3 Signs Your Travel Nurse and Recruiter Relationship is Healthy
You’ve likely heard the complaints from another travel nurse: “I can never get in touch with my recruiter when I need her. She only calls when it’s time to find my next job.” Or the equal but opposite complaint: “I can’t ever get my recruiter off the phone. Doesn’t he understand that I’ll call him if I need something?” The travel nurse and recruiter relationship, like any other relationship, is whatever the participants make of it, and it only works if both sides are happy. So, while each traveler may have their own preferences around style and frequency of communication, there are a few higher-level hallmarks that a successful recruiter-traveler relationship is going to have. Open and honest communication Not every job is going to go well, you and your recruiter hope that it will, but they don’t always. When you have a good relationship with your recruiter they can help with that. Maybe it’s just having someone to vent to, release some of that frustration so you don’t explode. But your recruiter can be more than a sounding board. They can communicate your concerns or frustrations to the hospital and be your champion. They can help you turn around a bad situation. Or, if it comes to it, help you get out of your contract without ruining your reputation. Like-mindedness There’s nothing like having that person who knows what you’re thinking without you having to say it. It’s great in a spouse. It’s great in a friend. And it’s great in a recruiter. It comes from a like-mindedness that cuts out the round and round that too often happens when it’s time to find your next placement. When a travel nurse and their recruiter are on the same page, you won’t get those jobs that seem to come out of left field. You see jobs that your recruiter knows you’ll like and meet established criteria, not because it’s going to pay them well if they fill it. Availability Your recruiter should be available when you need them. And they should be ready to communicate in the ways that you prefer. But whether that’s through a text message, an email, or a phone call, your recruiter should be responding to you in a timely manner when you try to get in touch. If they don’t get back to you or are never available, it’s a sign that maybe you aren’t as valuable to them as you should be. How do you get these 3 things? It’s pretty simple: Set expectations at the beginning. A recruiter can’t read your mind, so tell them to what it will take to make you happy. Help them help you. Let them know how you prefer to communicate. Maybe you want a weekly call to check in. Maybe you only want a call as your contract wraps up. Maybe you don’t want calls at all and prefer text messages. Tell them early, that makes open and honest communication much easier. Tell your recruiter what you want from an assignment. Let them know what you want to be doing and where you want to be doing it. Let them know what will make you happy. This builds like-mindedness and allows them to look for those things in your next placement, so you spend less time saying no and more time working.
4 Traits New Travel Healthcare Professionals Need In A Recruiter
When you’re new to traveling, finding the right agency to work with is critical. But maybe more important is finding the right recruiter. This relationship is critical. If you get it wrong then your travel experience is going to suffer. So what do you want in a recruiter? Here are four things to look for. You want a recruiter who you generally get along with. Of course you do, right? That should go without saying. But too many travelers, especially those who are new, continue relationships with people who they don’t genuinely enjoy working with. Ideally, this will be a years-long relationship. Find someone whom your personality matches with, with whom you share a working style. While getting along is key, remember that doesn’t mean they’ll always tell you what you want to hear. You also want someone who can be direct when needed and deliver bad news quickly, should there be any. You want a recruiter who knows the industry. The truth is that travel healthcare recruiters can get into the industry without a lot of prior knowledge. So pairing an inexperienced recruiter with a first-time traveler can be dangerous. First-time travelers should look for someone who understands the industry and can help them navigate the aspects of it that can be confusing, especially as they get started. You want a travel healthcare recruiter who can not only help you understand the ins and outs of things like housing and pay packages, you also want one who can help you fix problems once you are on the job. He or she should be comfortable being your advocate and addressing problems with the hospital and working toward resolutions. It should be obvious early on that you are working with an experienced recruiter, but if it’s unclear ask how long they’ve been in the business. And if you aren’t comfortable doing that, there are a couple of red flags that you are working with someone who is inexperienced. They aren’t forthcoming with information. Do you get the used car salesman vibe from them? They won’t answer your questions with a straight answer, dancing around your query as long as they can? If so, they likely lack the experience and knowledge to answer your question. They are magically able to meet everything you’re looking for. While perfect placements can exist, an experienced recruiter knows that finding a job that hits the trifecta of location, pay, and shift is unlikely. If you are always being told yes, then you are working with someone who doesn’t understand the industry. You want a recruiter who puts your interest first. A good travel healthcare recruiter is going to put you in a situation that works for you. They will listen to what you want, then find you the closest thing they can to that. If you are looking for A, they won’t push B. A recruiter that puts his or her agenda first is one you want to walk away from. You want a recruiter who is responsive. Technology has made it very easy to communicate, so a recruiter who lets days go by when you are reaching out to them is a recruiter you don’t want to work with. That’s especially true when an issue arises on the job. Your recruiter is your lifeline. You need them to be available, and that means through email, phone or text message. If your travel healthcare recruiter isn’t responding when you reach out, it’s time for a new one.
