By Joelle Blue, Hospital Account Manager
HEALTHCAREseeker.com
In our current economic condition, one job posting can cause a lot of commotion. So, imagine your hospital expresses a need for a nightly ER Travel Nurse position, well before you know it, you will be buried in 45 profiles within 20 minutes. This is when you begin to feel overwhelmed, lost, and pressed for time. As usual, the Hospital staffing coordinator starts to look through the first 10 profiles, however, the coordinator finds herself wondering why these candidates are not qualified for the position you posted and you start to get angry at the agency who sent it over. Another sudden strike of anxiety comes over you and leaves you asking, “why am I looking at profiles that are not willing to float or work weekends”. As a Hospital Account Manager for HEALTHCAREseeker.com I know that I have to save my Hospital clients time. A good agency should ask all types of questions and should send you someone that is a good match. That is the agencies job! We know this must become frustrating, as well as time consuming; so here are some questions you should tell your agency even if they don’t ask. If you have the answers to these questions, it will help your Account Manager put the right profile before your eyes. Good questions to ask are:
-What specific skill set are you looking for?
-What type of experience is a MUST and what experiences are PREFERRED. For example; for an Operation Room Nurse position will the nurse need to scrub and circulate, for Labor and Delivery will the nurse need to circulate c-sections, for Emergency Room what level is it?
-What certifications are necessary for the position or which would you prefer or like to see?
-Is floating required and to what unit?
-How busy is the unit, how many beds are in the unit, what is the patient to nurse ratio?
-What type of culture is the unit? Is it a team nursing unit or an individual nursing unit?
-What type of charting system is used? What should a nurse expect for orientation?
It’s very important to get all the above questions answered when someone sends over a candidate to you so that you do not have to look through piles of resumes that don’t fit or worse, to bring on a Travel Nurse only to find out a week after she comes that it was a bad fit. Yes, a good agency, should ask you these questions and you shouldn’t have to teach them what should be asked. Unfortunately, not all agencies ask these questions and by providing the answers to these questions in the beginning, will help you get qualified applicants from the start which will save you time. |
