Securing a Travel Nursing Job : What Happens When Your Profile is Submitted?
There are two common methods for submitting a candidate’s submission profile to a hospital for a travel nursing job. These methods are driven by the type of relationship that the agency has with hospital in question. Remember, the two main relationship types are direct relationships and Vendor Management System relationships. Each method is going to play out in different ways for the travel nurse, but the ultimate goal is to land a travel nursing interview.
Travel nursing jobs and agency direct relationships
If an agency has a direct relationship with the hospital, then the travel nurse’s submission profile will be submitted directly to the designated point person at the hospital. These days, email is the most common method used to submit a profile in this scenario. Depending on the closeness of the relationship and/or the hospital’s policies, the point person could be a staffing office representative or even a Unit Manager.
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In the vast majority of cases, the travel nurse’s submission profile will be submitted to a staffing office representative. The staffing office representative will screen all submission profiles received. The representative may or many not contact the candidate to ask some standard preliminary questions. Either way, the staffing office representative will typically forward the submission profiles that pass initial screening to the Unit Manager or Supervisor responsible for conducting interview.
Communication between the company and hospital becomes an issue at this point. If the company has a really good relationship with the hospital, they may have a better chance at receiving frequent progress updates. However, all parties at the hospital have other responsibilities to attend to. As a result, significant delays in communication can occur. Sometimes the candidate will receive a call for an interview immediately. Other times it can take weeks for the candidate to receive a call. Sometimes the staffing office representative will tell the travel nursing company that their candidate didn’t pass the initial screening process, and sometimes they won’t. Likewise, sometimes the company will find out that the job has been filled by another candidate, and sometimes they won’t. So the process can be quite opaque.
Travel nursing jobs and vendor management services
Unfortunately, the process can be just as opaque, if not more so, when the company has a Vendor Management Service relationship with the hospital. Remember, Vendor Management Service relationships entail a middle man between the company and the hospital. Sometimes the middle man accepts submission profiles via email. However, sophisticated Vendor Management Software is becoming ever more prevalent in the industry.
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If the Vendor Management Service is using such software, then the company must log in to the system and follow the software’s process for submitting candidates. This process typically entails answering a series of questions about the candidate’s experience, licenses, and certifications in addition to uploading the candidate’s submission profile. Sometimes the software system uses the answers provided to the questions to rank the candidate against predetermined criteria for the job in question. Higher ranking candidates are pushed to the top of the list.
In any case, the submission profile may go directly to the hospital at which point the candidate may receive a call from the unit manager or staffing office representative for an interview, or to schedule an interview. Alternatively, the profile may get routed to a representative from a Managed Service Provider who may call the candidate with some pre-screening questions before passing the profile on to the hospital or to one of the Managed Service Provider’s own interviewers.
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Just as with direct relationships, the communication between the company and the hospital/Vendor Management System can breakdown. The fact that there are more hands in the pot with the Vendor Management Service relationship tends to mean that communication breakdowns occur more often.
Why are there delays in getting a travel nursing interview?
I was often asked why lengthy delays existed assuming that hospitals had an immediate need for travel nurses. There are many reasons for delays, but perhaps the most common reason involves the fact there is almost always more than 1 candidate for every job. The hospital may have chosen to interview a candidate right away and then extend an offer to the candidate immediately. At that point, the candidate may accept immediately, or it may take a few days. If the candidate declines the offer after a few days, then hospital is back to square one and the process starts over. If this happens once or twice during the process, then we’re looking at 1 to 2 weeks before anything is known for certain. Meanwhile, all the other candidates are in a holding pattern.
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As you can see, there are many factors at play when a travel nurse’s submission profile is submitted to a hospital. In addition, when there are more companies vying to fill an open job, then there are undoubtedly morecandidates. This can result in reduced communication between the companies and the hospital and further delays. This is why I always recommend that travel nurses keep their options open. Try to work with multiple agencies and don’t be afraid to be submitted to more than one job at a time.
