Why You Need to Use Multiple Travel Nurse Recruiters

January 9, 2024

When searching for your next travel nurse assignment, you can really do yourself a favor by working with multiple travel nurse recruiters. To ensure you find the best location, pay rate, and start date, utilize as many recruiters as you have time to connect with.

Pros to Working With Multiple Travel Nurse Recruiters?

No Agency Has Contracts With Every Hospital

If you are looking to start an assignment in a specific location, chances are one agency is not going to have contracts with every hospital in that area.

By reaching out to multiple recruiters, you are giving yourself access to assignments at every hospital that is offering contracts for your specialty.

Once your recruiters send you what is available at each hospital and unit, you can compare pay rates, start dates, units, hospital ratings, etc.

By reaching out to multiple recruiters you are allowing yourself to see all of the options available to you.

Different Agencies Offer Different Pay Rates For the Same Positions

Not only are you able to see different offers at different hospitals, if you work with multiple recruiters you will also see different offers for the same hospitals.

If you reach out to another agency and they offer even $200 per week more for the same contract, that is a difference of $2,600 over that 13 week contract simply for exploring your options.

At my current facility, there are pay rates that differ up to $500 per week between differing agencies. While benefits and other factors may be in play, that is still a $6,500 difference in that 3 month contract.

It only takes a moment to reach out to a travel nurse recruiter, and that moment may earn you thousands of extra dollars.

You Can Use Competing Offers To Negotiate a Higher Rate

If you have been working with a recruiter for awhile or just really respect and enjoy the recruiter you are currently working with, still reach out to other agencies!

If you find that another agency is offering higher pay rates for the same hospital (or even other hospitals in the area), you can use bring that information to your recruiters attention as a negotiation tactic. Most of the time, agencies are willing to match the rate or at least increase their initial offer.

Cons of Working With Multiple Travel Recruiters

Each Agency Requires a Lot of Information From You Prior to Submitting For A Contract

Typically, in order to submit for an assignment with an agency, they will require a long list of information/documentation from them. This usually includes a resume, vaccination documentation, ACLS/BLS documentation, address/drivers license, etc.

Additionally, most agencies will require one or two (or more) references from coworkers, charge nurses, or managers. They usually contact those references prior to submitting you for a position.

This can be time consuming, especially waiting for them to reach out to your references. However, once you have all of that information in their systems, you don’t need to keep giving it prior to every submission. Therefore, although it may be more time consuming up-front getting profiles completed with multiple travel nurse recruiters, it is certainly worth it in the long run.

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Getting To Know And Trust Each Recruiter Takes Time and Effort

Not only are you gathering all of this information to provide for your recruiters, but you are also corresponding with them frequently while you are actively looking for an assignment.

Most recruiters will reach out on a daily basis with new positions or updates on current positions. When working with multiple recruiters, you may spend a lot of time juggling multiple submissions or reviewing many different positions.

However, I try to see this as a blessing. You are, after all, being considered for a much broader pool of assignments with multiple recruiters.

Tips When Working With Multiple Travel Nurse Recruiters

Make Sure You Know Which Hospitals Your Recruiter is Submitting You For

One thing to be aware of when working with multiple travel nurse recruiters is what hospitals they are submitting you for. If multiple agencies submit you to the same hospital, the hospital may not consider your application at all, or they may reach out to both/all agencies to see why there are multiple submissions for the same person.

If this happens, don’t panic. Just choose which agency you want to move forward with, send a message to that recruiter explaining the situation, and they will take care of the rest for you. They will usually have you write a short, concise email stating that you would like to move forward with that agency only, and that’s it. Simple.

However, it can delay the process. In a time when contracts are being offered and accepted in a matter of hours, this delay may cause you to lose out on a potential offer.

If you know you’ve been submitted to a hospital with one recruiter, don’t apply with another. You can still negotiate the pay rate with both recruiters. And if you choose to go with the agency that you didn’t submit with, you can still reach out that recruiter telling them you would rather sign with them and they would have you send them that same little email saying your name and that you would like to move forward with that agency.

Remember, until you sign the contract, you do not owe anything to your agency or recruiter. When applying for and signing your contract, always work in your best interest, not a recruiter’s.

Don’t Offer Too Much Information About Your Other Agencies

It really is not necessary to share too much information about your other relationships with competing agencies. Only share what you are comfortable sharing. In fact, I only share when it works in my favor. For example, I will tell a recruiter, “another recruiter from such-and-such agency is offering this rate, will you match?”