The new year seems so far away, but the reality is that it will be here before you know it. The time of year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s flies by for travel nurses, recruiters, and onboarding specialists, which means waiting to find a travel assignment that starts in January can leave you without a job come the first of the year. If you’re considering taking the holidays off and jumping back into the job market in January, here are a few reasons you should button up your new year positions now.
Why It Can Be Difficult to Find a New Year Travel Assignment
There’s one simple reason why finding a travel assignment in January can be difficult—many travel nurses plan to take time off during the holidays and then get back into the swing of things after the new year. Sounds like a great idea! And it is. Being able to completely customize when you work is one of the greatest perks of travel nursing.
However, because it’s something that a lot of travel nurses do, it can be harder to find a job right after the holidays. The market is flooded with travel nurses looking for new travel assignments, and recruiters are swamped trying to find their established travel nurses a job. So, if you’re thinking about switching to a new recruiter or agency, right after the new year is not the time to start. If you wait too long to start your January job search, you might be left out entirely and stay out of work longer than planned.
When To Look for a New Year Travel Assignment
It might seem too early, but the time to look for a January travel assignment is actually in October or November, before Halloween or Thanksgiving. If you’re planning on switching to a new agency or recruiter, you should start even earlier because you’ll need time to create your profile or make sure you find a recruiter that you vibe with. (Side note: this is where a Kamana profile is a huge benefit for travelers. The universal Kamana profile can be sent to any agency or recruiter, meaning you’re already ahead of the game.) When you start making these connections before the holiday season begins, you’ll have a better chance of finding a travel assignment where you want to go.
Having something lined up before the holidays allows you to still take time off, but without worrying about what you’re going to do when January rolls around. It also lets you go through the compliance process over a longer period of time, which is important. The folks at your agency, your facility, or even the labs where drug tests are processed like to spend time with their families during the holidays, which can sometimes slow things down. Remember, they’re people, not robots!
Tips for Finding a New Travel Assignment
Luckily for travel nurses who want to take time off during the holidays, a few things can help them find assignments.
Be flexible. Remember that everyone wants to go somewhere warm in cold, dreary January. So, if you’re willing to take assignments in northern states, you’ll probably have an easier time finding one.
Start early. Like we said before, getting your January assignment buttoned up ahead of time means you’ll have less competition for the available jobs.
Keep your skills current. If you’ve taken off more than a few months, finding a new assignment can be a challenge. It’s not a bad idea to pick up a PRN shift each week at a facility near your home. This keeps your skills current, which makes you a more attractive candidate to facilities.
Looking for a travel nurse agency that will treat you with honesty and candor? Triage Staffing listens to what you want and then shoots you straight. So you can make the decision that’s right for you. To connect with a Triage recruiter, apply for travel nurse jobs on the Triage website.
Looking for an allied or travel nurse recruiter or planning on taking your first travel assignment? Before you commit to a recruiter, check out these recruiter red flags, so you know which recruiters to avoid. But, because the recruiter/traveler relationship goes both ways, check yourself for red flags you might be throwing up too.
Recruiter Red Flag: Not Understanding You Work with Different Recruiters
Good recruiters understand that this is a competitive market—for both recruiters looking for travelers and travelers looking for jobs. Most recruiters understand that travelers have a couple of recruiters searching for jobs. Although it’s natural that a recruiter wants to be your one and only, they should be understanding when they find out they’re not. This is especially true if you’re looking for an assignment in a coveted area or one where the company doesn’t have a lot of contracts. If a recruiter asks you to sign an “exclusivity clause,” consider running far away because this recruiter is only looking out for himself.
If you are working with more than one recruiter, don’t hide it because this can actually make it harder to find a job. While it might seem like a great idea to double your chances by having two companies submit you for the same job, that isn’t the way things work. If you have two recruiters submit your resume for the same job, both will get rejected automatically. Hospitals don’t want to waste time figuring out which application was first to determine which recruiter gets the credit, so they reject them both, leaving you without a job. For this reason alone, it’s great to be upfront with your recruiters about where you’re submitted and by who.
