Travel Nursing Checklist Item #12: Interviewing your recruiter

In the last section of the Ultimate Travel Nursing Checklist I talked about what makes a great travel nurse Recruiter, now I am going to give you some tips to help you find a one. For starters ask around. Being referred to a good Recruiter by a travel nurse who believes in them is by far the easiest way to end up with a great Recruiter yourself.

However, if you are in a situation where you are working with a new company, it is a little more difficult to guarantee which Recruiter you end up with. Often when you call in you will be forwarded to a Recruiter who you have never met before. She will try to strike up a relationship with you. It is important that you feel comfortable. Often a Recruiter is the face of the company to travel nurses like you so one bad experience may turn you off to a particular company. That is why in this situation it is best to do some research. Spend some time online in nursing forums and nurse social networking sites asking for the names of good Recruiters and good travel nursing companies. Ask around at the hospital too. Most likely your hospital has travelers in it who can fill you in on rn travel companies and nurse recruiters for the good or bad.

Another thing to keep in mind is to find out, when you first start talking to a company, whether or not you will have the same Recruiter for your entire career with that company or if they will move you from Recruiter to Recruiter depending on where you are working. This is defintely a situation you want to avoid, otherwise you will have to build a new relationship with each travel nursing assignment and in travel nursing the nurse/recruiter relationship is too valuable to need to be rebuilt with every change of region.

Once you are finally on the phone with the Recruiter, this is your chance to interview them. Pull out your checklist of items that you have pre-written (see Travel nursing checklist items #3, 4 and 5). Ask a lot of questions. Ask them until you feel comfortable. Find out how much they know about your specialty because your needs may be completely different than someone who has a different nursing specialty. Try to spend some extra time trying to get to know them on a personal level. It will help if any tough situations arise knowing you have a friend on your side.

Remember this is probably the most important part of the travel nursing process so take the time to make sure it is done right. For the rest of the Ultimate Travel Nursing Checklist click here.