25 Tips and Tricks to Negotiate Travel Nursing Pay and Contracts

Given that travel nursing contracts are short term, travel nurses must negotiate their pay much more often than the average professional. In this article, we’ll provide 25 tips and tricks to help you negotiate travel nursing pay and contracts like a pro!

1. Why Should Travel Nurses Negotiate?

As a travel nurse, negotiating is extremely important for several reasons. First, you get paid more when you negotiate salary.

Researchers from George Mason University and Temple University conducted a study on salary negotiations. They found those who negotiated salary, rather than simply accepting the offer on the table, increased their starting pay by an average of $5,000 per year.

It’s important to note that not all the negotiating approaches the researchers studied were successful. But, don’t worry. The researchers found that the negotiation approach we advocate in this article, and in our free negotiating eBook, is the most successful approach.

Second, travel nurses must negotiate because bill rates for travel nursing jobs often vary dramatically. In fact, the bill rates are sometimes different for the same job at the same hospital.

This means that the potential pay rates for travel nursing jobs can also vary dramatically. The wider the range of outcomes, the more you stand to lose if you do not negotiate.

Finally, travel nurses sign contracts that have tons of different clauses. These clauses include the guaranteed hours clause, missed shift penalties, cancellation penalties, non-compete clauses and many others.

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So, for travel nurses, negotiating is about more than just money. It’s also about working conditions, financial protections and power dynamics. Be sure to review our ultimate travel nursing contract checklist for more on how to evaluate travel nursing contracts.

2. Can You Negotiate Travel Nurse Pay with All Agencies?

You will come across many agencies who offer their best pay rate up front. Therefore, they will tell you that there is no need to negotiate with them. If a particular job does not have the pay you’re looking for, then no worries. They will help you find one that does.

There is nothing wrong with this. You may even appreciate it from a customer service standpoint. However, you should always be negotiating.

As I mentioned above, you can negotiate more than just pay. You can also negotiate various working conditions and contract clauses.

And, as I discuss below, negotiating is about much more than haggling over the pay rate. It’s also about having alternatives. Therefore, even companies that do not negotiate can be a part of your negotiating process.

3. Travel Nurses Negotiate Reimbursements

As I mentioned above, negotiating is about much more than your weekly paycheck as a travel nurse. For example, you might even be able to negotiate additional reimbursements that aren’t directly related to pay.

Therefore, it’s important that you ask about reimbursements. You should try to get the agency to cover as many costs as you can without adjusting your weekly pay to cover those costs. Some examples include travel expenses, parking fees, certification costs and health exams.

4. When Should You Start Negotiating Travel Nursing Pay?

Now, most people believe that negotiating happens at some certain point in the overall process. For example, when I was recruiting, many travel nurses I worked with would start negotiating after they received a job offer. While this is one approach to negotiating, it is not the best approach.

Instead, you begin negotiating before you have your first interaction with a prospective employer. Moreover, you should view every interaction you have with a prospective employer as part of the negotiating process.

This might sound strange. Don’t worry though! This concept is so important that I will discuss it throughout this entire article.

5. Understand Travel Nursing Pay Packages Before You Start Your Search

For example, you must understand travel nursing pay packages before you start your job search process. Doing so will allow you to accurately calculate the total value of a pay package and compare pay packages.

Perhaps most importantly, it will help you understand all the details you need to obtain about pay packages. Moreover, it establishes the perception with your recruiter that you know what you are doing. All of this will increase your negotiating strength.

That said, I understand that travel nursing pay packages are complicated. However, I am 100% certain that every nurse, therapist and tech is capable of fully understanding the pay packages. Healthcare professionals are an intelligent lot.

Moreover, there are tons of helpful resources available now. Here are some resources to help you become an expert on travel healthcare pay packages:

1. How to Evaluate Travel Nursing Pay Video
2. Sample Breakdown of a Travel Nursing Pay Package
3. 3 Pitfalls When Discussing Travel Nursing Pay and How to Avoid Them
4. The Ultimate Travel Nursing Pay Calculator

When I was recruiting, I’m certain that travel nurses who knew more about how the pay works earned more money. I’m certain that if you invest the 1 to 2 hours it will take you to fully understand pay, then you can negotiate THOUSANDS more dollars in the long-run. It’s worth it!

6. Ask for a Sample Travel Nursing Contract in Advance

Next, you should request a sample travel nursing contract in advance. As I mentioned above, travel nursing contracts include many different clauses. Moreover, different agencies have different contracts and clauses.

