How to Land your First Travel Nursing Assignment

You’re looking at leaving your staff nurse position and making the leap into travel nursing- what an exciting time! It can be overwhelming learning how everything works. Here are my tips on how to land your first travel nursing assignment and how to set yourself up for success:

Experience Matters

Go in having at least two years of experience. Some agencies and hospitals will accept one year of experience, but you’re really doing yourself a disservice if you jump in before you’re ready. You have to be ready to hit the ground running, it’s kind of a sink or swim type of experience. You only get maybe a day or two of orientation to the unit. This is essentially to figure out the particular unit routines, way of doing things, where things are located, and making sure you are charting according to the unit guidelines. After that, you’re on your own. You need to be completely competent and confident in your skills to deliver safe care. I recommend finding a PRN/per diem position after your first year of nursing. This will give you valuable experience on seeing how another unit in your specialty runs things. You will be exposed to different policies, equipment, ways of doing things- possibly even a slightly different patient population, depending where you go. You will also get the full orientation and support that is provided to staff nurses. This will help make the transition into travel nursing down the road a lot easier because you’ve not only learned one way of doing things- now you know two different ways to do it.

Find Familiarity

Look for an assignment on a unit similar to your ‘home unit’. This will make the transition more seamless and easy to adjust to. I work in the NICU and have typically stuck with units that are the same size. High acuity level III and anywhere from 25-50 beds is what I typically go for because it’s just what I’m used to! It is also easier to start off in a Level IV unit and adjust to lower acuity, which is also something I have done in my career- it’s still an adjustment, but it’s an easier and safe one.

Be Flexible

Be flexible on location! Don’t limit yourself to one ideal area- you will get there eventually. But it was be a lot easier to land that first one if you open yourself up to more opportunities. You never know, you could end up falling in love with something totally unexpected!

Give Yourself Options

Sign up with multiple agencies. This allows you to cast a wider net when looking for assignments. Some hospitals have exclusive ties to just one agency. There are also a couple of websites – Vivian and Fusion Marketplace – that list jobs with multiple agencies. The current market is currently very competitive with not as many job opportunities- many jobs get filled before they are even posted. It is very important to find a great recruiter (a few of them ideally) that can get you submitted before anything gets posted.

Go with the Flow

Those are my tips on how to land your first travel nursing assignment. Sometimes things won’t work out the way you initially planned, and that’s ok! Just take things in stride and go with it. Healthcare seems to be ever changing, and the same goes for the travel nursing market. Some nurses have multiple backup plans for given scenarios, while others roll with punches and figure it out as they go. Either way works. Trust your instincts and have fun!

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