Why You Should Consider Using More Than One Recruiter

From the very beginning of our travel careers, we have worked with more than one recruiter/company.

While we truly didn’t know much about travel therapy when first starting, looking back, we had consistently utilized 2-3 companies/recruiters for each assignment and over the past 6 1/2 years, have changed companies, switched recruiters, and built new relationships along the way.

There are several pros and cons to working with multiple recruiters, and we feel that it is even more important as a traveling pair that we work with multiple. We obviously speak from the standpoint of traveling as a pair, however many of the benefits can be applied to a single/solo traveler as well. Aside from the obvious potential for increased job options, it will give a single traveler more opportunity to negotiate pay and have a better understanding of the current job market. I would also argue that as a traveling pair, it is almost necessary to talk with multiple recruiters.

Below is a list of the Pros and Cons of working with multiple recruiters which hopefully will explain why we think it is such a benefit to travelers.

Pros:

More Jobs

We have found that many companies have overlapping jobs, however you will find some travel positions may be unique to only certain companies. Sometimes a company may not have a contract to work with a hospital, or the job you want may just have a preferred company they work with. We have had both of these scenarios throughout our years of travel. Unless you seek out different companies, you may never know some jobs exist. This has opened the door multiple times for us to land some pretty cool jobs. The two best examples are Kari’s job in Texas at Shriner’s Hospital, which only worked with one specific travel company, and only 1 of our 3 recruiters had jobs listed for our recent Hawaii contract which sent us to Maui for 3 months!

While I’ll talk more about my Monterey CA contract in regards to negotiation power later on, it also applies to this example as well. I was considering excepting a job about 45 mins away from Kari at a SNF with 85% productivity and very hesitant to accept. Fortunately, my other recruiter had a job approx the same distance away, but at a SNF with only 65% productivity and in a location I preferred. I was even able to match the pay from both jobs so it was an easy decision. That may seem like a small win, but I enjoy working at SNFs, and having the opportunity to interview at two locations and weigh my options and productivity standards allowed me to find a job that I ended up loving and stayed at for over 6 months.

Having multiple recruiters will almost always lead to more job opportunities and your chances of finding something you want to accept.

Negotiation Power

We don’t pit recruiters against each other, however, we do negotiate all the time for every job. While I’m sure it’s possible to negotiate while working with just one recruiter, having multiple recrtuiers searching for jobs and presenting various opportunities for work, ensures your recruiter will work with you on maximizing pay.

It’s a lot easier to ask for increased take home pay when you know you have a second job option or are having another recruiter present good pay packages on jobs that are appealing to you. Having multiple recruiters also gives you a better perspective on what the current traveler market is.

For example, there have been times when in a given area, we may see the same job posted by two or three companies at various pay rates, as well as several other jobs in that area that they all have, again with various pay. Over our 12 assignments, we now have a better sense of which company typically offers lower pay, who gives us decent pay, and how much we are able to push them into negotiating us a higher take home package. All this has been possible though by having multiple recruiters to work with and being able to see multiple pay packages.

Having multiple recruiters sending you job opportunities just makes it easier to have a greater perspective on what is available and have less fear of saying no when pay is too low. It’s a lot easier to tell a recruiter you want more money for a job too, when another company is sending you pay packages that could be a few hundred dollars more a week. It’s all about having more options as a traveler and finding the pay/job you want.

Here are a few examples of how it has worked for us

Idaho: One of our recruiters found us the perfect jobs (Hospital and peds) and no other companies had anything in the area. They knew we had been wanting to go to Idaho for quite some time (years), and would absolutely not budge on the pay package. We didn’t care because we really wanted to go, and took the job. Well, after 3 months, they wanted us to extend at the facility and we knew they needed travelers (quite a few) still at that location. Concerned about the low pay, we searched for other jobs to get an idea of the market and Kari found a couple we would consider in another state from a different recruiter. Both of which were paying several hundred dollars more per week. When our recruiter asked if we would consider extending we rightly told him we needed more money, despite loving the jobs. It just wasn’t high enough to encourage us to stay and we had other opportunities for much more with another company. Within 24 hours, we had a $300/week increase in take home pay for each of us. While I’m sure having good rapport with the company and them wanting us to extend assisted in that, presenting our recruiter with another job we were willing to take elsewhere surely helped!

Let’s go back to discussing that Monterey CA job I took at a SNF. Initially, the SNF position I really wanted (65% productivity) was being offered at $350/week less than the other higher productivity facility. I heavily debated these two offers for the next 24 hours, and told my recruiter with the lower paying job (the one I preferred), I just could not take it because of the pay package being lower. Sometimes you have to be willing to turn down a job, which at this point I was, because we really needed a good paying job to help with our student loans (and the high cost of living in Monterey, CA). Fortunately, the recruiter, realizing I was going to turn down the job was able to match the pay and brought up my pay package the entire $350/week (TAKE HOME). Having that other job offer, and being willing to say no allowed more negotiating power and ultimately a position that I enjoyed for good pay.

Obviously these examples are just our experience, but this has been consistent throughout our nearly 7 years of travel. Time and time again, the same thing happens during negotiation of a contract and we have applied what we have learned through trial and error and been able to negotiate many contracts for higher pay.

Cons

Onboarding/switching companies

This can be time consuming, including submitting resumes, medical/vaccine information, and filling out every skills checklist if it’s been a while since working with the company. Sometimes it can get a little frustrating to keep doing this for 3 different companies, as well as updating them periodically.

You also have to deal with various 401k plans if you are saving for retirement through your company (we do). While it’s not extremely challenging, it’s just something small you have to keep track of and ensure they are taking the correct amount out of your paycheck every time you switch companies.

Healthcare

If you use your companies healthcare, then you may be without coverage for periods of time between contracts when switching companies. This can be stressful. Especially if you have several weeks between assignments or are trying to take several months off. There may be times when you need to look into private insurance or using Cobra for the time off. We ran into some issues with getting an outside provider, not through our company, for health insurance and still continue to use our travel company insurance plans at this time. It has worked for us, but does cause some issues when taking prolonged time off.

relationship with recrtuier

A few other small things when switching companies/onbarding is the relationship with your recruiter. They all communicate slightly different, have various ways to enter work hours, and may not respond as timely or through the same means of communication. These to us are small things that just take getting used to, but nevertheless are some cons to switching companies. It can be cumbersome communicating with 2-3 different people, having multiple email threads going when you are searching for a new contract, and does tend to stress me (Tyler) out. The longer you work with each recruiter though, this does become easier, and it has paid off to have the same few recruiters over the years.

Overall

The pros definitely outweigh the cons for us. Having consistently worked with 2-3 recruiters, we have at numerous times noticed the benefits and had job opportunities that we would not have otherwise had. There have been multiple times when we also work with two separate companies on assignments (Tyler with one, Kari with another). Many times as a traveling pair you have to be flexible and that means commuting opposite directions, and sometimes working with different recruiters to ensure you both have a job close enough to each other to live together. We have had increased negotiation power, better job leads, and a good experience using multiple recruiters and hopefully convinced you that it can be a benefit to you as well.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out via our email, instagram or Facebook and we would be happy to help. Also, if you’re looking for adventure ideas in a new state you’re living in, check out our YouTube channel. Thanks for reading and good luck traveling.

And another rule of thumb, we always make sure to be open and honest with our recruiters and make sure they are aware that we work with multiple companies at a time!