Editor’s Note: This article is the fourth in a series spotlighting and supporting various nurse entrepreneurs and their businesses. In partnership with adni, products from each nurse business will be featured in our Nurse 365 monthly giveaways — enter to win here!
Recently, Nurse.com sat down with Justine Bailey (aka Professor Jus B) to learn more about her and Jus Like That — an online business she leads that provides career and education resources to nurses and nursing students.
Justine lives in Ontario, Canada, and has been a practicing registered nurse for almost 20 years. She is also a nurse educator at Conestoga College and Fanshawe College in Ontario. Though she no longer works in clinical practice, she works closely with nursing students in the classrooms, the labs, and other learning environments when she’s not running her business.
Learn more about Jus Like That here!
Q: Tell us a little about your journey from nursing school to creating a business.
Justine Bailey: After I graduated from nursing school, I immediately started my career in critical care. I realized very quickly that this wasn’t for me and that there must be something else in nursing that I could do and feel passionate about. I went right into my master’s program and quickly started teaching. And that’s where I found my passion for education and working with students.
I did that for a number of years and worked in leadership and administration and at not-for-profits. Then, just a few years ago around 2021, I realized that I could do something more — something with more impact. And that’s how Jus Like That was born — because I recognized that students were learning not just from their textbooks, but from the University of YouTube, so to speak. They were going to social media to supplement their education and the learning they were getting in the classroom.
Professors were so hesitant to put themselves out on social media because it was unfamiliar. We didn’t grow up learning that way. So I took a leap of faith and said, “Why not start teaching on YouTube and teaching the things that some people, including nursing professors, don’t want to talk about or students are too nervous to ask about?”
I started putting out content on social media and very quickly realized that there was an appetite for what I had to offer, plus it was my way of ensuring that nurses of color are represented too!
Resume proofing and polishing, career coaching, and moving forward in their careers were definitely things that a lot of students had questions about.
So I said, well, let me see if I could provide these services. That’s how I started creating content and supporting nursing students and new grad nurses as they embark on their careers. I was especially mindful of those students who look like me and don’t see themselves represented in their classrooms or learning spaces. I wanted to ensure that they saw nursing educators and leaders who represented them! That’s how the business was born.
Q: Do you think it’s common for nursing students taking their first steps into the workforce to struggle with crafting resumes and cover letters?
Justine Bailey: Absolutely. Because it’s skipped over in school, and no one really teaches you the ropes. They talk about it, but they don’t teach you how to actually do it — apart from a couple of general comments about which categories to include on your resume, or they may offer some sort of template.
I felt that nursing students could really benefit from some light handholding through it at first and some guidance about being strategic in how to craft their resumes.
I think a big part of it too is not just resumes and cover letters but really getting beneath the surface and asking, “Why are you doing this in the first place? Is it about just getting a job?”
Nursing graduates can get a job anywhere, but they should be strategic and understand if a particular nursing job is going to fulfill them, not just their pockets.
It’s not just about filling a role — it’s about whether a job is going to align with who the nurse is as a person. It’s that deeper discovery that I felt instructors and professors don’t really get into simply because they just don’t have the time!
And that’s where the coaching comes in — where it helps people discover where their passion and purpose lie and then helping them find work that aligns with that.
The last thing we want to do is have more nurses leave the profession because they’re not happy. We all know how that ends up, right? They leave the profession and then the cycle continues.
But if new grads are going for positions that align with who they are, what their strengths are, and with their passions and purpose, then it’s a perfect match. And that’s where we’re going to get the longevity, sustainability, and career satisfaction that we’re all working towards.
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