Finding Travel Nursing Companies – Blogs, Message Boards, Word of Mouth
With literally hundreds if not thousands of travel nursing companies in business, determining which companies you’re going to work with can be daunting. In addition, there are so many different ways to find them. In this post we’re going to discuss the benefits and limitations of relying on blogs, message boards, and word of mouth when finding a company to work with.
Experienced travel nurses have a lot to offer
You can obtain some great information from experienced travel nurses. There are tons of blogs, and message boards devoted to travel nursing. With these services, you can read about first hand experiences and obtain some very useful information (just be sure that it’s not a blog or chat room owned by a agency!). I believe that the most useful information you can get from other travel nurses is the information that relates to the job itself and the experience of traveling.
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In my opinion, travel nurses know much more than their recruiters about what to expect on a day-to-day basis while actually working the job. They also know much more about the actual experience of traveling. For example, what to pack, what expect while on the road, useful tools to help make traveling easier, and related items are all best obtained from the travel nurses themselves. However, while they are certainly able to provide information about agencies, the information is going to be limited in scope.
The limitations of experienced travel nurses
Consider a travel nurse with 10 years of travel experience. Even if they’ve worked with 2 different agencies every year, they’ve only worked with 20 companies. While that is no doubt a large number of companies for one person to have worked with, it’s a small number relative to the total number of companies out there. Furthermore, the travel nurse whose blog or message you’re reading may have been utilizing a company that wouldn’t meet your needs perhaps because the company doesn’t have contracts in the location you’re seeking or they don’t provide some benefit that is important to you. As a result, the recommendation or condemnation may or may not be pertinent to you.
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For example, if someone condemns American Mobile for an experience they had while traveling in Texas, and you wanted to travel to San Diego, you’d be wise to keep American Mobile in consideration despite what you’ve read as American Mobile has a very large footprint in the San Diego job market. At the same time, if someone exalts a company they worked with in New York, and you want to go to Colorado, it might be worth calling the agency, but your first question should be whether or not they service Colorado.
In addition to these factors, you must take with a grain of salt the information you obtain from travel nurses which pertains to how the industry works. When it comes to issues like contracts, compensation packages, tax free money, guaranteed shifts, and other such issues, travel nurses often know what they’ve been told by their recruiters or companies.
Trust me, recruiters and companies often times spin the information, or just flat-out lie, to make things sound better, or worse, than they actually are. I’ve seen the most reputable travel nursing bloggers and authors make claims that sounded as if they came directly from the week 1 sales training seminar titled “How to Sell It!” provided to newly hired recruiters.
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Again, I firmly believe that experienced travel nurses are among the most valuable resources for you to utilize. Just be sure to approach the information critically, with an eye toward your specific goals.