Traveler Red Flag: Social Media Negativity
It’s common job searching advice to lock down your social profiles, but that’s not enough when you’re looking for an allied or travel nurse job. If you’re in any travel Facebook groups, like The Gypsy Nurse’s group, know that there are definitely recruiters in those groups. Remember that anyone on social media can take a screenshot of a post in a group and spread it around, so before you talk negatively about a recruiter, a company, or a facility, understand that these groups aren’t quite as private as you might think.
This doesn’t mean you can’t be honest when you have feedback about a facility. Just realize that social media may not be the best venue for your complaints. Basically, if you wouldn’t say it to someone in person, don’t put it in writing on social media.
Recruiter Red Flag: Not Showing a Pay Rate Up Front
No one should work for free. While healthcare travelers have lots of different reasons for traveling, the money sure doesn’t hurt. If a recruiter is shifty when you ask about the pay rate or gives you a vague answer to your questions about pay, keep looking. Good recruiters will give you all the information up front instead of hiding details until after you’ve signed a contract.
When you do get that pay rate, understand that it’s possible that it doesn’t match what you’ll see every week. This isn’t because of any shadiness by your recruiter, though. The number of hours you work each week may vary. Different states have different tax rates, and a recruiter can’t know your exact situation—they’re recruiters, not accountants. Plus, things like 401k deductions, whether you have single or family coverage for health insurance, or HSA deductions can all affect the amount that’s actually deposited each week.
Traveler Red Flag: Being Hard to Communicate With
A good recruiter/traveler relationship starts with good communication. We know—most travelers want to communicate solely by text message because it’s fast and convenient, but a lot of details can be ironed out with a 10-minute phone call, especially if you’re beginning a new relationship. Taking this time up front can help ensure your recruiter knows exactly what’s important to you so they’ll be able to start on your job search immediately, rather than waiting until you’re free to answer questions one at a time.
Doing this also means that your recruiter will know what’s most important to you. For instance, if you prefer an assignment in Seattle, but the recruiter has something elsewhere in Washington that pays more, your recruiter can find out what’s a real requirement and what you consider just nice to have. So next time you get a phone call from a recruiter, consider picking up the phone.
Recruiter Red Flag: Not Being Honest About a Facility
There’s no perfect job, and anyone who tries to sell you on a picture-perfect facility isn’t being honest. Everywhere, even the best facilities, has a few warts. Maybe parking is far away. Maybe the hospital requires a specific color of scrubs that you’ll never need again. Maybe the pay seems great, but housing is expensive and hard to find. If a recruiter paints a 100% rosy picture, dig deeper.
Your recruiter should know if the assignment they’re sending you on has a few bumps along the way and should be upfront about what they know about the facility or the unit. Good recruiters won’t try to sell you on a “paid vacation.” What kind of “paid vacation” comes with a 36 or 48-hour work week attached to it?
If you’re looking for an allied or travel nurse gig, look for an agency that’s committed to treating you with candor and honesty. Triage Staffing pays attention to your wants and needs and works around them—not the other way around. To connect with a Triage recruiter, apply for a travel nurse job on the Triage website.
We get it. Few relationships are as unique as a healthcare traveler and their recruiter. A good recruiter is there for you when you need a sounding board, understands what you want in a job, and actively searches to find you the one that best fits your needs.
But not every recruiter/traveler relationship will be a match, and not every recruiter will be your person. What happens if your previously great relationship turns sour, or you’re just not vibing with your recruiter? It might be time to have a tough conversation. While we can’t promise there won’t be tears involved, shaking up the dynamic with your recruiter doesn’t have to be painful. Here are a couple of ways for breaking up with your travel nurse recruiter.
Option 1: Ghost Them So Hard You’ll Leave Them Saying Boo
Sure, you can always ghost your recruiter. But like ghosting a boyfriend or girlfriend, they’ll be stuck wondering what happened. While that’s irritating for a recruiter, the real issue is that you’ll continue to get phone calls, texts, and emails from your recruiter wondering why you disappeared.
Instead, if you no longer click with your recruiter, send a quick text or email letting them know you’re moving on. They may reach out and ask questions, but at least they can remove you from their call list, saving your phone from a barrage of calls, emails, and texts.
Option 2: Have a Conversation About Your Needs
While this isn’t as easy as ghosting someone, it definitely is a more professional choice for breaking up with your travel nurse recruiter.
