Help me get a job as a CNA in a hospital! Advice needed, questions...

Apply for the jobs anyway. CNAs are always in demand, even if nursing positions are locked up. Yes Acute Care is good, but perhaps get your foot in the door wherever you can be used, and then move into the position that makes the most sense for you.

1 year of experience preferred should not keep you from applying. Experience is always preferred, but in this case is not required. You're over thinking this, which means you're probably a great candidate for these jobs. CNA jobs may take a lot of skill to do well, but they don't require a lot of book learning or technical knowledge - you just have to care, and it seems you've got that requirement well covered.

My wife is a licensed nurse and worked as a CNA while in nursing school. It was easy - very easy - for her to get a CNA job at a nursing home because they are always looking for competent people. After a year at the nursing home, she got hired in the heart surgery ward of a major hospital. Now she works in a specialty hospital and does wound care. So my advice is this: if you have to, find a job that nobody else wants and get the experience under your belt. But apply for acute care jobs too, because there is a lot of overturn for those jobs because they are hard work.

"How physically strong I am" This alone will basically get you a job. Much of a CNA's day involves lifting people or keeping them from falling down. Also in that vein: don't be a hero! I know more than one nurse/CNA/paramedic who have done serious damage to themselves by doing a lift that they should have insisted on getting help with.

Apply for the jobs you want. Saying experience is "preferred" is HR-speak for "this would be nice to have, but we could also without it." Also, 1 year is essentially entry-level. Just about every hospital now uses an online application system, so aryma's suggestion, while charming, probably won't work. If their online application system allows a cover letter (not all of them do), that's the place to write a blurb about your desire and motivations for getting this kind of job. Definitely ask your teacher for a reference. I agree with treehorn+bunny (who I believe is a physician, so she knows) that you are over-thinking this. Also, don't be afraid to work at a nursing home, LTAC, rehab center, etc. for a year or so. It is still good experience, and can make you even more appealing to a hospital.

If I were you, I'd print off the paragraph you wrote about your own experience in the hospital a bunch of times on the same paper, then cut each little story out individually and take them with you when you fill out applications at the hospitals - and take a small stapler with you also. Then fill out the application and quickly staple your little paper to it and turn it in. I used to hire people and that would catch my attention and impress me with the sincerety of your plan to become an excellent CNA - and there's seldom room on an application form for even a short story. It's possible that there will be room for a written explanation of why you want the job on an application here and there and you can just write it out instead. But I'd want to see that little story and it would give you some extra points for sure if I were doing the hiring. Good luck to you and I hope you have a very happy career in the medical field.