Consistency
New travel nurses frequently worry about how they will keep a consistent flow of assignments. Travel nursing pays extremely well in comparison to permanent employment roles but that advantage can quickly evaporate if your agency fails to get you booked onto a new assignment as soon as your current one ends. At Wayward Medical, we know you have your hands full with the job in hand. That’s why we place great emphasis on ensuring that we are on top of the search for your next assignment so that you don’t have to worry about it.
Typically, the search begins in earnest about 3-4 weeks into your current 13-week assignment. You need to make sure we are aware of any requests or requirements that you have for the next job. That might include location, type of specialism or department, shift flexibility as well as any time off you want to keep clear. The more we know about what you want, the better we can help. Experienced travel nurses are in high demand and whilst it’s true that in your early assignments you may need to take what’s on offer and roll with it in order to get your first foot on the roundabout, it won’t be long before you can have us focus more on tailoring your jobs to fit your career and financial goals, location preferences and lifestyle aspirations.
Trust
Your relationship with a travel nurse agency must be based on trust. You are heading out to facilities all over America to provide skilled care in all kinds of circumstances. Will you always love it? Well, we hope so, that would be fantastic. But of course there will be times when you need help to address issues in your place of work. We want you to know that Wayward will not leave you to fend for yourself. If circumstances demand that we advocate for you in small matters or large, that’s exactly what you can expect us to do. Our support is available 24/7 – you have a problem, you call us, we will get on it and see what we can do.
Transparency
When it comes to money, job offers and working conditions, the standard of trust that you must require of your agency becomes more sharply defined. Inexperienced travel nurses may not at first recognize the importance of their agency promising transparency, much less how to ensure this value is truly embraced by their recruiter. Those who have been on the road and maybe been through different agencies will tell you that this is much more than some corporate buzz word. Before you pick an agency this is what you need to look for to be sure they are genuine and transparent in their dealings:
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- First of all, head for their job postings and take a look at the small print. The pay might look great and the location fabulous but….are the hours or shifts listed? Now, it’s possible that an agency has pushed up a listing to get it moving before all details are available, but you will definitely want to ask them for this info as soon as you speak to someone. Don’t waste your time if answers are not forthcoming or are vague and evasive. You absolutely need to know precisely what you are committing to before you go further.
- Are there any disclaimers on the listing? What do they mean? They might be perfectly legitimate but what you are trying to identify here is the type of agency that will publish spectacular job listings with amazing pay to get you to register and apply. Then when you final manage to wheedle and coax the true facts and figures out of them, they are nowhere near the advertised benefits, or worse still, the positions don’t even exist. They are hoping that you are desperate enough for an assignment and may well have taken your eye off the job hunt ball sufficiently long to have increased that desperation and therefore you’ll settle for far less. Yes, unfortunately, the travel nurse scene is just as beset with recruitment sharks as any other profession.
- Are your assignment offers clear? If anything is not immediately obvious to you, is your recruiter willing and able to answer your questions and chase up on any grey areas? You should not settle for less.
So when we say that transparency is a core value for all the team at Wayward Medical this is what we mean. We say what we mean, including in our job adverts and even more importantly in the offers we put in front of you, and we mean what we say. With Wayward, What You See is What You Get and you can take that to the bank.
