How To Choose The Best Travel Nursing Company
by Sumona Job & Career 07 December 2022
Travel nursing has become one of the most sought-after professions in the medical field thanks to the opportunity to adventure, the increase in pay, and other benefits. The nursing profession is particularly challenging and responsible, which means that it also has some of the highest levels of burnout.
These high levels of burnout coupled with the unprecedented pandemic which hit the world in 2020 led to a lot of nurses leaving the field. In order to fill their vacancies, many medical facilities turned to travel nurses – short-term contractors with good credentials and valuable experience.
Sadly, this also led to a proliferation of less-than-savory travel nurse agencies in addition to reputable and well-respected established agencies. These shady businesses are only interested in profit and are willing to skew the rules and regulations to their advantage and the disadvantage of both medical facilities and their traveling staff.
This is why we reached out to one of the most renowned and respected travel nursing agencies, Ventura MedStaff to tell us more about what differentiates the best travel nursing companies from the bad ones.
Previous Reputation
One of the simplest things to check in this day and age is how reputable a company is. There are numerous rating websites such as Yelp and Google which enable you to see the previous experiences of people who used the services of the company in the past.
Even if the experiences are overwhelmingly positive, make sure to read at least a few bad and middling results, just to be on the lookout for potential problems.
Entrusting your employment to an agency means that you need to trust them, and aside from online reviews, the best way for that is to know someone who used their services previously. If you are fortunate enough to have that – great. If not, online consensus should be enough at least for an initial consultation.
Variety of Postings on Their Website
If you look at the job postings an agency has on their website, and it is very limited and very remote, it is possible that they don’t have your best interest at heart and that they are running a dishonest business.
On the other hand, if an agency has numerous postings from Alaska to Florida and Hawaii, chances are that they are reputable enough to have such a wide offering. Medical facilities will only work with people they can trust – and if they feel they can trust this recruitment agency, then so can you.
Recruiter Support
Once you decide to engage with an agency, you will be contacted by a recruiter. These people will be your contact point from the first interaction to the end of your contract. This means that you will be sharing a lot of potentially sensitive information with them.
If you don’t feel like you can trust them during your first conversation, if they are unsure how to help you – perhaps you should keep looking. Remember, any problem you have – they will be trying to solve. Make sure you feel a positive rapport with them.
Pay and Other Benefits
Finally, the elephant in the room that most people want to ignore – is the pay and benefits. Travel nursing can be a very lucrative profession – especially if your specialization is rare or very advanced.
That being said, your earnings will be coming directly from your agency, not the medical facility. This means that the percentage of your wages that the agency takes depends on them alone. Research how much the going rate is for that posting to avoid being overcharged by the agency.
These are just some of the things you should be on the lookout for when choosing your travel agency, but they are very important. If any of these primary things are off, you are better off looking elsewhere.
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