Finding Travel Nursing Companies Using Blogs, Message Boards and Word of Mouth

It’s imperative for travel nurses to research travel nursing agencies before they decide to work with them. There are many ways to do this. In previous articles, I’ve discussed rating and review services and broadcast services. In this article, I’ll review what travel nurses should know about using message boards (social media), blogs and word of mouth to find travel nursing companies to work with.

Using Message Boards (Social Media) to Research or Discover Travel Nursing Companies

In case you haven’t noticed, I like to tease “Social Media” by calling it “Message Boards”. In my view, what I once thought was a great way to keep up with the friends I’d made over the years, as well as experts I respected, has morphed into a garbage heap akin to the message boards of old. What do I care what @TuffGuy209 has to say about geopolitics in the Baltic region?!

But I digress. Messages Boards are more popular than they’ve ever been. More importantly for this article, I routinely see travel nurses on message boards asking for recommendations and opinions on travel nursing agencies. So, here is a list of some of the more popular Message Boards currently in use:

Travel Nurse Network FaceBook Group

The Travel Nurse Network is a FaceBook group operated by The Gypsy Nurse which is owned by the travel nursing agency Travel Nurse Across America. The group is “private” which means that only group members can see your posts. It has over 190,000 members!

Travel Nursing Newbies FaceBook Group

The Travel Nursing Newbies FaceBook Group is owned and operated by Atlas MedStaff. It’s a private group which means that only group members can see the posts. It has over 65,000 members.

r/TravelNursing Subreddit

The TravelNursing subreddit on Reddit has over 56,000 members. The moderators are hands off unless something violates the sub’s rules. In which case, they ban folks immediately.

Are Message Boards Useful for Researching Travel Nursing Agencies?

In general, I think everyone should be cautious with the information they find on message boards. In particular, social media is packed with half-truths, ambiguity and downright misinformation.

That said, I do think they can be useful resources for a wide range of travel nursing information. However, I think that researching travel nursing agencies on social media is ineffective. Let’s unpack.

First, most message boards have really bad search features. This is largely because they make money by getting you to stick around. Serving up quick answers is counter to that goal.

Facebook has notoriously bad search functionality. However, Reddit’s search is okay. For example, you can search for “Aya Healthcare” in r/TravelNursing and get a pretty good set of results to peruse through.

Second, it’s difficult to obtain a meaningful number or responses to questions like, “What travel nursing agencies do you recommend?” on social media. That’s because people post these questions so often that the community just tunes them out.

Third, some agencies have fake social media accounts that answer these questions. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true.

For example, one prominent review website owner had to ban multiple agencies from their review website for life because she repeatedly caught them red handed leaving fake reviews. Similarly, the r/TravelNursing subreddit has permanently banned multiple users for posing as travel nurses while positively reviewing an agency not realizing that their post history clearly indicated they were agents of the agency.

Fourth, when you ask a question on social media, the response you receive depends on who happens to see and respond to your post at that given time. It’s fleeting. Therefore, you could get entirely different answers from one day to the next.

At the end of the day, you need a critical mass of valid reviews or responses regarding multiple agencies in order to paint a clear picture of the travel nursing agency landscape. Messages boards simply aren’t the best option for this.

Using Blogs to Find Travel Nursing Companies

Blogs are another possibility for researching travel nursing agencies. This alternative has good options and mediocre options.

Many blogs have articles or pages that showcase lists of the “best travel nursing companies.” Some of these lists, like BluePipes’ annual list of the best travel nursing companies, are great. However, others are shaky at best.  We cover this topic in greater detail in our ultimate guide to using rating and review services for researching travel nursing agencies.

You’ll also find articles about specific companies. In some cases, travel nurses write about their experience with a company. These articles tend to be quite good for research purposes. However, it’s important to note that you’re getting just one person’s perspective. Even the worst companies can impress a significant percentage of their travel nurses.

In other cases, these articles are fluff pieces that the travel nursing agency pays for directly or indirectly. These articles tend to be useless for the most part. You should be able to easily identify these articles in order to avoid them.

Using Word of Mouth to Find Travel Nursing Companies

Word of mouth is another common way to find and research travel nursing companies. Here again, there are several variations and some are better than others.

Having a friend refer you to the agency and recruiter they worked with is perhaps the best of these options. That said, it’s still important to vet them by checking multiple review sources.

Getting a referral from some rando on a message board is perhaps the least trustworthy of these options. That’s especially true if they share a “referral link” with you.

The only reason I say this is that referrer will receive a referral bonus if the referee takes or completes an assignment with the agency. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to avoid this option completely. Again, you just need to do some additional research to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Why Critical Mass is Important When Researching Travel Nursing Companies

Critical mass is a recurring theme for the research options I covered in this article. Let’s take a closer look at what it is and why it matters.

In this context, critical mass is a large enough number of reviews, recommendations or responses concerning a particular travel nursing company or set of companies. But why do we need a large number?

First, it’s important to evaluate a company’s overall performance. That’s because even the best companies will get some bad reviews. You don’t want to avoid a great company just because you found the one person that had a bad experience with them.

Additionally, you need to consider a broad spectrum of issues in order to find travel nursing agencies that are a good fit for your needs. For example, if someone condemns American Mobile for an experience they had while traveling in Texas, and you want to travel to San Diego, then you’d be wise to keep American Mobile in consideration because 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, then it might be worth calling the agency, but your first question should be whether or not they service Colorado.

These are the kinds of details you’ll get from expanding your research sources. So, while message boards, blogs and word of mouth can be helpful, it’s best to add the review websites and various other review resources to gain a deeper understanding.