Best agency with lots of assignments?

NedRN · Sep 18, 2015

Well, really big agencies have lots of assignments but may not pay as well. For California, Emerald and Valley are both California based and as medium sized companies, have a good number of assignments. For a really big agency, try Cross Country.

Signing up up with a new agency is work, but you need to organize your professional portfolio so it will be fast. Of particular importance are written references so you can control what happens and largely avoid hassling referees with phone calls.

Sending the the profile you have stashed on your laptop is enough with many agencies to submit you to hospitals. If an agency wants all the crap done with being fully signed up and an employee before you hear about what they pay or being submitted, move on. You will save a ton of time.

86711lh · Sep 21, 2015

I don't have much experience as a traveler, but I just finished an assignment (my first) in New York with American mobile. I also ended up getting on contact with a recruiter from cross country right before my contract ended and just an example to compare the two, american mobile has WAY more jobs.. but cross country pays better. My recruiter from cross country only had about 3 jobs in the NYC area to offer me, (she had more but in upstate NY) while american mobile had over 40. And as far as money goes my cross country recruiter was giving me hourly rate quotes between 37-39$ (housing stipend was 3400$ for the NYC area). American mobile hourly rates quotes were in the 20s (housing stipend 2500$). But like I said I am not experienced and from what I have been reading on here, having a lower hourly base rate is beneficial.

Michi66 · Sep 22, 2015

Ned: just found out this agency does not accept written references. Luckily a nurse I barely worked with at my old job 9 months ago who is now charge nurse and just gave me a good review as my second ref. But yeah, it is a pain. Also, I specifically asked the recruiter "so you can't tell me which assignments are available without filling out the application and the skills check list?" and he said some blah blah stuff about not wanting to quote me stuff that I might not be qualified for, but then gave me some general ideas of pay ranges and hospitals with assignments available. They ended up having a position I am interested in and am being submitted for, so I guess worth the work of switching if I end up getting it!

86711lh: thanks for the tips! I am definitely interested in going to New York next year some time. I did submit my contact info to Cross Country for a posting and got an email confirmation, but never got a call (it's been a little over a day), which is surprising because my current and potential new agencies called me within 10 minutes of submitting. Guess they are too busy at the moment!

Argo · Sep 23, 2015

I chose the biggest agency just for this reason. I wanted to make sure I always had a job where I wanted to go. I got lucky and got a good recruiter.

NedRN · Sep 23, 2015

Ned: just found out this agency does not accept written references. Luckily a nurse I barely worked with at my old job 9 months ago who is now charge nurse and just gave me a good review as my second ref. But yeah, it is a pain. Also, I specifically asked the recruiter "so you can't tell me which assignments are available without filling out the application and the skills check list?" and he said some blah blah stuff about not wanting to quote me stuff that I might not be qualified for, but then gave me some general ideas of pay ranges and hospitals with assignments available. They ended up having a position I am interested in and am being submitted for, so I guess worth the work of switching if I end up getting it!

Personally, there were enough red flags with this agency to drop them before investing any more time. Don't accept written references? I can't think of anything more stupid than that. They can still call the number on the written reference to confirm them or start from scratch.

Won't tell you about available open assignments? Then you go through all that work to put in all your documentation (several hours of work) and discover they don't have open assignments you want and the pay sucks?

Nothing wrong with hoping for the best as you did, but I wouldn't have done it. I do understand the agency reasons for doing that, if they gave you good information, you could take that to another agency. Also, getting you to sign up means that you are less likely to bail on them having done all that work. So in this case, their strategy worked. But I dislike that strategy and no good recruiters use it.

Michi66 · Sep 23, 2015

I mean, I don't really know what to do if that's what they want. I don't really mind filling out the stuff. Gives me a chance to update my resume. And I can't recall but I think the company I'm with now asked it right away. What's the worst outcome with an agency that has these red flags?

NedRN · Sep 23, 2015

Just a lot of extra work for nothing (or something in your case). Too many agencies out there that will talk to you openingly and honestly to bother with the ones where everything is a secret until you spend a few hours revealing everything to them.

I also try not to have my contact info out there for an agency I'll never work for (agencies that exhibit those behaviors). Agencies tend to merge, or just sell their contact lists to others, or go through their dead files and start calling, and I'd really rather conduct my own search for agencies than have random agencies calling me.

For the same reason, I don't post my contact info on sites like Monster or CareerBuilder, or advertising sites like RNVip. Too much noise and then I have to change my phone number.

If your style of finding agencies is working for you, don't change a thing. Just my personal thing.