To agency or not to agency?

Nurses Career Support

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Specializes in Cardiac and Critical Care.

Hello all,

In about 4 months I will be moving to the Chicago area and I'm applying for a Illinois RN license. I've been a nurse in Florida for about 2 years now with one year of progressive care experience and 9 months of critical care experience. This April will be my one anniversary working as a critical care nurse. I'm thinking about applying with an agency until I get established rather than applying with a local hospital and they are many excellent hospitals in the area. I do not need full-time benefits. However, I would like to get as much critical care experience as possible since I eventually plan on pursuing a career in CRNA. I would really appreciate any feedback on the pro's and con's to applying with an agency and recommendations on a particular agency that could meet my needs would be helpful as well. Also, am I making the right move?

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Home Health, LTC.

Speaking of agency work in general comparing to on staff: There are pros and cons.

Agency work (generally) puts you in the challenging places and you might think of it as the places that can not keep regular staff for one reason or another and use plenty of agency nurses.

Working just a few shifts at same place is less problematic than working many shifts as agency nurse in same place and there can be, not always, but can be a tendency to be targeted by staff.

I have worked with wonderful agencies that have a nurse on their staff and that is a big plus for you. But there are many agencies that do not have any nursing support and function like a headhunter/recruiter agency and this can really be difficult ( I have found) and a disadvantage.

So an agency that cares about their nurses and knows the environments they are sending their nurses to work trumps the agency that- if you are willing- will send you into the lions den.

You can get great experience going into new environments and make better wages and set your own schedule. Those are pluses. You will usually have no orientation, but sometimes do

up to one shift. some places are more helpful and others- you count narcs, get pt report and you are one your own, hit the ground running.

So you interview agencies as they interview you. You may find a helpful nurse at hospital

someplace that will tell you the agencies that may be better. Good luck!! o

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Specializes in Cardiac and Critical Care.

Thank's for the input. What agencies have you worked for? Any recommendations?

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