In this episode of Travel Therapy Career Cast, Barbara Johnson, Senior Recruitment Manager for Onward Healthcare, explains what it’s like to work with a recruiter during your job search and while you’re on assignment.
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Peter: Welcome to our third episode of the Travel Therapy Career Cast. We’re back in Wilton, Connecticut with Barbara Johnson, Senior Recruitment Manager for Onward Healthcare.
In the first two episodes of Travel Therapy Career Cast, we explained how a career in travel therapy works, as well as applying for a travel therapy job. Today we’re going to focus on working with your recruiter to find a job.
Barb, let’s say that I’ve decided that I want to pursue a job as a travel therapist; I’ve gone online, I’ve filled out my online application, I’ve sent it in. What happens next?
Barbara: Within 24 hours, a recruiter from Onward Healthcare will give you a call and what they want to do is they want to find out your preferences. They want to know where you’re looking to work. They want to know why you’re traveling. The big question is why. Because we want to know where you’re setting preference is, why you want to do this; because if we know why, we can focus on getting you the most opportune position for you – what fits you the most.
We’re going to ask you what type of settings you’re interested in, we’re going to ask you where your location is, do you have family, are you looking for housing options – what is motivating you to go? When do you want to start because we need to know when the facilities are going to be able to interview you, how we could get you ready to go without being too stressed out – everything like that. We’re going to build that relationship with you so we make sure that we focus on what’s most important to you.
Peter: Sort of in that same vein then, what can someone do to help prepare – what kind of documents should they have in front of them, what do they need to do to prepare to have that call with you? I just threw you a curveball.
Barbara: No, that’s fine. That’s fine. They’re going to need to have their résumé handy. Any time you’re looking for a new opportunity, you want to have your résumé handy anyway, or have it ready to send. Other than that, they’re going to need to have immunization records, things like that – just things that you will need before you start any new job. They’re going to want to be able to answer those questions, why am I doing this.
Sometimes they’re just reaching out to find out about it, and that’s fine too. For that initial conversation, we just want to kind of get to you know a little bit. It’s a get to know you conversation.
Peter: How long will this initial call be?
Barbara: It can be anywhere from a half hour to an hour. I’ve talked to people for an hour and half to two hours before and just because they have a lot of questions. A lot of questions are good. We want to be able to answer everything for you. We want to have a good relationship with you.
Peter: So I guess that means it behooves the person who you’re doing the interview with to be in kind of a quiet location, not have a bunch of kids around them and not driving their car or something – be in a situation where they really can concentrate on having this conversation.
Barbara: Right, and definitely not driving their car. We want to make sure that they’re not in danger at all. We don’t want accidents. We would like to work with you.
Peter: I do about a half an hour interview with my recruiter; what happens next?
Barbara: Like I said, they might ask you for some additional information, such as your résumé, references, things like that. A lot of facilities like to have references up front before they’ll even interview. So that’s a good idea – just a name and number because we are Joint Commissioned certified, so we will call them ourselves. It’s a good idea to have that.
What we’ll do on our end as a recruiter is we’ll start searching for positions that match what you’re looking for. And after that initial conversation, we’ve discussed your setting preferences, where you want to go, what’s important to you – and that’s what we’ll focus on. Like I said before, we want to make sure you’re happy and that you’re having a good experience.
Peter: Okay, but you will definitely call the candidate back to review the jobs before you submit them for anything, is that correct?
Barbara: Absolutely. Absolutely. We want to review all of the opportunities with you that we find meets the criteria that you had given us already but we want to give you the opportunity to decide which ones you will pursue.
Peter: Does that mean that I should choose just one of the opportunities you present me, or can I say two or three of these look really interesting, can I pursue more than one?
Barbara: Absolutely, you should definitely choose more than one. The reason for that is you want to get as many options for yourself as possible. I’ll give you everything that matches what you’re looking for, but at that point you want to be able to talk to all the managers of those facilities that match so that you can find out which is the best fit for you.
Peter: So we will definitely be talking about the interview process in a future podcast, that’s for sure, but to wrap this up, once you’ve submitted the candidate for job openings, Barb, is that the end of the relationship with the recruiter?
Barbara: Absolutely not. We stay in contact with our candidates and therapists throughout the whole process, and that means beginning to end. So we will talk with you that initial conversation. We’ll talk to you about opportunities, you’ll choose the opportunities you want to look into. We’ll talk with the managers, have them call you. At that point, we’ll follow up with you, what were your decisions, what was your choice, what did you like, we want to know what you didn’t like because we want to be able to focus on things that you do like. We’ll be there for your first day, we’ll be there throughout the whole assignment.
Peter: Great. Well this certainly has been helpful and we’re actually going to hold off and devote an entire episode towards accepting a travel therapy job, so please stay tuned for that.
Any final thoughts, Barb, on this topic of searching for a job or getting to know your recruiter?
Barbara: Actually I would just like to say that getting to know your recruiter is a really good idea, having a relationship with them, we are your point of contact throughout your whole assignment and your whole travel career. We basically get to be friends. We do have your best interest in mind. We want you to have a good time, that’s our focus. So don’t be afraid to ask questions, don’t be afraid to call us any time and don’t be afraid to tell us something that maybe isn’t making you happy so that we can fix it because that’s what we’re here for.
Peter: Great. One last question – we are quickly approaching the end of the very hot summer here across the country; can you tell us some hot jobs for therapists that will be appealing to PTs, OTs, and the like?
Barbara: Since we’re coming up towards the end of summer, I’ll let you know that Texas is a really great place to be. Yes, it’s still hot now, but if you start working in September/October, it’s a good way to get out of the brutal Midwest winters and things like that. Avoid the snow.
Arizona, a lot of places in California – if you want the 70 degree weather year round, you can get there too. We have a lot of positions there.
Peter: Great. Barb, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us on Travel Therapy Career Cast.
Barbara: You’re welcome.
Thank you for tuning into Travel Therapy Career Cast. For more information on beginning an exciting career as a travel therapist, you should visit Onward Healthcare at www.OnwardHealthcare.com or call 1-800-278-0332 to speak with one of our experienced recruiters.
You should also follow Onward Healthcare on Twitter at Twitter.com/OnwardHealth and fan them on Facebook at Facebook.com/TravelNursing.
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