My wishes to have a smooth process once I completed the interview and was given a verbal offer were anything but that! Probably partly my mistake, but a mistake that my Recruiter says she should have known about. The situation that transpired as I was waiting for the official written offer is almost impossible to put into words or explain. But here is what happened and what I learned from this rookie mistake!
The wrong Travel Company received the offer meaning that I applied for the position through Company P Recruiter but the offer came through with Company A Recruiter. Now, if you have been following along on this journey, you know that Company A Recruiter did not make a great first impression and was all but absent for 3 weeks leaving me with zero updates or any communication of any kind. Company P Recruiter has been my advocate to hiring facilities and has checked in via short texts daily with updates about profile status and making sure I was “hanging-in-there” during a process that she knew was stressful for new travel nurses.
The mix up happened because Company A Recruiter applied me for a job at one location and Company B Recruiter applied me for a job at a different location, but they were the same hospital just different branches. This particular hospital takes one application and shares it with all branches to fill possible positions. This means when you apply for one position, every branch of that hospital system with a similar job opening gets your profile and because Company A applied me to that hospital first, Company A was awarded the contract. In my frustrations with Company A Recruiter and the hard work that Company P Recruiter provided, I felt obligated to make sure that the Recruiter who applied me for this particular job was rewarded the contract, plus I would much rather work with Company P!
When this came to light, a lot of confusion started to occur. The hiring Hospital did not show a contract for the location I applied for but instead, contract offers for 2 locations that I had never interviewed for (this is a whole other story). In all the confusion and frustration that I thought might loose me the contract, I had to let Recruiter P do her job and hope that it all worked out. I eventually did get the official contract offer from the location I applied for and with the correct Recruiter.
Lesson to be learned: Do not apply for more than one job per Hospital System without first knowing how their system works. Ask your recruiter questions and have them verify wether each branch is separate or if the Travel Nurse Hiring department works for all branches. If they are separate, I would not see an issue with applying for multiple branches but avoid multiple profile entries if they all work as one! And ask the interviewer which agency submitted you if you are in doubt and request they send the contract to the correct one if it is wrong.