Here’s Why Establishing A Tax Home Is Important For Travelers
Thanks to President Donald Trump’s approval in December of the most extensive changes to U.S. tax law in the past 30 years and the recent start of income tax filing season, millions of U.S. citizens have taxes on the brain, travel nurses included. The new tax changes won’t affect the filing process for 2017 taxes. They do eliminate employment expense deductions starting this year, but they won’t affect the tax-free stipends available to travelers, as long as they’ve established a tax home. But what is a tax home? For a busy professional who regularly has to travel for business, qualifying for tax-free stipends is a simple process, but for travelers, it’s a bit more complex. Definition and benefits of a tax home The IRS Tax Code defines a tax home as the geographical area where workers earn most of their income, which may not be the same place as their permanent residence–the place where they own a home, where their family lives or where they’ve been issued a driver’s license. As an example, say an employee works for a company in Michigan eight months out of the year, but that person owns a home in Wyoming to stay close to relatives. The employee’s company asks him to travel back to Wyoming for a business-related reason, so he decides to stay at home because it’s easier than booking a hotel for a weekend. Even though this person traveled to their personal residence, the employee’s travel expenses are still technically deductible because he is leaving his tax home on business. Having a tax home means big savings in terms of a travel nurse’s ability to accept tax-free stipends, or per diems, which can add up to anywhere from $20,000-$50,000 in tax-free benefits. “This can result in $6,000-$9000 per year in tax savings,” said Joseph Smith, a travel nurse tax expert and owner of TravelTax.com. “But then you have to remember to subtract your living expenses from that (savings figure),” Smith said. “If you’re paying 600 a month for an apartment, which is then $7,200 a year, that’s a significant amount from savings. That’s why you don’t see travelers living in places like San Francisco unless they have a tax home due to a regular job in the area.” Some travel nurse staffing agencies also won’t give contracts to nurses who don’t have a tax home in order to avoid being penalized during an IRS audit because of a travel nurse who accepted tax-free stipends without a tax home. Criteria to qualify for a tax home If this geographical definition was the only one used to determine who has a tax home, travelers would never qualify since the job requires frequent relocation, meaning there’s not one place where they earn a majority of their income. Thanks to clarifications of the code in IRS Publication 463, three factors are used to determine tax home status. At least two of these three criteria must be satisfied in order to qualify for a tax home. If only one factor is met, that person is considered an itinerant worker, meaning their tax home is their permanent residence and they don’t qualify for tax-free stipends or reimbursements. You perform part of your business in the area of your main home and use that home for lodging while doing business in the area. You have living expenses at your main home that you duplicate because your business requires you to be away from that home. You have a member or members of your family living at your main home or you often use that home for lodging. Since most travelers don’t work at home, they often try to meet the second and third criteria to establish a tax home. The third criteria is easy enough to meet by returning regularly to a home or apartment owned or rented, but their tax home status could be disrupted by not matching duplicate expenses. Duplicate expenses While it’s not stated in bold print, duplicate living expenses need to be significant enough to meet the second criteria. For example, say a traveler rents an apartment for $800 per month in their home state of Arizona, and leaves for a five month job in Colorado. They have a friend in Colorado who owns a home and will let them stay in a spare room for $50 a month while they’re working. Even though the traveler is paying the friend to stay there, that incredibly low “rent” charged by their friend won’t qualify as duplicated expenses. That traveler would need to at least pay fair market value for rental of the space, which differs based on location but can be determined by comparing local rental listings for similar properties. Temporary worker status It is possible for travelers to avoid paying duplicate expenses and still qualify for a tax home by meeting the first criteria and planning to work some in their home state, but they must make sure they are a significant distance away from their permanent residence or risk losing their temporary worker status. A temporary worker is someone who fulfills job appointments lasting 12 months or less, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. If a traveler works for more than a year in a single geographic area, it’s considered an indefinite job appointment. That means their previous tax home is moved to their current job because it’s their new primary location of income, and they are classified as an “itinerant” worker. This rule applies even with short-term contracts. If a traveler plans to work in a location for eight months, then accepts another five month contract in the same area but at a different hospital, the job assignment would still be considered indefinite rather than temporary since they planned to stay for 13 months total in the same geographic region. Unfortunately, there isn’t a specific distance a traveler needs to be away from their previous placement to be considered safe, and the “50-mile” rule travelers might hear about is not