This week a winter advisory was posted for Ventura County.
“Oh no!” I thought, “Could it get too cold and the geraniums might die from frost?” I wondered sarcasticly.
No, the post stated that it could get down to the 40’s at night and it might rain. I’m not sure why that is worthy of a winter advisory, but rain is a big deal here. They receive so little of it.
I continued watching the weather and saw temperatures across the country, Midwest states that won’t reach above freezing for the day, and an ice storm in the New England area. I have lived with cold weather and two ice storms in as many years of late. I feel for those people. Yet, I can also say that I love travel nursing.
A more pertinent advisory came from my recruiter; “You have been approved for renewal” said the email. Yep, that’s right another 13 weeks at the same assignment. Mary and I enjoy the beach house and the small community of people in the area, just last weekend we were invited to a dance and had a great time, and staying put for the next few months makes sense to us.
Since the first of the month the calls from recruiters has increased as they knew my current contract was coming to an end. Unfortunately I have had little time to speak to them by phone, not because I have been too busy, but cell phone coverage at the beach is so poor. So this week I made a point to notify all of them saved in my Travel Nurse Email folder of my plans to renew for another 13 weeks and that I will be wanting an assignment in Hawaii in mid-April. I even specified what island I want to move to.
Now some travel nurses prefer to stick with one agency, usually because they love working with their recruiter so much, and might think that I am not happy with my recruiter, Denise. Not true! I have given detailed info to her and will certainly give preference to her company should they come through with an assignment on Oahu.
Truth is, I enjoy good conversation and recruiters that can communicate intelligently and exchange information with me I consider valuable.
Many nurses I have spoken with refer to recruiters as pests, like constant salesmen with a pitch. Yet I still consider this a good thing; remember they are calling you with jobs. I am sure many unemployed folks pray for such a problem. I recall hospitals I have worked for that tried to make us nurses feel we should be just grateful we still had a job, they usually pulled that trick when there was a cut in our benefits or an increase in our healthcare coverage.
The one thing that I enjoy about a conversation with a good recruiter is that they are great listeners. Any recruiter will first determine how well organized your thinking is by running down a list of your priorities, something you should have already written down yourself. If you have not done so, write them down as you talk to a recruiter; they are.
A recruiter needs basic information about you to help determine what kind of assignments to offer. Some less experienced recruiters you can tell are just checking down a list, but great recruiters easily maneuver through this with casual conversation.
The initial conversations with a recruiter should be about you. What do you want? What is important to you? What are your goals and how can the recruiter help you achieve them?
The recruiter will extend overtures of how he/she and their company can assist you, but do they go through too great an extent? I would rather not hear extended oration about how honest they are, I will determine that as I continue working with them, I prefer hearing about basic benefits they offer.
For I too have a list;
Day one health insurance coverage?
A retirement plan such as 401k
Does the company pay matching funds into that
plan?
Direct deposit pay?
License compensation?
Completion bonus?
Your list will certainly be different, but most importantly is that you have one. A great resource to creating your own list can be found at Highway Hypodermics by Epstein Larue.
The recruiter of course wants you to take an assignment with them and their company, and I make a point of letting them know that I am in the travel business for many years. Even if I don’t take their assignment this time around it is worth keeping a relationship with me as they may have an assignment I will want at a later time.
I always make sure recruiters have updated contact information with me as my email address changed in the past year, and conversations usually end with a plan for a general time for a return phone call. They then enter that information into their data base. I also have them help me with that, by asking that they send me an email recapping our conversation along with their contact info.
When I receive the email, I review how well they recapped our conversation. Did they pay attention to my priorities? I then save the note in a folder I have created for nursing recruiters for easy retrieval.
As time draws closer to a new assignment, I will go into greater detail about my experience through the procedure and how the process actually works.
I also want to share information I learn about assignments to Hawaii. We’ll see how much this info actually lines up with my own experience there.
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