A few months back I wrote an article for Aureus Medical’s blog titled “Leap of Faith.” This article is somewhat a follow up from that article. In that article, I discussed how and when to make that leap and give travel assignments a try. In this article, I’m going to talk about what happens once you get your first travel assignment.
Inevitably, you will jump for joy when you get your first assignment. In fact, one of my favorite moments as a recruiter is when I matched a candidate with their first assignment. Once you have been on assignment for a few weeks, you will have met all of the permanent staff, made friends with the people, get into a habit each morning (you will learn where the nearest Starbucks is) and it will all start to feel like home. However, most travelers have the sudden realization that this will all end. Much like summer break, at first September seems so far away, but soon June ends, July ends and then you are counting down the days in August. This is the period of time I call “The Panic”.
How long will it take me to get my next assignment? Where will my next assignment be? What if I don’t get another assignment? These questions all are normal. In fact, just about every first time traveler and many seasoned travelers go thru “The Panic”. In “Leap of Faith,” I discussed talking with your recruiter about your situation and making sure travel is a good fit. As many of my recruited candidates know, I try my best to prepare them for this time with the following advice.
1. Put the difference between what you used to make at your previous job and your current pay in your savings account. If you were living on $25.00 an hour in your permanent job, and you get on assignment and are making $35.00 an hour….you should be able to put away $10 an hour. Over 13 weeks, you’ll have put $5200 in your rainy day fund.
2. Be flexible. The more flexibility you have with shifts, locations, etc. the more likely you will continue to be placed. Account Manager and directors of facilities remember those that were willing to roll with the punches. And the more they remember you, the more they will request you back for another assignment.
3. Answer your phone! We are all busy, but if it is coming to the end of your assignment and we are calling, there is a high probability that we are calling about another job. A good portion of these jobs are filled with the people who are submitted within the first 2-3 hours. So it is in your best interest to make sure we get your information over ASAP.
However all these things pale in importance to the single most important thing you can do to continue to “win” travel assignments quickly and frequently.
Here is the single most important advice: Be amazing on your travel assignment! That is it, my #1, most important piece of advice. You are there to solve that facility’s staffing problem, not to create another one. Aureus will not be at the hospital with you, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t know about what is going on with your assignment. By far, the seasoned travelers who have been traveling for 10 years all share one thing in common: they are all great at what they do and the directors who happen to get them for the assignment love them.
You see, we get performance evaluations on each assignment. So when that assignment performance evaluation says “Amy was amazing, we loved her and wanted to her stay”, “whoever gets her next is lucky”, “we are sad to see her go”, “she taught my employees things they didn’t know”, and “I wish I had more employees like her”….that goes into your profile with Aureus Medical. When we send your profile over to a director with an open need and they read that glowing review….guess what? Pretty good chance you are getting the job. The opposite is also true too!
In review, my plan for success is: put some money away, be easy to work with, answer your phone or return phone calls quickly and most important, be a great employee. It’s easy. If you do all this, it will seem like summer break on every assignment.
Whether you are thinking of taking that leap of faith or starting to feel the panic, our Account Managers would love to talk to you.
Andy Hanneman is an Account Manager in the Diagnostic Imaging division of Aureus Medical Group. He and his fiancée are planning an October 2012 wedding. In preparation for the wedding, they both have become more active and have lost close to 100 lbs between the two of them! They recently purchased a house, so their hobbies also now include furniture shopping and paint swatch collecting.
800.456.5857 ext6054 / ahanneman@aureusmedical.com / Twitter
Well said