I knew what I wanted. That was supposed to be the hard part.
In Part 1, I walked through the five criteria I landed on after months of sitting with the question — lifestyle design, healthcare outside a hospital system, systems-level impact on clinician wellbeing, something in AI and tech, remote or hybrid. Once you figure that out, the story’s supposed to write itself, right? You know what you want, so you go get it.
It wasn’t simple.
The resume problem
Here’s the catch: my resume screamed “wellbeing consultant, nurse practitioner.” Any search engine — LinkedIn, Indeed — only gave me clinical jobs. That was the first hurdle. How do I make the shift from clinical into health IT? I’ve done founder work, consulting on an app, I’m genuinely interested in AI — how do I get into this space without a formal “in”?
So I:
- Reworked my resume, and used AI to help me reconfigure how to think about my role and translate my nursing critical-thinking skills into an IT world
- Did my own learning through LinkedIn Learning and Coursera to build skills while I searched
- Curated a list of companies doing innovative things with AI in healthcare, researched them, and started applying
I thought, “I have these skill sets, this is going to be great, people are going to want me.” I started applying rapid fire.
I told myself: I finally figured out what I wanted to do, Idon’t want to do clinical care anymore. I need more stability.
I know what to do — go work in health IT.
The grind
But once you figure out what you want, it should be simple, right? That’s what the stories tell you. It wasn’t simple. I applied to at least 20 jobs — literally 20, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but close to that many, some days trying for five jobs a day across different sources. Each time, I was tweaking my resume to make sure it fit the role I wanted with my skill set.
And by the next morning, rejections would come back.
“Wait a minute — I have all the skill sets, the job sounds exciting, the money looks good, what am I missing?”
And I’d tell myself: it’s fine, keep applying. One company I probably applied to six times. Sorry, guys, but I did — because I was like, I want to be here, this makes sense, your culture makes sense, what I want to do makes sense.
I did outreach on LinkedIn, asked people how they got into health IT from a nursing background, what was their pivotal point. Sometimes people responded and it was helpful. Sometimes not so much. Sometimes no response at all. And I’d think: okay, let me try another avenue, let me keep applying.
Some nights I was up until midnight tweaking my resume, finding another job, sending it out, only to get another rejection. At some point the rejections were coming faster than I could put out applications.
There’s a difference between being tired and being completely exhausted. I don’t want that anymore.
And I was getting frustrated — frustrated every time I went into work, because this isn’t what I want to be doing. Frustrated every time I sent an application, not knowing if I’d get a response.
Frustrated because I believe in God, and I’m thinking, “God, I’m doing all the things, why isn’t it happening?”
Letting go of the rush
At some point I thought, I need to meet the right people. I considered going to a conference in California. I was ready to gear up, find the money somehow, meet people, tell them this is what I want.
But for some reason, I couldn’t get the day off. I asked ten people, couldn’t get the shift covered. And I realized — this isn’t for me to force. Fighting to miss a shift. Take a red-eye to California. Try to meet as many people as I can.
Was that really going to give me the value I need?
I was using AI tools the whole way through to really hone in on the type of job I was looking for, so I knew exactly what I wanted.
In February, when the conference wasn’t happening, I released it.
I told myself: God — me rushing this is not working. I know what I want. I’ve tweaked my resume at least ten times across these 20 different positions. I am prepared for whatever comes, but I know what I want, and I’m not going to accept anything less.
So I stopped applying every day. Instead, I let LinkedIn look for jobs on my behalf, and I dedicated Wednesdays to searching and applying — instead of doing it every day and driving myself crazy.
Want the actual prompt? I used AI the whole way through this — to reframe my resume, to figure out what I was really looking for, not just “20 years experience, NP, pediatrics.” If enough people want it, I’ll share the exact prompt I used. Let me know in the comments.
In the next post — the job posting that showed up out of nowhere, and the call I got in a burger line on a cruise.