A good travel nurse recruiter wants to help you reach your goals. If your plans change or your agency’s jobs no longer meet your needs, talk to your recruiter. You never know if there’s something going on behind the scenes that might change your perspective.
Maybe your agency is working on a new contract with higher bill rates, and it hasn’t been announced yet. Or perhaps there’s a longevity bonus coming your way that you forgot about (yeah, some agencies do offer a bonus after you’ve worked a certain number of hours). If you don’t have a conversation, you might be leaving money on the table without knowing it.
We know it’s sometimes stressful having this type of phone call, especially if you and your recruiter have been close in the past. But, if you can ask for what you want in a mature and respectful manner, chances are that your recruiter will try to do what it takes to keep you on their roster.
Option 3: Chat with Your Recruiter’s Manager
What if you’re really not comfortable having a conversation with your recruiter? Maybe you can’t get ahold of them, or you’ve had an issue that you can’t get past. There’s nothing Karen-like about calling and having a chat with their manager. Don’t know who the manager is? No problem.
Call into the agency’s main number and tell whoever answers the phone that you want to talk to a manager about switching recruiters. They’ll be able to transfer you to someone within your recruiter’s chain. A good agency understands that sometimes personalities don’t mesh, even if they did in the past. The manager will have a quick conversation with you about what you’re looking for and then put you in touch with a recruiter that meets your needs now.
Don’t worry about getting your old recruiter “in trouble.” Most agencies understand that personalities can be the most important part of a recruiter/traveler relationship and won’t penalize a recruiter if you switch. You’ll get a new recruiter, and the manager will have the conversation for you, which is perfect if you’re nervous about having an uncomfortable conversation.
If you decide it really is time to make a change, look for one with a proven record of taking care of its travelers. Triage Staffing was named The Gypsy Nurse’s Best Overall Travel Nurse Agency for both 2020 and 2021. Connect with Triage Staffing here.
We hope you found this article on breaking up with your travel nurse recruiter helpful. Have you ever had to break up with a travel nurse recruiter? Share your experience with breaking up with your recruiter below.
Are you looking for your next travel nurse assignment? Click here to view our job board. Do you need housing for an upcoming assignment? Click here to search our housing page.
If you are a new travel nurse or looking into becoming a travel nurse:
If you haven’t taken the travel plunge yet, you probably aren’t sure what it means to build out your profile. Quite simply, your traveler profile is like a neatly packaged, detailed resume that agencies can use to help you find a job. Every agency you work with requires you to build out a profile with them, and they use it to find a job, and then like magic, a love match happens.
How the Traveler Profile Currently Works
If you’re currently working with multiple agencies (and let’s be honest, who isn’t?), you probably have quite a few profiles floating around in cyberspace, all that might include some personal info. Since each agency normally uses their own specific profile, this also means that you’ll have to update information over and over when something changes, like a license expiration date or even something as simple as receiving a yearly flu vaccine. Take a second and think about how many profiles you have out there and just how long it can take to update each one when you’re looking for a job. Annoying, right?
Enter the Kamana Profile
Kamana is an encrypted, universal profile that stores your information in one secure location. You can share your universal profile with multiple agencies, so say goodbye to creating and updating multiple profiles that need to be individually updated whenever you have a new piece of info. Update your info once, and your profile can be updated with multiple agencies with one click. Easy peasy.
Also gone are your paper folder and dusty laptop that you haul around from assignment to assignment. Since you access Kamana through a secure web app, you don’t need to text or email sensitive documents to your agency. Send the secured Kamana link and know that your data is safe.
What Info Can Kamana Manage
But what actually goes into a Kamana profile? Like an agency-specific profile, you’ll need to include personal info like your contact details and what you’re looking for in an assignment. Then, you can upload attachments, such as JPGs or PDFs of your license, certifications, or even vaccine records. The next step is to enter your work history, what electronic health record systems you’re experienced in, and even skills checklists.
How the Heck Does Kamana Actually Work?
Once you’ve completed your Kamana profile, you can choose to share your profile within the web app. Only recruiters or agencies that you create a relationship with are able to see your profile. Your profile comes with two versions—a limited view and a complete profile. With the limited view, agencies can only see your name, contact info, and a short summary of your qualifications.
