HOW TO GET STARTED IN A TRAVEL NURSING CAREER

Travel Nursing Insider Episode #2 - Transcript

Welcome to our second Travel Nursing Insider show. We're back in Wilton, Connecticut with Deb who is the Vice President of Travel Nursing for Onward Healthcare and Sera, Director of Travel Nursing at Onward Healthcare.

Deb, in our first segment, we talked a lot about what travel nursing is all about and several reasons why someone would want to get in to the travel nursing profession, and I'd like to follow up on that with you and have you talk about what some of the benefits of being a travel nurse, particularly with Onward Healthcare.

Deb: Great, my pleasure. Basically, our benefits are similar to a menu. We have about seven benefits that we offer the nurses. A nurse may choose to accept all seven (and I'll explain that in a minute). If she chooses to accept all seven, that's great. We love to offer them all to her or him. If a nurse, for instance, decides to decline a benefit, what we would do is we take that resource or those allocated funds and increase their base salary. So once again, we like to treat each nurse like they're our only nurse and give them the package that works for them, and our goal always is to give a nurse the highest weekly pay that we can give them. So, keep that in mind, I'll kind of review the benefits and maybe you can ask some questions about that after.

Again, the seven benefits that we offer are highly competitive pay rates and we pay the nurses weekly.

We offer them health insurance benefits, so they get our health insurance.

We offer them obviously like we talked about in the first segment, free housing, or if a nurse is a local nurse, we give them a subsidy in lieu of the housing so it's a dollar amount that we actually pay to the nurse weekly.

We offer them travel reimbursement to and from the assignment.

We offer them license reimbursement to help them pay for the licensure in the state.

We offer 401K plan and we do reimburse for CEUs for nurses to take classes, etc.

That's pretty much what our basic benefits are.

Peter: Do you find that your nurses oftentimes are able to get overtime?

Deb: Absolutely. The hospitals are bringing in travelers and it's actually causing them more to hire travelers than it is their permanent staff, which is great for the travelers because they make more money and on most assignment, there is an availability of overtime, either in the same unit that they work in or perhaps a unit that might be a sister unit that they feel comfortable working in their area of expertise.

Peter: Is it possible to bring a friend, including a dog or a cat along with me?

Deb: Our nurses come with husbands, children, pets, sometimes two pets, sometimes three pets. We do our best to accommodate the nurses and make sure that they're comfortable in the assignment because if they're comfortable in their home life, then they're, again, going to provide good patient care to the patients in the hospital and that's really what the goal of Onward Healthcare is.

Peter: Sera, let's talk about how you can get started becoming a travel nurse. I mean, we did touch on in the first episode a little bit about what travel nursing is all about, but if I am a registered nurse and I really find this an attractive alternative, what are some of the steps that I need to take to get started doing this?

Sera: Okay, so the first thing you're going to want to do is fill out an application. Applications are online and you're going to fill it out and as soon as you do that, you're going to be contacted by a recruiter and she's then going to be able to work with you to get the ball rolling.

Peter: If I start working with Onward Healthcare, will I keep the same recruiter or do I, how does this whole thing with your recruiters because you have offices all over the country.

Sera: You're going to keep the same recruiter. Basically, when you are a traveler, you want to make sure you make a connection with your recruiter because that is the person that is going to be there with you through thick and thin. So, they are going to go through the application process with you, they're going to work with you on possible jobs, they are going to prepare you for your interview, they are going to be there for you through housing, through payroll, they're going through compliance, they're going to walk you through all the steps so you have to have a great trust level with your recruiter and in fact, that's how a lot nurses decide on which company to go with is the recruiter that they connect with the most because that is going to be your counselor, your guide, your social director while you're on assignment; they're going to tell you the amazing things you can do in the different locations, so that connection is very critical to deciding which company you're going with.

Peter: Do I have to fill out an application or can I just send you my CV or resume?

Sera: You want to fill out an application with us just because that application was designed in a way that the hospitals appreciate and receive better. So, always fill out that application; it's going to make the process easier for you.

Peter: Once I filled out an application, how long can I expect to wait before I'm able to take in an assignment or hear from one of your recruiters?

Sera: A recruiter will get a hold of you in less than 24 hours and they will call you, they will email you, they will do everything they can to make sure that you guys connect because they are anxious to help you and get you started.

Peter: As we mentioned in the first episode that we did, these assignments usually go for around 13 weeks. Is my recruiter working on finding me the next assignment while I'm in an assignment?

Sera: Yes, absolutely. The recruiter's job is to be there with you every step of the way. They're going to know everything about you, what time you need off, what locations you want to go to, how you want to get there, all of the details about your life the recruiter is going to know. So, halfway through your first assignment, they're already working on your second assignment. That recruiter is going to make sure that if you want to work assignments back to back, that they help you line all of those up or if you need a couple of weeks off in between to go home to visit family, anything like that, they're going to arrange that for you and they can still line that assignment up months before the end date of your current assignment. It's completely up to the nurse of how she wants everything to transpire.

Peter: What happens, Sera, if I take in an assignment and I get to this facility and, for me, it turns out to be The Shining and I've got to get out of there?

