Reputable Agencies

All agencies are bad. Know that going in and you will do better. Their best interests are not necessarily your best interests.

You will have a personal relationship with recruiters, and that relationship is the most important factor to successful travel. Bad agency with good recruiter is way better than good agency with bad recruiter.

So call lots of agencies and pick 3-5 best recruiters to work further with (don't do any paperwork until this point). How to choose? Pick apparently honest (you will hear a lot of lies on these calls), and ones you communicate well with - if you cannot communicate, you are doomed! If you have never traveled before, and only worked for one hospital, give great weight towards recruiters who steer you away from the highest paying assignments. These are not the best for a new traveler - the fact that a hospital would choose you over an experienced traveler (same bill rate) is a huge red flag. This type of recruiter is interested in a long term business relationship with you and retention - not a churn and burn model.

Likewise, you yourself are best off with a traveler friendly assignment, anywhere at ordinary pay, to get your feet wet, have a successful travel assignment on your work history, and learn about your own abilities and preferences for followup assignments.

On 5/16/2020 at 9:58 AM, NedRN said:

All agencies are bad.

I'm curious as to why you say this? What makes them 'bad' and what would make them better? I'm asking just because I am interested in learning.

Agencies are created to benefit their owners. Their interests are fundamentally opposed to ours. Recognize the business principles involved to prosper. Very, very different than being a hospital employee.

I agree, but couldn't there be a fair mix with the two? The main purpose of business is to solve problems, I understand there are essentially two different parties with two different interests but there has to be a fair balance with that process that makes everyone happy.

So yes, there is good business and bad business. The person responsible for creating that is the recruiter. The agency brand is almost irrelevant and the corporation has no inherent interest in a particular worker other than as a pawn. Travelers to hospitals and agencies are replaceable pawns. You don't have to be as cynical as me, but if you trust either to do the right thing, you can be majorly burned. You have to understand where the parties are coming from and plan accordingly. Like how you might prepare for a possible pandemic. Have a Plan B and C (why you pick more than one recruiter) and have several months of living expenses available if the worst happens.

Thank you for that, I see what you mean. So the experience depends mostly upon the recruiter.

Let me ask, what makes a good recruiter or a bad one? What qualities are best sought after when looking at agencies? Is it dependent upon the recruiter in whole or does the agencies policies also determine the level of satisfaction?

I've already listed the factors I believe are important in choosing recruiters in my first response. And again, a good recruiter at a "bad" agency is far better than the reverse. If you want to separate some 400 agencies into good and bad agency categories, go ahead. Can't help you there. Such categories would depend on specific recruiters and traveler combinations and change almost daily if you could collect valid data (you can't).

Without a doubt, some agencies will have a better corporate culture than others. Doesn't hardly matter to the contingent labor (travelers) at the bottom. That is a more important question for recruiters who will be directly affected by workplace policies. For travelers, our workplace has zero to do with agency corporate culture.