One of my classmates in physiology had told me that she interviewed at an elder care facility in a nearby town that had an in-house CNA training program. I hadn't been aware that these existed; I thought that you had to either just work for such places as a non-certified "caregiver" or else do the CNA education at the local community college and then go interview.
In these programs, if you can get in, they train you for the first 2-3 months (while paying you minimum wage) and then bump up your pay a dollar or so after you've been certified. I thought this would be a good way to get a foot in the door of the medical industry, as I haven't had much luck so far.
I looked online for every local program like that I could find, and called them all. Several of the programs that were listed online as having CNA training programs actually didn't, but I found a few that did. One of them had an application to fill out online; I did that right away and still haven't heard back about 2 months later. Two others required that you come pick up and fill out an application in person.
So I did that. One of the CNA teachers that called me back said in her message that I should ask for her once I was done filling out the application and she would come out and talk to me (ie informal interview). I felt like it went well; she seemed very kind and caring, and I had a good feeling about the whole thing. I still hadn't heard anything about 3 weeks later, so I sent a follow-up note, and an updated resume, just reiterating that I was still interested and expressing that I really appreciated her taking the time to show me around and it felt like a great atmosphere to work in.
She called me a couple days later and left a message on my phone that sounded really appreciative of the note; she said that I was exactly the kind of person that they were looking for, that my application looked great, but unfortunately all the spots had already been filled for the summer. She said they had over 70 applicants and they could only take 12. She told me that she would keep my follow-up letter with my application and indicated that I would be one of her first couple of choices for their fall class, and that she'd call me again then.
So that doesn't solve my immediate concerns about finding a good job and supporting myself, but it is good news. If I can make it through the summer financially, and get into that program, at least for the fall, I could have a year of full time income before nursing school starts, and a basic certification to fall back on. I could also probably continue to take side classes like phlebotomy in my time off if I wanted to.
The other application that I needed to fill out in person, I really put extreme care into filling it out thoroughly and precisely, and writing a nice cover letter to go with it. It feels like it's been longer, but I just checked my calendar and it has only been a couple of weeks since I turned that one in. The person who returned my call about that program said that they were going through the re-certification process for their teaching program and they hoped to be able to start another class in July. Here's hoping.
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