good impression because I was remembered by 2 of the 3 people in that third part. The job is only contingent, so I probably won't have any set hours, but it's still valuable experience for me. I'm extremely terrified to start the job, but I have to just trust that they wouldn't have hired me if they didn't think I could handle it. I'm extremely grateful to them for giving me this chance and I have to give it my best shot.