Super Confused!

trackhead, APRN · Aug 17, 2014

All of these questions get asked weekly. I'm not being rude, but the answers are all here x 1,000,000 million replies.

Short story:

-Call around to different agencies. Go with one you feel comfortable with. There's a million opinions good/bad about any agency.

-Days off are between assignments, you don't get PTO. You can request a schedule on your start date, but you are contracted to work 36 hours a week (typically), so that's what you have to do. You don't get "days off". You work 36 hours per week, end of story.

-Proper license? Internet-state board-application-fees-license=done

-First assignment? Most are a bit nervous because they just quit their staff job. You'll be less nervous if you have saved a couple months expenses in cash first. And be less nervous if you're a competent, efficient nurse who truly knows the specialty you are working in. Don't even think about travelling if you're not on your A game.

-Tips? Be confident, do it, it's fun, it's not a big deal. There are tons of jobs, you won't be unemployed, some jobs might suck, some will be awesome. But be sure they will all be very different and you'll grow as a person, and as a nurse.

NedRN · Aug 17, 2014

I have some additional comments to make to trackhead's good reply.

Any list is going to have some underlying criteria. Understand where they are coming from and you can use the information better. In the case of Highway Hypodermic's list, it is heavily weighted towards self reported benefits (from a questionnaire that Epstein sends to agencies). Thus not only are the agencies self selected, but larger ones are favored as generally having better benefits (and usually lower pay, not a list factor).

There are around 400 agencies out there, all providing a slightly different flavor on service, pay, benefits, and assignments. All of them work for some, each having big fans and those warning you not to use them. The most important factor in successful travel assignments is your communication with a recruiter. This is completely individual (otherwise none of us would care who we choose for significant others, right?) and the only way to find out if you can communicate with a given recruiter is pick up the phone and talk to them.

I would recommend talking to 15 agencies, and picking the 5 recruiters you like best. By the 15th recruiter, you should also have all of your basic questions answered! I would also recommend reading on PanTravelers if you want to get into some depth on any particular topic (most recruiters will not know the answers to a lot of stuff travelers find important, like tax home).

I would also not recommend starting traveling with short assignments. While you are expected to hit the ground running generally, you will get a lot more leeway, and usually more orientation time, on most 13 week assignments. Usually short assignments are tougher because most are fulfilled by rapid response agencies at higher pay for good cause. You will be working harder at most such assignments because the hospital is troubled for some reason, too troubled to get normal rate travelers. You will generally have fewer resources at rapid response assignments, less orientation, with more patients, and fewer support staff.

Lots of new travelers fail at their first assignment (often because poor communication with their recruiter failed to come up with an appropriate "easy" first assignment), it is a little crazy to dive in with potentially bad assignments.

Since every agency works for some travelers, it is much easier to compose a "bad" agency list, rather than "good" agency lists in my opinion. On your list, I would not recommend Aya and Flexstaff has mixed reviews too (so many to choose from, no point in using questionable ones I think). Nurse Choice is supposed to be a rapid response brand of American Mobile, and Medical Express and NursesRX are also American Mobile brands. While there is supposed to be a real difference between these large company brands, they all theoretically share the same assignment database. All the other ones on your list are fine to explore further. PHP, Valley, Trinity, and Sagent get better than average traveler reviews if that helps. But don't use any agency that assigns you to a recruiter you don't communicate with well.

For short assignments (if you insist), besides Nurse Choice you have CRU48 (a Cross Country brand: second largest agency after American Mobile - the name refers to the fact that most short assignments are 48 hours or more per week) and Fastaff, the largest rapid response company that basically invented it. They pay well, usually $40 or $45 an hour (not so great housing is on top of that amount) and you will usually earn it! Nice weekly amounts with the long hours, and the long hours now means location is almost irrelevant.

If you can make it to the Travelers Conference - about four weeks from now in Las Vegas - you will have a chance to attend a lot of workshops and lectures, including some four hour seminar just for new travelers the day before the conference official start date. I think Candy of Gypsy Nurses is having a big party the night before, which presents another opportunity to network with current travelers to get the real scoop face to face. I don't think Epstein ever misses one. I've only been to two, and my current assignment hospital cannot afford the time missed in the middle of an assignment (I asked during the interview and they checked vacations before they told me no). :-(

Even better, the Conference has somewhere between 10 and 20 agency sponsors, all with booths and several recruiters you can talk to face to face. The importance of face to face cannot be underestimated. Most business can be conducted by phone, fax, and online, yet there is a huge airline industry that only exists so people can establish face to face relationships. So meeting a crowd of potential recruiters for you in one place over two or three days in a friendly atmosphere could be very valuable. Agencies seem to think it is and they do very well there. Presumably they send their best recruiters.

I've only met a couple of recruiters in almost 20 years of traveling. Frankly, I don't need to and I keep things businesslike. In my opinion, agencies are just commodities just like travel nurses. But for someone starting out, it could be very cool.

rmsm · Aug 18, 2014

Thanks so much NED that was EXTREMELY helpful!!!!!!!!!!!! Ill look into booking for the travel nursing conference. Thanks once again!!