As a travel nurse, gaining control over your Submission Profile is a great way to gain control over your travel nursing career. A Submission Profile is the set of documents that a travel nursing agency is required to submit to a hospital in order for the agency’s candidate to be considered for an open travel nursing job. The standard Submission Profile includes a resume, a job application, a skills checklist, and references. Hospitals will almost never accept a candidate for consideration without an up-to-date Submission Profile.
Meanwhile, travel nursing jobs are filled very quickly. They’re sometimes filled within a few hours and candidates stand very little chance of landing a travel nursing assignment if they haven’t been submitted within one week of the assignment’s announcement. The high speed-to-fill is due largely to two factors. First, the proliferation of Vendor Management Services has allowed hospitals to efficiently work with a large number of competing travel nursing agencies, sometimes hundreds of agencies at a time. Second, while hospitals are certainly looking for the best candidates, they are also looking to fill their travel nursing jobs quickly. Remember, this isn’t a permanent hire, so the same commitment isn’t involved. This all means that quick submissions are an urgent matter for both the travel nurse and the travel nursing agency.
The problem for both travel nurses and travel nursing agencies is that each agency has its own set of documentation to complete. This means that travel nurses must complete tons of paperwork just to be considered for a travel nursing job. Moreover, travel nurses are always better off working with multiple travel nursing agencies in order to gain maximum exposure to the job market because different agencies tend to work with different hospitals. As a result, travel nurses are stuck filling out mounds of paperwork for multiple travel nursing agencies. The worst part is that the paperwork is nearly all the same.
Of course, nobody wants to spend their days completing paperwork for nothing. Therefore, many travel nurses refuse to fill out the paperwork until there is an opportunity that they’re interested in. This makes it very difficult for travel nursing recruiters to convince travel nurses they should fill out their travel nursing agency’s paperwork over another agency’s paperwork. Moreover, waiting until the travel nursing job is available is most often too late. It takes time for the travel nurse to complete the documentation and the submission profile can’t be sent to the hospital until the travel nursing agency has verified the references and conducted a thorough screening of the profile to ensure that all the required information is in order.
This problem persists even after the travel nurse has completed a profile with an agency. Profiles must be kept up to date . This means that work history and references must be updated continuously. Meanwhile, skills checklists expire annually so they must be updated as well. As a result, if a significant amount of time has passed since the travel nurse has worked with an agency that they’ve completed paperwork for, then the travel nurse may be required to complete additional paperwork to bring everything up to date.
This paperwork nightmare also creates additional problems for travel nurses. First, travel nurses may miss out on their ideal travel nursing jobs because their Submission Profile isn’t ready in time. We alluded to this previously but it’s important to add clarity here. For example, there is more competition for travel nursing jobs in the most desirable locations, like San Diego, CA, so you want to make sure your Submission Profile is ready at all times for such opportunities. Similarly, the highest paying travel nursing jobs are also in high demand so your Submission Profile needs to be ready at all times for them as well.
Second, the current system has a tendency to limit options for the travel nurse. Completing yet another Submission Profile for yet another travel nursing agency can eventually become so repulsive that travel nurses simply choose not to do so. In essence, they’re choosing to accept the limited options offered by the travel nursing agency they’re currently working with in lieu of completing more paperwork. And who could blame them?
Third, this scenario tends to limit the travel nurse’s bargaining position. In an ideal market, you want to create as much competition for your services as possible. If agencies know that you can be submitted in a flash by competing agencies, then they’ll work harder to keep your business.
For all these reasons, controlling your own Submission Profile is the means to gaining full control over your career as a travel nurse. BluePipes provides travel nurses and travel healthcare professionals with the ability to do just that…for free! BluePipes‘ patent pending Self Directed Career Management System provides members with all of the tools they need to create and control their own Submission Profile. This way, travel nurses won’t have to complete so much paperwork and they’re submission profile will be ready to go at a moment’s notice so they can land their ideal travel nursing jobs.
BluePipes: Professional Networking and Career Management Tools for Healthcare Professionals
