Interested in a quick (one minute plus) Q&A on travel nursing? 
I just made a slide presenttion for a speech and thought I would share it with you! All you have to do is click on the link below and it will run automatically for a minute or two.
I’ve tried to include the most common questions for people new to the concept of travel nursing.
Conrad
Here you go!
If yo’ve just begun looking for a travel nursing job, or are even considering travel nursing, it can be a daunting task to do some research.
Each agency might have their own contracts with a particular facility and there are literally hundreds of different agencies. More than likely, though, the agency has contracts with one of the vendors who sign agreements with lots of different agencies. Confused?
What it really means is that a particular travel nursing job is very likely available from several different agencies. How do you find them?
In my business I have taken a different approach. I am Independent of the agencies and have contracts with several different ones and access to most of the major Vendors. What this means to a prospective travel nurse is that I can work closely with a nurse. I find out exactly what he or she is looking for and then do a national search with all of my various sources. Once we locate “the job” we want to target I can then approach the agency and negotiate a package of pay, benefits and tax free reimbursements. The agency/vendor is happy, the nurse is served well and has the added benefit of a professional representation. The agency pays my fee, by the way.
If you would like me to do a personal job search for you and give you an idea of just what is out there contact me using the form below. You will not be handed off to a staff member or an inexperienced recruiter. I do this service myself. I can only deal with a limited number of nurses so the sooner you get in touch, the better. I will NOT share your information.
Nurse Licensing
Travel Nurse Licensing by Endorsement and Compact License.
If you are a registered nurse licensed in one of the 50 US states you can apply to any other state for a “license by endorsement.” Simply put, the new state will issue you a license for their state once you pass a background check and all of your information is verified. Each state has its own set of requirements which you can find at the Board of Nursing website (more on that in a minute). It can take anywhere from 3 days to 3 months so this is something you will need to plan ahead on.
If you are lucky enough to be a resident of a state that is part of the Nursing Compact you might already be good to go. At the time of this writing, 25 states have enacted this legislation (with a couple more seriously looking at it). Here is how this works. If you live in and are licensed in one of these states than the other states all recognize your current license. You are free to work in any of those states without endorsing your license. Importantly, if you are a resident of a state that is NOT part of the Compact but have obtained an endorsement license in a Compact state it will NOT extend to the others.
To help you out I have created a FREE CHECKLIST of all 50 states with estimates of the time to get your license endorsed, the fees, which states are the Compact States and which have a temporary license. There are also website and telephone listings for each state’s Board of Nursing.
Click HERE
If you have been following me for long you probably know how strongly I feel about the relationship with your recruiter. In my opinion it is the most important person you will work with when you make the decision to look into travel nursing.
Whenever I talk to a prospective travel nurse I usually draw the analogy of a movie star and and their agent. The agent represents the movie star to the motion picture industry. I represent my nurses to the travel nursing industry. The title of recruiter is really a misnomer. It gives the impression that the only duty of the job is to “find and convince” a nurse to take a travel nursing job. That is far from accurate.
In almost all travel nursing agencies, recruiters have wide ranging responsibilities which entail the full management of the client nurse. You are an employee of the agency, NOT the hospital and as such the “recruiter” functions almost as your personal HR Department. A few of us are Independent recruiters and don’t work for a particular agency or vendor. We have the added responsibility of representing you to the agencies.
The point in all of this is that you should select your personal representative carefully.
If you call an agency cold you will probably be directed to the recruiter who is “next up.” You have no idea if they are the best the agency has or a spanking new rookie who is learning on the job. You should be prepared! You should take charge of the interview (call) and be the one asking questions. Only after getting satisfactory answers and feeling the chemistry is right should you take it to the next step. If you don’t feel it working for you with the recruiter but want to do business with the agency, request a different recruiter. You are the boss!
Before you call any agency (or me for that matter) you should prepare a list of questions that will generate conversation and get you the information to use to decide whether this is for you. I have created a free “First Call” checklist that you can download and print out for use on that initial call. Use it to guide the conversation, gather information and help you decide if travel nursing, and that recruiter in particular, would be a good fit for you.
As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me personally. That’s what I am here for.
Click Here For Checklist
Good luck!
If you would like to talk with an Independent Recruiter with access to thousands of jobs nationwide via many different agencies and vendors drop me an email and we can hop on the phone for a few minutes. conrad@travelnursingusa.com. Text or call at 650-376-0456.
I love quotes. I collect them in a folder on my laptop and love to use them in posts on my Facebook Page, (which by the way I encourage to to look over and “Like” so you will get occasional entries.
Anyway I saw this one today and it is SO applicable to nurses who sit on the sideline and dream their life away instead of jumping in and seeing if it is for them.
Napoleon Hill is credited with this quote. He was a well known motivational author in the early 20th century and his books have sold in the tens of millions.
The gist of this great quote is to take your dream (say looking into travel nursing), set a deadline of doing it (you could start HERE) and then following up on your GOAL.
