Working with a nursing agency gives a lot of opportunities that being a permanent staffed registered nurse. With the increasing demand for temporary nursing staff, the possibilities are endless. Working with a nursing agency in Lafayette would help you find the career path you want to take, and at any hospital that you may possibly want.
- Look For Their Awards and Reviews
You could go to some review sites to see the awards and the reviews on the nursing agencies that you are interested in going to. You have to reach all of the things carefully, from the availability and the assignment locations to the career development, agency relationship, and competitive pay.
There are also some independent surveys that you could look at so that you could see how fellow nurses feel working with these different nursing agencies. If the nursing agency you are looking at doesn’t have any of these, then you could take this as a sign to look at another nursing agency instead.
Here are some of the awards you could look for:
- Best Career Accelerator
- Best Overall
- Most Travel-Centric
- Most Loyal
- Gold Winner
- Top Companies
- Top 10
- Observe If They Have Continuing Education & Career Building
If you are interested in continuing your education and building your career, you have to look for a nursing agency that would actually put their time and investment into it because not every nurse staffing agency would be willing to do that. When you are interested in expanding your skills and emphasizing continuing your education, then you have to make sure that you make that clear when looking at all these different agencies.
There are also some nurse staffing agencies that would even reimburse your tuition and give you bonuses for completing some more education programs. These are the kind of nurse staffing agencies that would be interested in working with you long-term and they would want you to continue working with them.
- Great Locations & Assignment Availability
If becoming a travel nurse is a career path that you are interested in dabbling into, then you have to look at the available locations and assignments the nurse staffing agency could offer you. You know you are working with a reliable and trustworthy agency when they are able to offer you a plethora of amazing locations that you could choose from and then provide you with all of these available assignments for different skill sets that you may have.
For a person who loves traveling and exploring all of these new places, then you could see the locations that your agency would be able to offer that are interesting and unique for you and are some of the places that you could definitely want to see yourself.
There is a big chance that your agency is not keeping their assignment availability up to date when you are trying to apply for a certain job and then you suddenly get disappointed because you find out that it is not available anymore. You know the agency you are working for is reliable when you get updated most of the time about any jobs that are open.
Having all of these specialty assignments available to you shows you that the agency that you are working for is diverse. You have to keep in mind that certain specialties are more in demand than others, and depending on the specialty that you are going for, there are also lucrative pay rates. You have to work with a nursing agency that is attuned to all of that.
- Range of Benefits
You have to make sure that the nursing agency that you are planning on working with has the kind of benefits package that you think fits your needs. Here are some of the questions that you could ask your nurse staffing agency:
- Will you be able to pay me even if the hospital I am working at cuts my shift?
- How about free continuing education opportunities?
- Will there be assistance with my housing?
- Will my pay be weekly?
- Is there tax advice?
- Would you be able to help me with my licensing fees?
- Will there be travel insurance?
- What are the details about sick leave? Will I get paid?
- Are there any incentives when I work overtime?
- Would there be any reimbursement for any travel expenses?
- Would there be anyone available to give you career advice and any sort of counseling?
Looking for a nursing agency that fits your standards and conforms to your needs is incredibly important, it is a great way that you could explore all of these different job opportunities and at the same time expand your skills. When you partner up with a nursing agency, remember that you should not settle for less.