Canadian RN to US traveler 101: Part 2
There are a lot of opinions on this and it varies a lot with what’s important to you. As a new Canadian traveler, I would caution you that the most important thing to look for in a company and a recruiter is that they have had previous experience with other Canadian nurses. The reason I say that this is that from experience, there are a lot of things that can go very wrong. During my first contract, my social security number didn’t come in at the timeframe expected even though I had flown down 2 weeks ahead of my contract start date and had already signed and put down a deposit on my very expensive lease on an apartment. The hospital decided that they needed someone to have a fully valid license with the social security number so they cancelled my contract. So, I sat crying in my Phoenix, Arizona apartment, watching Keeping up with the Kardashians, day drinking wine, looking at flights to go home, and thinking about how much money this whole ordeal had cost me. My recruiter who claimed he had worked with Canadian nurses in the past, had no idea what to do and was giving me jobs that we could apply for hours away from my current expensive apartment. Then, I talked to other recruiters who knew what they were doing and they told me a lot of things that my recruiter and that company should have told me. When you apply for your social security number, the government offices verify that you have a valid work visa to be in the US. When you fly through the border, the approved TN application can sit there for God knows how long until the border officers decide that they have a stack large enough to mail to DC. When you apply at a land border, they send all their documents daily. So while I did what I was supposed to do and applied for my social security number the day after I landed, social security was still waiting for confirmation that my TN visa was approved all while my TN visa application sat on a Calgary airport desk. I went to the social security office every day at 6 AM and begged the poor employees to tell me what was going on with my application until one morning, one of the employees told me that they had the number in but that I was supposed to wait for another couple of days for the letter to reach my address for obvious security reasons. At this point, I truly had nothing to lose and no real prospect of a job but I figured the least I could do was get my number and finalize my Arizona license then fly home while I wait for a new contract. Because she saw me there every day, she wrote the coveted number down on a post it note and slid it quietly under the plexiglass. I called my recruiter immediately and by a literal act of God, we were able to renegotiate a moved start date for a contract. I still think about that social security office lady; I hope she’s having a good life.
After your first contract, you’ll learn what’s important to you and what your why is. Is your main focus of travel nursing the location? Do you just want a recruiter that will get you a job in an ideal place? Are you realizing how much money you could make with this career path and realize that pay is now your priority? Do you just want a recruiter that is communicative and has your back? There are countless companies out there and I’ve linked a website that lists their top 10 companies annually. There are also reputations that companies have put out for themselves whether they’re usually lower paying but have exclusive contracts at just about every dream location (Aya), or high paying but you don’t have a recruiter (Trusted), or a company that supposedly guarantees a max contract with no reimbursement – even though you can almost always find the same contract for more money (Flexcare), you’ll be sure to hear about it the bigger your network becomes. The process is mostly trial and error as well as personal preference. The key is to get started. A word of warning, you are going to get bombarded with round the clock phone calls once you sign up to be contacted. It’s better to have a recruiter that is recommended to you by someone else and there are many Facebook travel groups that you can be a part of for that. Again, make sure that if it’s your first contract that it’s a recruiter that knows what they’re doing with Canadian travelers.
Top 10: https://www.highwayhypodermics.com/topten
Aya healthcare: https://www.ayahealthcare.com/
Trusted: https://www.trustedhealth.com/
The Travel Nurse 