Nurse Finders/AMN Healthcare

NedRN · Oct 14, 2022

Sorry you are having that problem. It might just be happenstance, but as the country's largest agency, they will automatically have the largest number of both happy and unhappy travelers. Some assignments will work much better working directly for them as they are also a large vendor manager (outsourced hospital HR) so those assignments will be filled more quickly by their own travelers working directly for them before outside agencies fill them. I do have some experience in attempting to work with them as vendor managers (as one of their credentialed agencies) and can share that the experience was so horrible after 3 separate attempts to place travelers who had already worked at the hospital in question over 8 months I gave up. That info is not so useful to you other than to know that unless another agency you want to work with has a lot of experience as one of AMN's vendors, you don't want to try for one of AMN's exclusive contracted hospitals. Hope you could get that - a bit thick.

With any large agency you are dealing with low level employees with little understanding of what you do, and what is actually important to client hospitals. They go by the wording they have. Not much option when it comes to the initial due diligence crap. And no, very few nurses will work as recruiters and certainly not lower than that. Some nurses will work there will be in various specialties dealing with managers that have a conflict with your work - hopefully you will never talk to them. Other nurses may work directly with the hospital as account managers and will review your profile when a recruiters wants to send it to their account and say yes or no.

When it comes time when you have done all the paperwork required and it will be a lot, there may be more, they may want clearance from a physician along with titers and proof of vaccinations. And even then, you may have to wait for references to be verified. Historically much of this was all done only after you interviewed with a hospital and both you and the hospital agreed on the assignment and associated details like start dates and scheduling. But certainly with many agencies, this is not the world we live in any more.

There are advantages to being fully credentialed with an agency, especially a large one You can land desirable fast moving assignments (especially after you prove yourself reliable with a couple of assignments), and get priority for "exclusive" contracts that they have with some hospitals and hospital chains before they post them with subcontracting agencies.

BTW, AMN has many brands besides Nursefinders and you have access to all their assignments - there could be some brands that if you had started with them would be easier to sign up with, unfortunately I don't know which ones if any apply to that thought anymore.

What you will have a choice of is your recruiter. And this is the most important relationship you will have at any agency. So if your recruiter is not a good fit, you can ask to switch. Keep it professional, no personal complaints, just that it is not a good fit. Without detracting from the first recruiter, a little personal information about your communication style will go a long way for a manager to place you with a better fit.

So good luck with the process and the relationship. Let me know if I can clarify anything I said, some no doubt will need it.

allthatshines · Oct 15, 2022

Thank you for your insight @NedRN. I have background experience working in an office so I do understand the business aspect, politics, and wearing different hats of it all but my frustration with their processes clouded my judgment and forgot that not everyone truly grasps medical terminology or just the operational aspect of it. I’m also blunt & straightforward as I’ve been a nurse for a while, I also forget not everyone has thick skin. It saddened me that I got an email that they deactivated my profile (to which I’m aware means blacklisted) just because I was too honest and spoke my mind, again, frustrated. That was my first time experiencing that. LOL. Keep in mind, I did not do anything to harm a patient or the company name, just hurt some feelings. It was just another reminder that healthcare has never and will never want nurses that advocate for themselves, there will always be retaliation.

I was with another large agency too and I was leaning on AMN more in that moment but the universe gave the answers for me. I’m truly passionate when it comes to patient care, I’ve been in the field since 17! Grew up with a medical family too & it just broke my heart how instead of them seeing that passion, it was the opposite. Again, thank you for your time. I appreciate you!