Why so long?

Are you fully signed up with a couple of agencies? If not, there is a game of one more thing we need before submitting you that can be played for a long time. Even after being fully signed up, sometimes things you may need after being accepted to an assignment like licensure, updated physical, perhaps a fit test can slow things down.

There are also facilities or managers that are slow to interview, or are even playing a game making sure there are always applicants in the pipeline in case they have an opening (saves big bucks from using a rapid response company for an urgent need).

But yes, absent a rapid response assignment, typically it does take three to four weeks to actually start a travel assignment. If you are using only one agency, you could start looking, find a promising assignment, only to have it fall through for any of multiple reasons after 3 weeks and you are back to square one, and now looking at 6 plus weeks to start work.

For this and many other reasons, I recommend signing up with several agencies so you can have a Plan B (and C). Some agencies are willing to submit you to multiple assignments at the same time, but most will not. They really want you committed, and don't want to piss off facilities interviewing flaky travelers. So the workaround for us is to have more than one agency.

I am fully signed up with 3 companies actually. 2 regular and 1 rapid response. Compact license in hand. And licensed in a non-compact state also. Just really frustrating. Thanks for the insight. I'm new to travel nursing and I'm also pretty impatient as a rule.