Securing a Travel Nursing Assignment – Your Submission Profile Part 1: The Application
Travel Nursing Submission Profile
Once you have determined which travel nursing cmpaines that you’re going to work with, you’ll almost certainly be requested to complete each agency’s on-line employment application as well as their skills checklists for the specialties that you’re qualified for. There’s a very good reason for this. The vast majority of hospitals that utilize travel nurses have a minimum set of items that they require companies to submit in order to even consider a candidate for a travel nursing job.
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As the industry has matured, these requirements have become pretty much uniform throughout the country. It is standard for hospitals to require an Application, Skills Checklist, and 2 recent references in order to even consider the candidate for open jobs. These items constitute the candidate’s “Submission Profile.” In this series, we’ll discuss the importance of each item and offer tips and tricks to deal with them efficiently and successfully.
The Travel Nursing Job Application
On-line job applications are becoming the norm throughout the employment world in general. They are typically required simply to get candidates entered in a company’s “Applicant Tracking System”. Applicant tracking systems are software services that make the entire hiring process more efficient. While they certainly service this purpose for companies, they also offer much more.
When you fill out an on-line application with a company, you are also most often filling out the resume that will be used to present you to the hospital. You see, on the back-end these systems are designed to render the collected data in a format that is similar to a standard resume so that it can be presented to the hospital. There are also features that provide the agency with the added potential to capture the data that is commonly required by the hospital managers responsible for hiring travelers.
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For example, certain hospitals may require to know if the candidate has worked in a teaching facility, or how many beds were in the hospitals that the candidate worked for in the past, or whether or not the jobs the candidate has listed are travel jobs, or if the candidate has experience in trauma hospitals. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to count on these details to be provided in every candidate’s resume. So the agency can simply add fields designed to capture the necessary details on their on-line application.
It’s important to complete your travel nursing job application
As you complete the on-line applications, you’ll notice that many of the fields within the applications may not be required. In other words, the application system will allow you to proceed with the process and submit the application even though all the fields have not been completed. This is because companies don’t want candidates to abandon the process out of frustration. They also know that once the electronic file is created and saved in to their system, their travel nurse recruiters can fill in the blanks as needed.
I strongly urge you to complete the on-line applications in their entirety. Yes, recruiters can fill in the blanks. However, the recruiter may be working with several candidates who already have completed profiles. They may also have a backlog of unfinished profiles for which they need to fill in the blanks.
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As a result, recruiters need to make judgment calls as to where it’s best to spend their time.Your profile may not come up for a day or several days if it is incomplete. However, it will be immediately taken up if it is fully complete. This can make a big difference in the very fluid travel job market. In addition, given the high turnover rate among recruiters, you’d be better served completing the details on your own as opposed to taking your chances with a potential rookie.
Tips for completing your travel nursing application
Many healthcare professionals have trouble with some of the information being sought on agency on-line applications. They often times forget the addresses, telephone numbers, and/or number of beds for all of their previous employers. In this case, I highly recommend utilizing the American Hospital Directory (AHD) to track down the information. AHD is a great website that allows you to track down this information quickly, conveniently, and for free.
Many experienced travelers have difficulty completing the on-line applications because they have so many jobs to enter. For example, if a travel nurse has been at it for 5 years, then they may have over 20 separate assignments to enter. This is cumbersome. In this case, I recommend that you review our blog post on the top 10 items to include in your resume in order to ensure that hospitals and/or recruiters have easy access to the required data.
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In addition, I highly recommend that you list out all assignments on your resume. For example, if you worked for one company for several assignments, then you should list each assignment separately and highlight the hospitals as opposed to the company. This is because some hospitals will not accept a profile without a list of the hospitals complete with all the necessary details including unit worked, number of beds, dates of employment, etc.
Travel nursing application signing statements
In addition to capturing a candidate’s vital work history data, on-line applications also serve another very important purpose for the company. They get the candidate to answer various background questions and agree to various application signing statements. There are several reasons that make having these items very important for the company.
First, hospitals have various requirements regarding criminal backgrounds. Some have very strict requirements and the company needs to know if a candidate has violated any of these prior to submitting the candidate to the facility. Second, companies often need the signing statements to complete other hospital requirements. For example, some hospitals require that a criminal background check accompany the submission profile. The company needs to have a signed agreement permitting the criminal background check in order for it to be conducted. In addition, hospitals require companies to check the candidate’s references. This often requires a statement from the candidate that grants the references permission to provide the details being sought.
Company on-line applications are a vital part in the process of securing a assignment. You’ll want to ensure that your application is completed in a timely and professional manner. Use capital letters when applicable. Provide details designed to sell your attributes. And remember, the information you provide is not just for the company, it’s for the people who actually make the hiring decisions at the hospitals you’ll be seeking to land a assignment with.
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Of course, it can be burdensome to continually complete on-line applications for companies. Especially when you have a lot of work history to enter. To make matters worse, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to be able to land an open job with the company in question. BluePipes can help you solve this problem.
BluePipes allows you to control their own submission profile. BluePipes provides free access to over 100 comprehensive skills checklists. In addition, the BluePipes profile can be rendered as a resume and a full job application complete with all the signing statements typically required by employers. The resume, application, and skills checklists can be packaged together in PDF format and sent to agencies at the member’s convenience. Now, when an agency contacts you with the ideal job, you can quickly and conveniently provide the agency with their submission profile and be submitted quickly.
In addition, BluePipes also allows members to broadcast their availability for their next job, whether it be a travel nursing assignment, PRN, or permanent job. This feature allows travel nurses to manage their communication with agencies more effectively and efficiently. Agencies will know exactly what you are looking for and will be able to contact you via the BluePipes messaging feature with jobs that match.
