Finding the Right Opportunity for Nurses: Where and How to Look Beyond Traditional Job Boards

Seeking a career change but not finding what you need on the usual job boards? Change how you’re looking and create new opportunities.

This post was first published on my Medium blog—follow me there for the most up-to-date entries!

If you’ve been scanning job boards for weeks and nothing seems to fit, you’re not alone. Job boards are full of postings, but they don’t always point to the best opportunities — especially if you’re trying to shift into something new, nontraditional, or better aligned with your current stage of life. Finding the right opportunity for nurses often means going beyond what’s listed and tapping into strategies that highlight your value, visibility, and strengths.

Here’s the hard truth: If you’re trying to build a career that’s a better match for who you are now, the right opportunity probably isn’t posted in the usual places. So where do you look?

Start by rethinking what you’re looking for and how you’re showing up in the world. It isn’t just about hunting. It’s about attracting. Here’s how to begin.

1. Find the right opportunity with the right questions

When you’re in a career pivot, it’s easy to ask, “What jobs am I qualified for?” But that question limits you to what’s already been defined. It leads you to default answers — often jobs that are adjacent to your last one, but not much of a leap.

Try a different approach. Start with the problems you are well-equipped to solve or the needs you understand deeply. Everyone will pay for two things: solving a problem or meeting a need.

What’s the difference? A problem is a pain point — something broken or dysfunctional, like a process that causes staff burnout or a communication gap that leads to errors. A need is something that could improve quality of life or satisfaction, like a beautifully designed training tool, or a better user interface for patient education. Think: broken bone versus cosmetic surgery. Both matter, but for different reasons.

Ask yourself:

What have people always come to me for?
What real-world problems do I understand better than most?
Where have I made things easier, faster, or better — even in roles that weren’t a perfect fit?

When you lead with problems you can solve or needs you can meet, rather than roles you’ve held, you begin finding the right opportunity. Why? Because you’ve invited others to think more creatively about what you can offer. This is key when you’re networking in person or online. It opens the door to roles that haven’t even been posted yet.

Example: A former charge nurse who streamlined shift changes and onboarding could pitch herself to health tech startups looking to improve workflow, training, or staff retention.

Years ago, I watched a training video and couldn’t believe how outdated it was. I sent the company a letter — not to complain, but to explain what wasn’t working and why. A few months later, they asked if I’d consult. That one letter turned into a long-term paid role.

2. Know your strengths (not just your skills)

Let’s make a clear distinction here. Skills are what you can do. Strengths are what you do best.

Transferable skills might include:

Communication
Critical thinking and decision-making
Organization and time management
Education and training
Emotional intelligence

Strengths go deeper. They shape how you apply your skills. The CliftonStrengths framework (from Gallup) describes strengths as innate patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that influence how you work and interact with the world.

Some nurses (myself included) have innate strengths like Significance, Competition, Intellection, Focus, or Achiever. That means I naturally seek meaningful work, push for excellence, think deeply, stay locked in, and work hard even without a deadline looming.

Those strengths led me to:

write letters to editors, and later become a peer reviewer.
volunteer my thinking in professional forums, and be asked to help design new roles.
suggest a fix to someone’s problem on LinkedIn.

Strengths help you stand out. They are energizing. They are visible. They open doors.

A few questions can help you find the right opportunity for you (your Ikigai). So before you start rewriting your resume, take 10 minutes and ask:

What work makes me feel energized, even when it’s hard?
What do others say I do better than most?
What do I love helping people figure out?

Your next opportunity may not match your past job title, but it should absolutely align with your true self.

Example: A nurse who shines in difficult conversations might not want to stay in direct care, but could thrive in patient advocacy, ethics review, or even mediation roles in healthcare and beyond.

Example: A nurse with strengths in relationship building and communication might begin consulting with a medical device company on how to improve patient-facing training materials. Within months, she could be leading focus groups, speaking at product launches, and shaping national outreach campaigns.

3. Be visible before you need to be

Visibility was my number one strategy. It changed everything for me. I didn’t wait for someone to post the perfect job. I showed up. I shared what I knew. I offered ideas when I had no official title. Over time, people began to notice. Invitations followed. Opportunities emerged that I never could have predicted. Visibility helped me find the right opportunity.

Visibility isn’t about bragging. It’s about making it easy for the right people to find you, think of you, and refer you. You can do that in a way that is generous and genuine.

Try this:

Post on LinkedIn about a recent project or insight.
Comment on someone else’s post with a thoughtful example from your own experience.
Let your network know you’re exploring new paths — and be specific about what you’re good at and interested in.

Example: A nurse posted about the tools she built for new grads on her unit. Within a week, someone from a nurse education company asked if she would ever consider consulting.

I’ve also written several peer-reviewed articles. At the time, I wasn’t aiming for anything beyond getting my ideas out there. But that visibility led to paid jobs to be a founding editor, build test question banks, consult for publishers, and much more.

4. Give before you ask

Some of the best opportunities come from generosity. When you help others solve a problem or meet a need, you show your thinking, your creativity, your values. And people remember that.

You don’t need to give away hours of your time. A short comment, a suggestion, a resource, or a connection can go a long way.

People notice who contributes. And when something opens up, they remember.

Example: A clinician who regularly commented in a professional group was approached to help pilot a new role — one that hadn’t existed before, but was shaped around her way of thinking.

5. Seek alignment — not just a job title

Most job seekers focus on three things: role, salary, and title. All important. But they don’t tell the whole story about finding the right opportunity.

A better question: What kind of opportunity will let me operate in my strengths, solve problems that matter to me and to the person or entity who is paying, and enable me to grow without burning me out?

You may not find the answer in a job description. But you will find clues when you look at how organizations work, who they highlight, what kinds of problems they talk about, and how they treat their people.

And don’t limit yourself to what’s posted. Reach out. Ask questions. Start a conversation.

Example: One client reached out to a local nonprofit she admired. They didn’t have a job posted, but they invited her in to talk. Two months later, they offered her a role they hadn’t even planned to create.

Find the right opportunity

You won’t always find the right opportunity on a job board. But you can create a path to it by:

Reframing how you think about your value
Showing up where people can see your strengths
Giving generously in ways that spark connection
Leading with the problems you can solve or needs you can meet

If you’re tired of looking and ready to shift how you search, let’s talk. Send me a DM on LinkedIn or leave a comment on this post.