Should You Work with More Than One Travel Nurse Agency?

Some travelers work with two or three agencies at a time, while others find one that feels like family and stick with them. Here are the pros and cons of working with more than one travel nurse agency.

Pros

Most travel nurses choose to work with multiple companies. It diversifies their options, increases competition, and allows them to foster relationships with multiple recruiters.

Gaining more opportunities

Each travel nurse agency only has jobs available from the hospitals they contract with. This means that if you have your heart set on a certain area, relationships with more staffing agencies means potential gigs in more hospitals.

Some nurses worry that multiple applications to the same position from different agencies will hurt their chances of getting a job. This practice is so common that it’s unlikely it will make you look bad. In an informal study of applicants to a travel nursing position, 65-75% of applicants were submitted multiple times by different agencies.

Increasing your salary

If you call three different staffing agencies about the same position, you are likely going to get three different salary offers. If you partner with all three of those agencies, you get to pick the cream of the crop. You’re sure to get the best salary for the same work.

Giving relationships time to grow

It takes time for your relationships with your recruiters to grow. They work each day to understand better what you need, how you work, and what you value. That time spent is an investment. If you work with one agency and have one primary point of contact and your recruiter leaves or is promoted, you’ll lose that investment.

By working with multiple agencies, you’ll have strong relationships with your other recruiters to fall back on in times of transition.

Cons

Some travel nurses prefer to work with a single company. It streamlines their recruiting strategy, reduces the amount of paperwork they have to deal with, and saves them energy.

Slogging through more paperwork

Travel nurses are drowning in paperwork even when they work with a single agency. Each phase of your travel nurse career is gated by a formidable pile of documents, credentials, and bureaucratic processes.

Joining multiple agencies means you double, triple, or quadruple that arduous process of getting credentialed, filling out your applications, and squaring away your documentation.

Wearing yourself thin

It’s not just the paperwork -- like any relationship, working closely and well with your recruiter and their agency takes time and energy. As a travel nurse, you spend a lot of time getting to know new systems, greeting new faces, and forging new relationships.

The simplicity of working with a single agency allows you to get to know one team very well, without scattering your energy. One agency you partner well with can provide that feeling of a home base in an otherwise ever-changing career.

Messing with what works

Some travel nurses simply don’t need multiple agencies. They find the recruiter and team that works best for them by providing them strong salaries, prime locations, and unwavering support. For those nurses, there’s no need to invite more cooks into the kitchen or to push to make the job search process more complicated than necessary.

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