Travel company advice

NedRN · Jul 1, 2016

The "right" agency, or more importantly the right recruiter for you, will be the wrong one for others. Referrals can be a good way to go to find a recruiter that does well for others, but that may not hold true with you. Every single agency, even very small ones, will have fans and detractors. Detractors are more numerous and louder the larger an agency, but those agencies did not grow to their size by mistreating travelers. In fact, new travelers may do better with larger agencies who may better be able to fit their experience into a compatible assignment. Travelers with experience will likely do better at small agencies who generally pay better.

There are "10 best agency lists" out there, but are not much better than a random Google search for travel nurse companies. In any case, you will have to personally find out if you fit a particular recruiter (about 20 times more important than the agency brand) by talking to them As a newbie, you have a lot to learn anyway, and talking to lots of recruiters will help you separate the BS from the truth and sort out who you want to go through the laborious sign up process with.

I recommend talking to lots of recruiters and nailing down the best three to five to complete a signup with and explore travel assignments. I believe it is mistake to sign up with only one as you will have no Plan B if things fall through. You also will have no ability to explore fair market rates for your specialty and experience with just one agency. Do try to avoid giving out your contact information until there is a good probability that you will want to work further with an agency. In fact, it is in your best interests to use caller ID blocking when calling new agencies: *67 before dialing the number.

laurasuern · Jul 1, 2016

Thank you so much for the excellent advice!