If your curiosity got you past step one, there are a few things that you need to know about Travel Nursing.
First of all, it’s a paperwork intensive process in the beginning. With applications, licenses, certifications, physician’s statements, referrals – you feel like you’re going to drown in paper work at first. There’s a secret to handling your paperwork though, and in Part 3, I’ll go over it in detail.
There are a few mistakes that you can make in the early going. The first one is contacting Travel Companies before you’re actually ready to start traveling. As much as I know from personal experience that a good recruiter can be your best ally, they can also be very persistent and a little pushy. It’s important for you to have all your ducks in a row, and really be ready to start traveling before you take off on that first assignment. So do some research, talk to other travelers, but be careful about seeming to make any commitments until your ready to start packing.
Let me give you one little piece of advice. DO NOT fill out a bunch of online applications, and if you do, DO NOT include your phone number on them. Some of the sites on the internet that you will see if you do a search for “travel nursing” will send you to web sites who do nothing but collect the names and phone numbers of Nurses showing an interest in traveling, then they turn around and sell that information to travel companies as leads. Before you know it, you are getting literally dozens of cold calls a day from recruiters for companies you never even heard of. Believe me, it is possible to get up to 15 calls a day from recruiters that you never personally sent any information to.
Second, bigger isn’t always better. There are HUGE travel companies, and then there are very small ones, and every size in between. They each have their benefits, and you have to decide which the right “fit” is for you. Some companies have great benefits, but those benefits will cost you. In some cases, they cost a lot. Some companies have great pay rates, but you give up some of the perks that someone paying less may offer. Some companies will help you maximize your take home by offering a tax advantage rate, others won’t. Some companies have hundreds of open positions, and some only a few at a time. Some travel companies really aren’t travel companies at all – but sub-contractors that “sell” other companies open positions. (You of course end up paying the price for that deal). It’s a choice you make based on what you need in a pay rate, or will demand in a pay rate, and what benefits or perks are important to you.
Third, never underestimate how important your recruiter really is. This is the person that will find you your jobs, so the more interested they are in actually getting to know you, the better the fit will be when they actually place you. Your recruiter is also the person that you’ll be relying on to act as a liaison between you and the company itself. It’s the first person you’ll call when you have a problem, and you want someone who you like, trust, and is responsive to your needs in a timely manner EVERY TIME. Once you do decide on a travel company, don’t be afraid to ask for a different recruiter if the one you initially get doesn’t seem to be working for you. Some companies don’t like taking travelers out of one recruiters bank, and placing them in another, but they will to keep you working for them. After all, you are money in the bank for them. They know that if they don’t make you happy, then that money will go somewhere else. If you need to, remind them of that. I’ll tell you right now, that the recruiter that I work with 80% of the time is someone that I trust and rely on, and I have stayed with the company just for that reason when they had assignments where I wanted to go.
Keep these three things in mind as you start into the planning phase of your first travel assignment.
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