How long is selection process?

Nurse_ · May 11, 2014

Depends on the agency.

Some positions, the agency submits the candidate to the hospital directly before contacting you. Other agencies, will respond right away.

NedRN · May 11, 2014

Your agency may be able to give you a good idea so ask your recruiter. it is difficult to estimate time frames on any random submission without knowing something about the process and personalities involved. Your agency is competing with many other agencies, and sometimes hospitals give favorite agencies priority. HR often is the first step in submitted profiles and they can be a roadblock in passing through profiles to the interviewing manager. The manager may not have interviews as a priority so will let profiles stack up before tackling them and then yours may be on the bottom - and the first interview takes the position.

Even sometimes the agency themselves are a roadblock. The recruiter gives your profile to the agency person in charge of that contract and she may decide not to submit as you are not a good fit, or they have better candidates.

With some hospitals, you will have to call the manager yourself per your agency directions. This is usually a good thing, even if the hospital HR frowns on it.

Hours to weeks to never is the full answer. Generally, a couple days should be sufficient and if you don't hear anything by then, you should ask to be submitted somewhere else. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Your agency may not allow more than one submission at a time, which is why you need to have several more agencies working for you.

scrubnurselife · May 11, 2014

Thank you both! NedRN, thank you for all the details, I really appreciate it. I've signed on with a couple of agencies. This particular contract I'm going through Advanced Surgical, and I've really been happy with my recruiter. He submitted my profile this past Thursday, and had hoped they would have called me that day for an interview. But he said not to give up hope yet, as some hospitals like to give it a few days to receive and go through applications. I just didn't know how typical it was to hear something the same day. We're supposed to talk tomorrow about other submissions, but he wanted to give this one a week to see if we hear back. I'm just anxious and excited to get started! Thanks again for your help!

scrubnurselife · May 23, 2014

For anyone reading who had a similar question, I got it! It took right under 2 weeks before I received a call. And I had 2 calls that day with contract offers! Needless to say I'm excited to begin this journey, and really happy to get the contract I wanted. Thanks again for your help!