Most travel nursing agencies maintain a listing of their jobs on their sites. Some of them are good about keeping them current but a lot of them just put up “tease” jobs hoping you will inquire.
Here are a couple of sites I am involved with that usually have some fresh travel nursing job openings posted.
I also publish a weekly newsletter where I try to list some of the newer and interesting jobs that different travel nurse agencies have openings for. If you subscribe you will get an email about once a week with new listings. You can see the current newsletter online HERE and you can subscribe to it HERE.
Good luck!
Conrad
This week the Illinois Senate passed (overwhelmingly) a bill to join the Nursing Compact! 
While not yet law (it now goes to the House for approval and then the governor must sign it), but the lack of opposition indicates it should be a smooth road to becoming law. I’m not sure how long this is going to take but hopefully sooner rather than later.
This will make it easy for other Compact nurses to work in Illinois which has had a fairly lengthy licensing process up to now. It will also open the door for Illinois nurses to easily take travel nursing assignments in the other 25 Compact states.
If you would like to have a personal free consultation with Conrad and ask all of the questions you ever wanted to about travel nursing, this is your chance. This 16 second video will tell you what to do.
Yes! But do not let that slow you down. If you are a registered nurse licensed in any state in the US it will be fairly easy to get your license endorsed in another state. Note that I said fairly easy. There are caveats, of course, and you will need to plan accordingly. Don’t go wandering around the Internet and spot that fabulous sounding job in California 
and think you are going to be working there next week. You aren’t. California just happens to be one of those states that take a little bit longer to get your license endorsed. So you will need a travel nurse licensing plan and you will need to think forward.
Maria and Kevin Lauer agree they’ve never had a bad assignment in their ten years of travel nursing as married travel nurses.
Together they’ve accrued more than 40 years of nursing experience and have been traveling with the Medical Solutions for the past two years, currently assigned to the El Centro Regional Medical Center in El Centro, Calif. “Travel nursing gives us the freedom to make our own schedules and work in hospitals and locations that appeal to us in our joined effort to foster good patient care and to provide opportunities to become the best nurses we can be,” said Kevin Lauer, RN, BSN, a retired Naval Officer and experienced OR nurse. To meet these goals we say a prayer each day that we will make a positive difference in our patients’ lives.”
“We love nursing and give our all because we want our patients to have a successful recovery,” Maria, an RN and ICU nurse concurred. “Traveling across our country is an asset because we get the chance to monitor the pulse of American healthcare and experience our country’s beauty and diverse culture. Travel supports learning about the unique ways patient care is approached in different places.”
The hallmark of the Lauer’s married travel nurses career occurred when they were assigned for more than a year to Doctors Hospital in Augusta, GA., home of the 70-bed Joseph M. Still Burn Center, the largest burn center in the United States. Among the 3,000 patients treated there each year were a five day old infant and a 101 year old adult, Maria recounted. “Most adult burns occur due to accidents and injuries caused by flame, steam, noxious chemicals and gases,” she said. “Burn patients endure great physical and emotional pain and discomfort and often require multi-level nursing care to treat existing health conditions, like cardiac related problems, diabetes and those who require bedside hemodialysis due to electrolyte imbalances and renal failure. Travel nursing has given me opportunities to work in a variety of speciality ICUs and those experiences have broadened my nursing expertise.”
Skin grafts are required for deep second and third degree burns that call for surgical procedures to harvest skin about the size of a letter envelope, Kevin explained. Skin is usually harvested from patients’ thighs. When burns are severe and there’s no available skin to harvest from donors, cadaver skin is harvested and preserved within freezers until needed. During skin grafts patients’ skin is scraped to induce blood flow and the skin graft is stapled into the skinless area of the body. This procedure is repeated every three days for about three weeks. “When skin is required but not available from patients, donors or cadavers, skin cells are harvested and sent to a special laboratory where skin is grown from cells and then grafted into a patient’s skinless area to continue the growth cycle,” Kevin said.
While assigned to Doctors Hospital Kevin recalled being scheduled to work in the Main OR for General Surgeries. 
However, plans changed when he was asked to float to the Burn OR due to his advanced skills gained while working in different types of ORs where he assisted surgeons with a variety of surgical procedures. “At first I found the Burn OR to be a difficult and sad place that took time to get used to. I also witnessed some awesome recoveries. It’s a wonderful feeling when you see patients who’ve sustained burns in 90 percent of their bodies walk out of the hospital. I enjoy OR nursing because I have an active role in the surgical process and can see what I’m doing makes a positive difference.”
“A love of nursing increases our capacity for human compassion and transcends human frailty,” Maria commented.
The Lauer’s call Pensacola. Fla. their home where they enjoy spending time with family and friends, and attending winter sky shows presented by the Blue Angels. As their family includes eight adult children and numerous grandchildren, some who live in other states, they enjoy having time off to visit them. Being married travel nurses has given them the ultimate way to share their love of people, travel and nursing.