Sera: A great recruiter and a great company will support you no matter what and that's what we do here at Onward; we back our nurses up 110%. We work with the nurses. We have people on-call 24 hours a day, so even though that nurse may be on the floor alone in the middle of the night, she is never alone. Onward is always supporting her and so if you get to an assignment and it turns out to be the worst…

Peter: Jack Nicholson.

Sera: Yes, thank you very much okay so…

Deb: Round peg, square hole. :

Sera: Yes. If it is not a good fit at all, your recruiter is going to first of all, be the mediator between you and the facility because we want to make sure our nurses feel comfortable. So we don't want you to be in an awkward position so the recruiter will take up and run with it, work with the hospital, find out what's going on and if there's anything that can be done to resolve the situation, maybe there was just a personality conflict, there could have been some miscommunication. If it is something that cannot be mended then we will get you out of that assignment and get you on to something else that appeals to you. So, there is always a way out and your recruiter, and a great recruiter will always back the nurse up to help them out.

Peter: And I'm assuming this does not happen very often but you are taking these assignments sight unseen, correct? So, I think having that leverage where if for some reason you get there and you find that it's just not the place for you that you're not stuck there for the next 13 weeks.

Sera: We back our nurses up 110%.

Deb: The one thing that's great and like I said in the first segment is we have a lot of industry experience in our management team, so the reason that we don't have it happen a lot is because we do prep the candidate, the nurse, and prep the hospital for the interview process so when the nurse interviews, you know we encourage the hospital to be very transparent as what the environment is going to be and so we can avoid situations like. Again, like Sera said, if it happens we work through it but fortunately, you know we have a system and our interview process really helps us get that perfect match.

Peter: Now, does that interview process include a one-to-one with the candidate and the hospital or someone within the hospital?

Deb: Great question. What plan A would be is that the nurse would actually interview with the nurse manager that he or she would directly be reporting with. So, you're able to talk to the nurse manager, find out exactly the type of equipment they're using on the floor, you know what sort of documentation system that they have and kind of ask questions about the personality of the unit. Every unit has a personality.

Am I forgetting anything Sera?

Sera: The best thing is the fact that nurses have been nurses long enough that they know what they like and they know what they don't like. So, when they are interviewing, even though you may be a New York and you're interviewing for something in California, the nurse manager can, within like three minutes, give the nurse a description of the unit and nurse will know whether she's going to be a fit or not.

The great thing about the interview is it is one on one. They do go through everything that's going on in the unit, the ratios, the equipment, and everything else but also the nurse manager isn't going to put the nurse on the spot and say do you want this position? They both get off the phone after they interview and the nurse will call you up and say, "Hey, Sera I just interviewed, it sounds fantastic, I love it. Go get me the offer." Or they may call me up and say, "Sera, uck, they still do paper charting. I can't do that; let's look for something else."

So even though we are working through all this step, just because the nurse interviewed doesn't mean that she is stuck to take that position.

One of the things that a great recruiter will do is that she will have them out to multiple positions. We're not putting all of our eggs in one basket. We are trying for multiple jobs at the same time so we can find the best fit so the nurse has the best experience.

Peter: What if there is a facility that I have always wanted to work in? Is it possible for me to come to you as a recruiter and say you know, I have always wanted to work at XYZ hospital. Is there an opportunity for possibly placing me within facility that I've always wanted to be associated with?

Sera: When I talk with a nurse, I'm going through all the different states and all the different hospitals that have openings and as Deb mentioned earlier, 87% of hospitals in the US use travel nurses. So, getting you to a specific location and a specific hospital is completely an option.

Peter: Do you work outside of hospitals or any kind of facilities you work in other than hospitals?

Deb: Most of our assignments are in acute care facilities, but we do have some long-term care facilities but again, most of them are acute care facilities. We find that the nurses are happiest in acute care facilities.

Peter: And I would imagine those are the kinds of facilities that they're used to working in.

Deb: That's correct.

Peter: We are at the segment of the show now where we're talking about what some of the hot jobs and hot geographies are currently in the travel nursing industry. So, Deb can you give us some insider tips on where some really hot opportunities are today.

Deb: We have a lot of travelers that like to ski and like to be out in the hiking and kind of some rugged weather. Not everybody likes to be in 80- and 90-degree weather, so we have tons of assignment right now in Colorado, up in ski country, in Maine, in Vermont, in Nevada and Reno has some great ski slopes. So if you guys like to ski, give us a call. We can definitely help you out. A lot of great assignments are coming in.

Peter: That's great. That will end this segment of Travel Nursing Insider. I'd like to thank both Deb and Sera for joining us today and be sure to tune in for the next Travel Nursing Insider.

Thank you for tuning in to Travel Nursing Insider. For more information on the exciting world of travel nursing, you should visit Onward Healthcare on the web at onwardhealthcare.com or call 1-800-278-0332 to speak to a travel nursing recruiter.

You should also follow Onward Healthcare on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardhealth, fan them on Facebook at Facebook.com/travelnursing, and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. Just do a keyword search for Travel Nursing Insider.