Nursing shortage, or new-grad shortage?

Since before I started nursing school, we’ve heard about the nursing shortage non-stop.  Nurses were coming out of the woodwork to fill in the gaps; retirees were coming back to work, per-diems were starting part-time, and the part-timers went full time. In our nursing orientation we were told that the job market was looking pretty bad for new grads at the time, but that by the time we graduated, things should be looking up and we’d be in good shape.

That was nearly three years ago. In six months I will be graduating, and it seems like the job market is getting even worse. It makes sense too, I mean it takes more money and more man power to train a new grad, it’s easier to hire an experienced nurse. It’s a scary thought to think that we’ll be out there soon with RN behind our name, BSN for some of us too, but that the excitement might get cast aside if we can’t use it to do what we’ve gone through all this trouble for.  We’ve been told that it helps to get a foot in the door, but from some I’ve talked to, it seems like that isn’t enough either.

There have been talks that employees are now looking at portfolios of our work, skills check off lists, and educational backgrounds to weed through the applications and choose their select few. Maybe it’s just my state, or my area? Or maybe it is starting to clear up, and it’s just taking some time, but whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be getting better just yet. Nursing students and new grads: what are your thoughts about this? What is the job market like outside of Southern California?