It’s extremely rare for a recruiter to cover every clause with you during the course of your normal conversations with them. Therefore, you can get totally thrown off guard when you receive a contract from a travel nursing agency that you’ve never worked with.

Don’t be surprised if your recruiter pushes back when you request a sample contract. For example, your travel nursing recruiter may tell you that travel nursing contracts vary from hospital to hospital. There is some truth to that. However, you can still ask for a general example so that you can review and ask questions before you receive an offer. In fact, I would proactively send my travelers a sample contract in advance so that there were no surprises during the process.

7. Know all the possible travel nursing contract components

Of course, it would help you to know everything to look for in a travel nursing contract. For that, please review my travel nursing contract checklist. I included every detail I’ve heard of during my 20-year career in the industry.

8. Avoid Obsessing over the “Bottom Line”

We hear it all the time in travel nursing. “Stick to your bottom line.” Unfortunately, bottom-line-negotiating is wildly unsuccessful. To clarify, bottom-line negotiating is when you have a minimum that you’re not willing to go below, no matter what.

Essentially, bottom-line-negotiating can cost you thousands of dollars every year. That’s partly because you end up missing out on work as you pass on job offers even though there are no other alternatives. It’s also because it blinds you from recognizing all types of negotiating opportunities.

We wrote extensively about this in another article. We encourage you to review it here. The bottom line on bottom-lines is that you should not allow them to control your negotiating strategy.

9. Do Not Let Travel Nursing Recruiters Know Your “Bottom Line”

Now, it’s important to note that you should know what your bottom-line is. However, you should never reveal it to your negotiating partner.

Every recruiter will ask you for your bottom line. Moreover, tons of travel nurses will encourage you to reveal your bottom line to your recruiters. They all argue that doing so will save you time. Otherwise, the recruiter will send you offers that you’re not interested in (OH….heaven forbid!!).

However, the Harvard Program on Negotiation says that revealing your bottom line is a “glaring negotiation mistake”. When I was a recruiter, I saw many other recruiters offer less than they could for a contact, but more than the candidate’s bottom line simply because the recruiter knew the bottom line.

Moreover, if you’re an expert on travel nursing pay packages, then it will take you seconds to review a pay package. Therefore, receiving pay packages you might not be interested in is by no means a reason to reveal your bottom line.

Perhaps most importantly, you must know all the information to be an effective negotiator. In this regard, you want to see all the pay packages you can. Your goal is to determine the range of pay in your desired destinations. This will help you determine what is and is not a good offer based on current market conditions. It may also warrant you to modify your bottom-line or drop out of the process altogether.

10. What to Do When Travel Nursing Recruiters Ask How Much You Want to Make

But first, you need a strategy for when travel nursing recruiters ask you how much money you want to make. This question is inevitable. At my old travel nursing agency, this question was part of our standard intake form. So, what should you do?

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Research indicates that the best approach to these inquiries is to crack a joke about an implausible salary expectation. For example, you might say, “Well, I’d like to make $500k on this contract, but really I just want what’s fair.”

This approach causes your negotiating partner to “anchor” on the high end of the salary range. One study indicated that this approach resulted in offers that were 9% higher than if the candidate simply provided their previous salary as the answer.

Now, the recruiter will probably still ask you for a real number. In that case, you should let them know that you want to know the pay for all the options that meet your search criteria. You can explain that there is no way for you to make an informed decision without having all the information.

11. Know Your BATNA

In addition to information, you also need alternatives. In fact, alternatives are one of the cornerstones of the negotiating approach we recommend for travel nurses.

That approach is called “principled negotiation”. Roger Fisher and William Ury defined this approach in their landmark book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.

Principled Negotiation is based on five propositions. I cover them extensively in my free negotiating eBook, so I won’t cover them in detail here.

However, it’s important for us to discuss one of the propositions here. BATNA is the acronym for “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement”. BATNA is important for travel nurses in many ways. We’ll look at two of them here.

First, you need to know all the jobs that meet your search criteria and you need to know what they pay. This will help you evaluate the state of the job market.

For example, if you pass on an offer now, then how long might it take you to secure another offer and at what pay rate? If you know this, then you’ll know how much money it might cost you if you pass on a job offer.

Second, travel nurses should seek to establish viable alternatives. Viable alternatives include things like other travel nursing contracts, working PRN, taking a permanent job and side-hustles.

Having viable alternatives dramatically increases your negotiating power. It also helps you avoid accepting jobs that pay less than your bottom-line.

