Travel Nursing in Chicago

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Hello to all! I am a ER nurse in Northwest Indiana. I am considering making the move to Illinois to make more money and get more experience. I have 5 years experience in ER at the same hospital. I have never worked anywhere else so I am a little timid to try agency route. Any recommendations on where to go, what agency, expected pay? Also what is the housing that they provide like and the location?

Ashley

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Hello to all! I am a ER nurse in Northwest Indiana. I am considering making the move to Illinois to make more money and get more experience. I have 5 years experience in ER at the same hospital. I have never worked anywhere else so I am a little timid to try agency route. Any recommendations on where to go, what agency, expected pay? Also what is the housing that they provide like and the location?

Ashley

ADerucki...I understand your hesitation. There are a lot of rotten agencies out there. I got lucky and found a company that I thought had a neat system. They call themselves Flexibility Staffing and are a husband and wife recruiting team. They work with several different agencies and have a lot more jobs available than any of the companies I've worked with in the past. I've been traveling with them for a couple of years and wouldn't change for anything.

I usually work nights and they gave me their home and mobile#s so no matter what time it is, if I need them, I can reach them. You might want to give them a call. Their website is www.flexibilitystaffing.net and it has all of their contact information on it.

Best of luck to you. I hope you find what you're looking for....Pat

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I was looking for a travel nursing job in Chicago last year. What I found out was that there arent many travel nursing agencies that offer travel nursing jobs in Chicago. I ended up contacting a local nursing agency and they found me a local contract assignment here in Chicago. What I found out is that most of the Chicago area hospitals just dont use travel nursing agencies. They use local nursing agencies that are normally able to staff the Chicago nursing contracts with local nurses.

After my first local contract I ended up doing per diem nursing here in Chicago. There are a lot of hospitals in the Chicagoland area. I did per diem nursing at about 15 local hospitals for about 6 months strait. This was during the summer months and there was plenty of agency nursing available here in Chicago. During the winter months it gets a little slow.

The local nursing agency that found me the local contract assignment in Chicago was called HPI Healthcare Personnel Inc. http://www.hcpersonnel.com . Do a few google searches for yourself if you want some info about local nursing agencies. This agency worked out great for me. They are really nice people and were very honest with me from the start.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Telemetry.

think long and hard about leaving your current position for travel nursing. the market is very slow right now.

also few chicago hospitals use travel nurses. if you are intent on finding a position in chicago you may want to consider working with a local agency. i have heard good things about the HPI which ChicagoRNStacy recommended.

though i was out of work for a couple months in between assignments, i was fortunate to find two positions through american mobile here in chicago. one at university of chicago (which is currently on a hiring freeze) and another at mercy on the southside of chicago. i dont think there are currently any chicago positions posted through american mobile but things change daily.

with american mobile you can expect a housing subsidy of $1000-1400/month and pay rates around $30/hr for chicago.

good luck!

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Specializes in ER, Oncology, Travel Nursing.

How was your experience at Mercy?

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