Feeling mislead by travel company....NEED THE TRUTH!!!!

[positivethinker]

I had my hopes set on being a traveler. I have heard alot of pros and cons... and the pros were outweighing the cons.

But I have been communicating with a certain travel company since April of this year. During this time my recruiter has been providing me with information about the company and the various job opportunities and locations.

THE PROBLEM: I was told that you have to have 1 yr of experience to become a traveler. Okay no problem that was done, I have my one year in ICU experience. Well actually only 14 months.

But now it has been revealed to me that a majority of ICU positions REQUIRE 2 YRS OF ICU experience. This was never revealed until now. I was always told about the jobs, location, salary etc. I was looking to start by the first week of September, but now I don't know if that's going to be possible.

My learning lesson is, I did not know to ask this question, b/c I was told about the 1 yr experience, not taking into account that some hospitals may require more than 1.

I have been reading other posts, and a piece of advice I am following is to register with more than one company. But now which companies are good companies to go with??????

Its getting down to crunch time......NEED HELPPPPPP ANY ADVICE.

It looks like I'll have to take acute care assignments for a while while climbing to my 2 yr mark. But the only problem is it doesn't give me credit towards my ICU experience.

[sjoe]

YOU are the customer! Shop around until you find an agency and a recruiter YOU want to work with (NOT for).

Remember as well that every recruiter is serving three different interests--those of the RN, the agency, and the hospital or contracting facility. If a particular recruiter's contracting facilities (at some particular time, like NOW) insist on certain requirements, then that is all the recruiter can offer you.

Other recruiters might have different contracting facilities with different requirements at the same time. That's why you need to shop around if you want to serve your own interests. Otherwise, you'll just have to take whatever that one recruiter can offer.