Working PRN is the perfect example of a viable alternative for travel nurses. Therefore, you should try to establish stable PRN options wherever you are.

12. Work with Multiple Travel Nursing Agencies

You should also work with as many travel nursing companies as you can. Doing so will increase your access to the job market as different agencies have access to different jobs. This means you can gather more alternatives.

Working with multiple agencies creates a competitive market for your services in two ways. First, companies are more likely to make their best offer if they know there is competition for your business.

Second, it’s possible for you to receive multiple pay quotes for the same job. In some cases, you may even have agencies bid against one another. This is why recruiters will sometimes ask you to forward the offers you’ve received from other companies.

Now, we understand that managing multiple agencies can seem daunting. However, we have resources to help.

First, you can centrally manage all your documentation and communication with recruiters for free right here on BluePipes.  Second, you can discover how to manage all the nuances of working with multiple travel nursing companies in this article.

13. Consider a Collaborative Approach to Negotiating Travel Nurse Pay

Negotiating experts categorize negotiating strategies in different ways. For example, experts have categorized strategies as follows:

1. Collaborating: You attempt to reach the best outcome for both parties.
2. Competing: You try to maximize your own outcome with no regard for others.
3. Accommodating: You put the other party’s concerns first.
4. Compromising: You try to reach a middle ground.
5. Avoiding: You do not negotiate at all.

Principled Negotiation, which I mentioned above, is a collaborative approach. I think it’s perfectly suited for travel nursing’s unique circumstances.

Specifically, travel nurses can do lots of things that are beneficial for an agency but are often overlooked as negotiating bargaining chips. Moreover, travel nurses naturally build mutually beneficial relationships with recruiters. Finally, to a small extent, agencies are the gatekeepers of travel nursing jobs.

So, what can you do to collaborate with your recruiters to gain additional negotiating power?

Refer Your Friends and Be an Ambassador

First, you can refer other healthcare professionals to the agencies you work with. Second, you can be brand ambassador for your travel nursing agencies by doing any of the following:

1. Fill out positive reviews on various agency review websites.
2. Talk your agency up and defend them on social media.
3. Offer to provide a review that they can add to their website or marketing material.

Referrals and brand ambassadors are highly valuable for a travel nursing agency. And, the more value you bring to a travel nursing agency, the more apt the agency will be to treat you favorably.

This may sound silly, but we recommend documenting your referral and ambassador activity. Keep a list of your referrals and take screenshots of your ambassador activity. You can present the documentation to the agency to help your efforts resonate with them.

Stay on Top of Your Travel Nursing Paperwork

Travel nurses know full well that paperwork is a nightmare. Now imagine that you have to manage the same paperwork for hundreds of travel nurses. Paperwork is a nightmare for agencies too.

When I was recruiter, I had start-dates get pushed back, contracts get cancelled and nurses get pulled from the floor over paperwork issues. This seriously effects the agency’s revenue.

Therefore, you should be prompt with your paperwork. In fact, be urgent.

Maintain an excellent set of documents. Send what you can, when you can. When it comes time for negotiating, they’ll remember how prompt and reliable you are.

Be an Amazing Travel Nurse

Agencies will fight to keep their most amazing travel nurses. This is because agencies know that their amazing employees are more profitable.

Moreover, agencies know that amazing employees actually transcend money to offer value in other ways. For example, agencies know that they can improve their standing with a hospital when they send amazing travelers to the hospital. In turn, the hospital will treat the agency favorably in the future.

Being amazing benefits a travel nurse’s negotiating strength in many ways. First, agencies are much more likely to give better deals to their most amazing employees.

Second, when the highest paying assignments become available, agencies are more likely to call their most amazing employees first. That’s because agencies want to reward their most amazing employees. Also, agencies think their most amazing employees have the best chance at landing the highest paying jobs.

Finally, agencies call their most amazing travel nurses when they’re in dire need of someone special. For example, if they had another traveler back out of a contract or if they are trying to land a new contract with hospital. In these cases, agencies are often willing to take lower profit margins and offer higher pay for the traveler.

Here are some tips on how you can get agencies to view you as an amazing travel nurse:

1. Maintain an exemplary attendance record.
2. Follow hospital protocols.
3. Be pleasant at work.
4. Complete what is asked of you.
5. Makeup shifts when you miss them.
6. Work extra shifts IF you have a good extra-shift rate.
7. Be prompt with time reporting.
8. Complete every contract you start.

14. Avoid the Pitfalls of Jealousy

Research indicates that “status concerns” have a negative impact on negotiations. “Status concern” is the PC way of saying jealousy.