With the full profile view, your receiver can see and download your full profile. In this case, your home address, work history, and reference contact info are available. Kamana recommends that you reserve a full profile share until you’re applying for a specific job with an agency. If you ever decide that you don’t want to work with a particular agency or recruiter anymore, you can also revoke access at any time.
In addition to making it incredibly simple to share your profile, Kamana also keeps track of any expiring licenses or vaccines and sends you a reminder before the expiration, so you are never caught off guard.
What if My Agency Doesn’t Take Kamana?
Over 100 agencies currently use Kamana to help speed up their onboarding process, but what if yours isn’t one of them? You can still send a link to your universal profile, and all the information your recruiter needs is at their fingertips, making your life easier.
Not a Traveler Yet? Kamana is Still for You
If you haven’t dipped your toes in the travel water, you can still take advantage of a Kamana profile. When your Kamana profile is up to date, Kamana can generate a downloadable PDF of your resume, so you don’t need to spend time formatting or updating information if you want to look for a new position. And, of course, Kamana still keeps track of your personal credentialing info and expiration dates, so you’re never unaware when something is about to expire.
To create your Kamana profile and connect with Triage, please visit Triage’s Kamana portal.
Are you looking for your next travel nurse job? Click here to view our job board. Have the job, but need housing? Click here to search our housing page.
If you are a new travel nurse or looking into becoming a travel nurse:
As if traveling as a medical professional for the first time isn’t a whirlwind in itself, let’s throw in a pandemic, and hey, why not top it off with a wildfire? That’s what 26-year-old Med Surg RN Stan John faced during his inaugural assignment as a travel nurse.
Getting His Start as a Travel Nurse:
First, let us give you some of Stan’s background. As the middle child of three boys, Stan grew up in Mumbai, India. He was 19 and in his first year of college when his family’s visa papers were processed, and they moved to the US, settling in Chicago almost seven years ago.
“We came to the US, and I had to start over from scratch,” he said, referring not only to rebuilding their lives here in the states but also to his progress in college. So, he enrolled in nursing classes at a local college.
Graduating in the spring of 2019 with a degree in his back pocket, Stan began working as a Med Surg RN at a Level 1 trauma and teaching facility in Park Ridge, Illinois. He met his then-girlfriend, Lynn, who was a CNA. And as they say, the rest is history. Stan and Lynn were hitched in March of 2020 in an online ceremony. You know, “COVID-style.”
Shortly after, he started the search for a travel assignment. Now, a year of experience is not much in the world of nursing. But Stan had charge nurse experience, and COVID-19 opened some doors for newer nurses who were desperately needed in hotspot cities all over the country. Plus, he was confidently up for the challenge of travel nursing in the middle of a pandemic. This is good because little did he know Stan would test his confidence.
Soon, Stan found himself chatting with more than 20 recruiters, creating profiles with dozens of different agencies, which, unfortunately, left him feeling like ‘just another number.’
“Most of the recruiters were just so proud, and they were like, ‘well, you don’t have experience,’” he said. “They were seeing me as a burden saying, ‘Oh, we can’t do anything for you.’”
Enter Mr. Coby Wallingford, Stan’s recruiter at Triage. Coby told Stan he would try his best, making him feel like an actual priority—a welcomed change of pace.
“Coby, his attitude was so humble; he focused on me and, you know, he saw me as a priority,” Stan said. “I was like, ‘man, this guy’s good,’ and that’s how I knew Triage was for me.” Coby helped him find an assignment in Oregon starting in August 2020.
This is Where it Gets Crazy:
As a US resident of only six years at the time, Stan wasn’t quite sure where Oregon was but heard it was beautiful. Once he found it on the map (wink), he and his wife, Lynn, headed West and began their travel nurse adventure together.
Fast forward a few weeks into his first assignment as a travel nurse. Lynn wakes him up—it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. The firefighters were knocking on their door, telling them they had to evacuate immediately because of wildfires ravaging the surrounding land and inching closer.
Throwing everything they owned in their car, they headed toward the hospital in Medford, where Stan worked. Generally, this is a call-out-of-work kind of event, but not in the life of a nurse. This is their “Clark Kent enters a telephone booth and emerges Superman” moment. Whenever disaster strikes, medical professionals are on the frontline—always.
