How Travel Nursing Agencies Use Your Contact Information

We previously discussed the many methods travel nursing agencies utilize to obtain the contact information of healthcare professionals. In this article, we’ll discuss the many ways travel nursing agencies put that contact information to use in their quest to recruit candidates for travel nursing jobs.

Enter the Data Into the ATS

First, agencies enter the candidate contact information into their Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An ATS is a software application that helps agencies manage the hiring, onboarding and ongoing employment of their healthcare staff.

The process for entering candidate data into the ATS may be manual or automated depending on the source of the data. Either way, each candidate gets their own record in the ATS. Moreover, each data-point has its own specific field for each candidate in the ATS.

Filtering for Specificity

For example, each record has a field for first name, last name, profession, specialty, states of licensure, phone number and so on. Now, this might be so obvious that you’re wondering why I would even mention it. Well, this data structure provides for search and filtering features that allow agencies to target select groups for various recruiting campaigns.

For example, the agency might search their ATS for Operating Room RNs who are licensed in Texas.  From there, the agency might use the ATS’s own software features to conduct email and/or SMS text messaging campaigns targeting that group.

If the ATS does not have such features, then the agency might use an ATS’s feature for exporting the candidate data as a CSV file. Then, the agency can upload that CSV file to third party software for running email, SMS or voice/call campaigns.

Let’s take a look at each of these marketing channels to better understand how agencies use all that contact information they’re collecting from the various lead generation sources they use.

Phone Calls for Travel Nurse Recruiting

Most agencies view phone calls as the single most valuable and successful channel for recruiting travel nurses. And it’s not just an opinion. They have the data to back it up.

Now, there are several methods for making the calls. In some cases, a recruiter will manually dial a phone number to make the call. However, this is becoming exceedingly rare.

Instead, various software applications now allow agencies and recruiters to make calls automatedly. For example, the ATS might have a feature that allows the recruiter to click an option to call a single candidate. The software, which is connected to the recruiter’s phone, dials the number so the recruiter doesn’t have to.

Alternatively, a software application might cycle through dialing a set of phone numbers. If the call goes to voice mail, then the system leaves a prerecorded message. If the call connects, then the system patches the call through to the recruiter waiting on the other end. Additionally, the software will display the candidate’s record on the recruiter’s screen so they know who they are talking to.

This setup allows the recruiter to complete other tasks while also “making calls”. Moreover, it’s occurring simultaneously for a large number of recruiters.

There are a number of other variations of automated calls but you get the idea. Now you know how recruiters “make” all the phone calls you’re receiving.

Email Campaigns for Travel Nurse Recruiting

Agencies also make extensive use of email campaigns. For example, they might run a mass campaign to their entire database. These are typically general in nature or are promoting something that is pertinent to everyone.

They might also run targeted email campaigns to select segments. For example, they might send an email with a list of the highest paying Operating Room RN jobs to the OR RNs in their ATS.

Similarly, they might have software that sends job alert emails to candidates in their database. This approach is highly targeted and designed to deliver something that the candidate has specifically requested.

Agencies typically centralize control of email campaigns. For example, the marketing team might control email campaigns for the entire organization. To clarify, it’s pretty rare for an agency to allow any recruiter to any mass email they want to send any time they want to send it.

This is because email campaigns entail some risks. Specifically, spam complaints could jeopardize the company’s ability to even send email. Email services will shut down an entire domain name if it receives too many spam complaints.

SMS Text Messages for Travel Nurse Recruiting

SMS text messages are another tool that travel nursing agencies utilize for candidate outreach. Here again, there are many software applications that automate and/or scale this process.

For example, the agency might use third party texting software integrated with their ATS system. The texting software is able to access all the candidate contact information. It’s also able to insert the messages it sends and receives into the ATS so that the agency can easily track the communications between them and the candidate.

The texting software allows the agency to send mass messages, targeted messages and individual messages. So, recruiters could use it to send individual messages from their desktop keyboard as opposed to doing so from their own mobile device.

Agencies most likely prefer texting to emails because text message open rates are much higher than email open rates. As you might expect, text message response rates are higher too.

In the early days of all this text messaging software, it was like the wild west. There weren’t standardized registration and complaint systems in place, so agencies could just send text messages willy-nilly.

Now, businesses must register their brand and campaign type with carriers in order to text at scale. They need to maintain set “phone numbers” for identification purposes. Moreover, consumers can now conveniently report complaints similar to how email works.

As a result, agencies tend to centralize control of mass text messaging in order to prevent their recruiters from abusing these features.

Where Does the Travel Nurse Recruiter Fit In?

You might be wondering if travel nursing recruiters even do anything given all this automation. Actually, all of this automated outreach tends to make recruiters even busier.

You see, back in the day, agencies really needed recruiters to self-motivate in order to manually source and reach out to candidates. These days, agencies can pretty much strap their recruiters into a system that feeds work to the recruiter all day long.

Now, it doesn’t work that way at every agency. Some agencies don’t actually automate to that degree. Either way though, all of these automated outreach features do free recruiters up to focus on higher level tasks like relationship building.

At the end of the day, travel nurse recruiting is largely a sales role. And almost all agencies track, measure and treat it that way.

Where Does Travel Nurse Privacy Fit In?

Of course, no conversation about how travel nursing agencies make use of all the candidate contact information they collect would be complete without touching on travel nurse privacy. If you’re paying attention to the industry, then you’ll routinely see travel nurses complaining about the overwhelming volume of communications they receive.

Well, we’ve covered that topic in several other articles. For example, we discussed how new changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act bolstered privacy for travel nurses. We’ve also discussed the various ways agencies obtain travel nurse contact information and provided tips for avoiding them.

Finally, it’s pertinent to note that BluePipes takes travel nurse privacy very seriously. In fact, I’m willing to wager that we have the most travel nurse friendly privacy policy in the entire job search industry!