In fact, a majority of people are less likely to accept a job offer if they know that a peer got a better offer. This is even true if the offer is substantially better than their current situation.

What does this mean for travel nurses? Travelers talk to one another about their pay packages. That’s a good thing! As we’ll discuss below, research supports doing so.

However, travelers must be careful not to let these discussions lead to jealousy because jealousy can cloud your judgement during negotiations. You might approach negotiations with unrealistic expectations and alienate your negotiating partners.

You might pass on an offer because it’s $1 or $2 per hour less than you think you should get. Then, you miss a week or two of work waiting for the next assignment, which can be much more costly.

Moreover, we routinely see travel nurses receive bad information about pay on social media. At the same time, it’s difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons of travel nursing pay packages. As a result, you may not receive accurate information.

15. Knowing Salary Ranges Can Help Travel Nurses Negotiate

All of that said, research finds that it’s highly beneficial for you to know about salary ranges when you are negotiating. This is especially true for women.

As you may have heard, studies indicate that male RNs make nearly $250 more per week than their female counterparts. Meanwhile, negotiating experts agree that women are more reticent to negotiate salary.

Now, there is broad debate as to why that is. However, research indicates that the negotiation gap decreases significantly when women know salary ranges in advance.

16. Check the Pay Quotes on Travel Nursing Job Boards

The good news is that travel nursing pay packages are everywhere these days. For example, there are many job boards dedicated to the travel nursing industry which display pay quotes on their job postings. In fact, BluePipes has such a travel nursing job board!

It’s important to note that you’ll see many travel nurses on social media saying that the pay quotes on these jobs are intentionally fake. While there may be a very small percentage of pay quotes that match that description, the vast majority of them are either exactly correct or within a couple of percentage points of being exactly correct.

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That said, there are many nuances you should be aware of about the pay quotes you see on job boards. Please review my article on how travel nursing companies calculate pay quotes to discover all the details about this topic.

Ultimately, the pay quotes you see on travel nursing job boards can be highly useful to help you gain an understanding of the pay ranges for jobs that you’re interested in. You just need to apply some additional nuance in order to improve accuracy.

17. Other Ways to Find Salary Ranges for Travel Nurses

There are some other options for you to find travel nursing salary ranges. First, Facebook has groups dedicated to travel nursing jobs. The pay quotes are often highly detailed and accurate. The reason is that recruiters have actually run the calculations manually before posting pay packages there.

That said, Facebook is not the easiest place to find what you’re looking for. The search functionality is a disaster, so it can be time consuming to find what you’re looking for.

Another option is for you to call agencies in advance and request pay quotes. You can even call multiple agencies to obtain pay quotes for the same job. Just be sure that you’re comparing the pay quotes accurately.

18. Leverage Social Proof when Negotiating as a Travel Nurse

In the book Negotiation Genius, Harvard Professors Deeepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman discuss ways that negotiators can generate “social proof” in order to increase their negotiating power. The idea is that things increase in value when people perceive that other people are interested in them.

How can travel nurses benefit from this? Let your recruiters know you’re working with multiple companies. And keep them posted with the progress.

The great news is that this is what you should be doing as a matter of professional courtesy anyway. But remember, treat your recruiters with respect so you can maintain their confidence and ensure they work hard for you.

19. Should You Discuss Competing Offers with Your Travel Nursing Recruiters?

Of course, the next step beyond social proof is for you to discuss competing offers with your recruiters. You do this in an attempt to get recruiters to bid against one another for the best pay.

I advocate this approach within certain parameters in our eBook on pay negotiation. I’ll explain why in a moment. However, it’s also important to note that negotiation experts are divided on this topic.

The Argument Against Competing Offers

For example, Chris Voss, a former FBI negotiator, cautions against competing offers and competitive bidding. He says competing offers can make the other side feel manipulated and resentful. This is especially true when the other side isn’t capable of matching an offer.

Meanwhile, negotiation research suggests that aggressive negotiating tactics have a stronger tendency to backfire when women implement them. Researchers believe that this is because assertive approaches are contrary to traits that we traditionally perceive as feminine. Competing offers and bidding wars are definitely aggressive.

The Argument in Favor of Competing Offers

So, why do we recommend competing offers in our eBook? Well, for starters, competing offers always worked on me as a recruiter!

Plus, as I mentioned above, there is debate on this issue. So, there are plenty of studies and experts who recommend negotiators use competing offers. For example, Dartmouth college asserts that having competing offers can be useful in getting organizations to increase their offers.