“I called the hospital and said, ‘hey, I’m coming into work, but my wife is with me, and I need a place for her,’” he explained. They told him, no problem, get to the hospital safely.
Upon arrival, Stan was told to stay on standby because he was needed at a community hospital in Ashland, where the wildfires were known to have started. They were waiting for a police escort to open barricades and somewhere for Stan’s wife, Lynn, to go.
As luck would have it, Lynn’s former middle school teacher had moved to Southern Oregon from Chicago a few years prior. The teacher, now an angel in disguise, offered them a place to stay.
Knowing his wife was safe, Stan and another Triage travel nurse, Kathy, made the unforgettable trip to lend a hand to the small town victims. As police escorts were racing ahead of them to open barricades, Stan looked around at the highway ablaze. It was like a scene from a movie.
At that point, shh…. stuff got real, REAL quick.
Disclaimer: this is not a typical situation, obviously. It’s one we’re in awe of, which is why we took the time to talk with Stan about his and Kathy’s wild, crazy ride through the Oregon wildfires of 2020.
Stan describes what he saw:
Literally, there was a fire on both sides of the road we were driving through. I thought, ‘I can’t believe it; this is serious.’ All I can see is smoke and red blazing everywhere. Signs on the highways were burning; trees were burning, cars are exploding on the sides of the road—a bunch of cars. We were driving through it, and we were really close…I was scared.
Stan also knew that Ashland, being such a rural town, didn’t have multiple fire departments like where he lived in Chicago. It also had a heck of a lot more trees than Chicago.
“Everything was blazing in front of my eyes, the trees are burning, and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t even know where we could run to, the fire was too far,” he said.
Walking into the hospital, shoving aside his fear, Stan went into nurse-mode—consoling his patients who were terrified and distraught after losing everything they had.
With cell towers on fire, internet was spotty at best. Phones were down; people couldn’t communicate to their family they were safe (including Lynn, trying to reach Stan without luck). The hospital’s Epic system was down, so they had to chart the old-school way—paper and pen. When you’re dealing with heavy medication and a highly stressful situation where the possibility for mistakes is already greater…that’s an issue. But he and the staff kept their cool, knowing they had to be there for their patients to deliver the best care possible.
“You know, like 90% of the city of Ashland was destroyed,” he said. “So, I told them, ‘hey, you’re not alone over here. Other employees’ houses and businesses have burned down from the wildfire, so you are not alone. There will be a solution once everything finishes.”
Even though a literal dark cloud of the wildfire hung over them, every person there rallied around each other as members of the same community, facing the same horrific event.
“We all worked together in that hospital,” Stan said. And that’s exactly how they all made it to the other side of this ordeal safe.
No Regrets, Only Gratitude:
When asked if he wishes he had a crystal ball and could see a glimpse into the future before taking this assignment, he answered:
No, I’m glad I experienced this. It was scary, but I’m glad I went through this because I know how to react in these situations now. If a patient is hysterical, I know how to react and stay calm and get them to focus on the bigger picture of life. I can keep others calm, so I need to use the resources I have to help others during the situation.
Stan felt he was up to the challenge of his first travel nurse assignment being in the middle of a pandemic, and boy, did he deliver. The recruiters who told him he couldn’t hang—well, how do you like him now?
To say we’re thankful that both Stan and Kathy were safe throughout the wildfire is an understatement, and we’re beyond grateful to them for taking on this unexpected literal firestorm of an assignment. Situations like this wildfire are exactly why travel nurses and medical pros are needed, though. Smaller, rural communities across the US need help from professionals like these two. It’s why we do what we do.
What did he learn from the entire experience other than he’s pretty much a badass, and his superpower keeps people calm in insanely intense situations?
“I learned that America is a great country and we have a lot of resources here,” he said. “The government did stand up and make sure their people are safe and I knew the hospital would be the safest space to be. I’m very thankful for life and glad to be alive.”
The major takeaway from Stan’s travel nurse story?
“Be grateful for every day. I tell my patients that now, too,” he said. You heard him—nurse’s orders.
And this is why we refer to our medical professionals as heroes—because they are.
Finished the travel nursing guide and are ready to look for an assignment?
