Investing in your continual growth, even when you’re already qualified, can certainly pay off in the long run. This is especially true for nurses.
As a nurse, you need to make sure you’re staying in the loop of all the advances that are constantly occurring in the medical industry. You also need to have the latest knowledge to stay competitive in the job market – particularly, when you have your sites set on a certain position or facility.
Once you’ve landed your ideal job, dedicating yourself to continual growth and development can also help to keep things interesting for you. In this way, upskilling can not only help you secure work, but it can help keep you engaged and energized in a traditionally exhausting profession.
There are even more advantages to upskilling – including the personal development that comes with bettering yourself professionally.
Stay with us as we uncover the top 5 reasons why you really should invest in upskilling as a nurse.
Contents
- 1 Staying in the Loop: Keeping Abreast of Advances in Medical Research and Education
- 2 Standing Out from the Crowd: Being a Competitive Job Applicant
- 3 Keeping Things Interesting: Ensuring You Remain Engaged, Motivated, and Inspired by Your Job
- 4 Bettering Yourself: The Personal Growth Benefits of Upskilling
- 5 Recognition and Reward: Celebrating Your Achievements
Staying in the Loop: Keeping Abreast of Advances in Medical Research and Education
Yes, staying informed and educated as a nurse comes at a price. Course enrolment fees can be costly, and can be a deterrent when considering whether to pursue higher education – especially when you’ve already attained your base level qualification to become a licensed RN.
But, completing an affordable MSN FNP degree can be the stepping stone you need to take your career to the next level.
The best thing? After that, the enhanced earning potential you can access as a postgraduate nursing professional will make up for the investment.
Some post grad nursing jobs you can aspire to once you graduate include:
- General Nurse Practitioner (GNP)
- Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP)
- Chief Nursing Officer (CNO)
- Nurse Educator
- Dean of Nursing
- Certified Nurse Midwife
Of course, each of these roles comes with higher responsibility than the role of a general RN. And with that responsibility comes a considerably higher salary.
If nothing else, that is worth the investment in upping your formal education.
Standing Out from the Crowd: Being a Competitive Job Applicant
Let’s face it, we all need to work. And with the employment market becoming more and more competitive, it’s getting harder to stand out. With university degrees virtually a dime a dozen, having a basic qualification won’t get you very far these days.
Enter: upskilling! By taking your education further, you can set yourself apart from others who may not have the same dedication to their professional development. Continually improving yourself by upskilling shows drive and ambition.
These are qualities recruiters admire, and which demonstrate your value as a future employee.
Keeping Things Interesting: Ensuring You Remain Engaged, Motivated, and Inspired by Your Job
It’s very sad to say, but we are currently experiencing a global nursing shortage of qualified staff. A large part of this can be attributed to nurse burnout and attrition. What contributes to burnout? Feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled in your work.
To combat this, taking on the challenge of upskilling and self-improvement can help keep you engaged, inspired, and motivated. As a nursing professional, you likely went into the job for all the right reasons.
You wanted to make a difference, help people, and deliver the best possible treatment and care. Over time, we can lose sight of this, and become demoralized and uninspired by the daily grind of full-time work.
Upskilling is a great way to keep things fresh and to remind ourselves why we chose this career in the first place.
Bettering Yourself: The Personal Growth Benefits of Upskilling
Upskilling is not just about getting (and keeping) that job. In addition to this, you can also take pride in the steps you are taking to actively improve yourself.
By committing to further learning, you are improving yourself in more ways than one. Some of the personal advantages of upskilling include:
- Improving your critical thinking abilities
- Enhancing your communication skills
- Adding to your ability to manage multiple commitments
- Boosting your confidence and self-worth
Recognition and Reward: Celebrating Your Achievements
Last but not least, your commitment to better yourself deserves celebration. Recognizing your accomplishments and rewarding yourself is just one bonus of self-improvement. If you’re into material things, perhaps you’ll mark the occasion with a gift to yourself – those fancy shoes you’ve been eying, or a new iPad.
Otherwise, you may prefer to celebrate by spending quality time with loved ones.
Either way, upskilling is an achievement that deserves to be recognized, especially for the multitude of benefits it brings with it.