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When it comes to women, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg advises that women should be assertive. However, they should combine it with smiles, friendly gestures, and other non-threatening and traditionally feminine behavior.

And that’s the point. Your success with competing offers as a negotiating tactic really depends on your approach. And this is true for both men and women.

For example, renowned career coach Donald Asher recommends discussing competing offers in a positive light. You might say, “Hey, I have a competing offer of X, but I really like your organization better. Is there anything we can do?”

Competing Offers in Travel Nursing

When it comes to travel nursing, it’s important to remember that you can often obtain competing offers for the same job! Therefore, there is no need to create a bidding war; simply go with the highest offer. Or, if you like one organization better than the one offering more money, then try Donald Asher’s advice above.

However, it’s very important to remember that the use of competing offers only works when the jobs are similar. For example, you should not use a job in San Francisco, California to help you increase the pay for a job in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Finally, it’s important to remember that one of the big criticisms of discussing competing offers is that the employer may rescind an offer. Here again, travel nursing is unique.

It’s extremely rare for travel nursing agencies to rescind job offers. So, your only concern as a travel nurse is to make sure you don’t damage your relationships with recruiters.

But remember, discussing competing offers and bidding wars are not the same as creating social proof. You always want your recruiters to know you’re working with others. It’s good for your negotiating position and fair to them. However, whether or not you decide to discuss the details of competing offers is up to you.

20. Be Flexible when Negotiating Travel Nursing Pay

Harvard Professor Michael Wheeler argues that negotiators should avoid rigid approaches. He says negotiating is dynamic and it can’t be scripted. Moreover, your negotiating partner may not be as cooperative as you expect.

Therefore, you should have a plan A, B and C whenever possible. Be prepared in advance to alter your position or find opportunities for win-win agreements.

Check out our free negotiating eBook to discover more about how to create win-win agreements with travel nursing agencies. The book includes tons of information on this topic; far too much to include in this post.

Wheeler also points out that it’s easy to draw false conclusions from negotiating experiences because we don’t have all the information from the other side. However, writing things down both before and after negotiations is greatly beneficial. Write down what you know as well as your assumptions about the other side before and after in order to improve your skills.

21. Practice Makes Perfect

Research indicates that you can greatly enhance your negotiating skills by practicing. You can practice with a friend or a neutral party to achieve results. Interestingly, women gained much more from practicing than their male counterparts.

22. Women Perform Better as Agents

Studies also show that women negotiate much more assertively when they negotiate for someone else than they do when they negotiate for themselves. Researchers believe that this is because negotiating for others is a more communal endeavor which is more consistent with traditional roles. So, try approaching your travel nurse negotiations as a representative of your family or posterity.

23. Objective Measures More Impactful for Women

Research indicates that women need to legitimize their salary requests during negotiations more often than men in order to be successful. Therefore, experts recommend that women use objective performance measures to accomplish this.

Researchers also recommend that women use inclusive pronouns and phrases like “we” instead of I. We discuss specific ways that travel nurses can accomplish both of these objectives in our free eBook on negotiation.

24. Does It Matter If Your Travel Nurse Recruiter is Male or Female?

Katherine Milkman of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania lead a team of researchers who sent emails to 6,500 university professors across all disciplines. They posed the emails as if they were from doctoral students of different genders and racial backgrounds requesting a 10-minute meeting to discuss the possibility of conducting research with the professors.

The researchers found that professors ignored women and minorities at a higher rate than Caucasian males. The rate of discrimination varied widely among fields, but women and minorities were ignored 30% more even in the least discriminatory field.

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Perhaps more importantly, the researchers found that female and minority professors were also less likely to respond to inquiries from women and minorities. So, working with a female travel nursing recruiter isn’t necessarily an advantage for female travel nurses when it comes to perceptions during negotiation.

25. Remember to Negotiate Your Travel Nursing Contract Extensions

Finally, it’s important for travel nurses to remember that extension contracts present an opportunity to negotiate. We’ve covered this topic extensively in previous articles so we’re not going to cover it here. Instead, we encourage you to review the articles below!

1. 8 Tips for Travel Nursing Contract Extensions
2. Should You Get Raises and Bonuses for Travel Nursing Contract Extensions?

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many simple tricks you can use to negotiate better travel nursing pay packages. But, the single most important thing to remember is that you should in fact negotiate.

We totally appreciate that negotiating sucks. But that’s the world we live in. Even when agencies tell you that they do not negotiate, you should negotiate. All the research conclusively demonstrates that you will earn more if you do!