While you can choose to wear sweat pants and let your hair go uncombed, the phone interview is still an interview and requires you to be on top of your professional game. So whether you’re just starting out in your travel nursing career, or you want to just freshen up your interviewing skills, this list of tips will help you ace your next phone interview.

Tip #1: Do all your homework and have your notes in hand.

Prior to the interview, do some research about your potential employer and keep any notes (plus your resume) within reach for easy reference during the call. Your interviewer will appreciate that you took the time to research their facility and if you get stumped on a question, you’ll have everything you need right in front of you.

Tip #2: Let your personality do the talking.

When the interview begins, remember to take a deep breath and smile when you start talking. Your interviewer is already familiar with your skills and background, so make sure your personality and character come through. Smiling while you speak will help set you at ease and make you sound more positive to the interviewer.

Tip #3: Be informative but concise.

Striking the balance between giving short answers and long winded ones can make a huge difference during the interview. You want to give as much relevant information about yourself and your qualifications without running on too long. If each of your responses and comments focuses on why you’re the right choice for this particular travel nursing job, you won’t need to say much else.

Tip #4: Ask questions.

You may be so excited for the interview that you forget to ask questions about what your travel nursing job will entail. If the interviewer doesn’t offer you the chance to ask questions, be sure to include that in the conversation when the time is right. It will demonstrate professionalism and commitment if you ask about what to expect in terms of scheduling, operations and the environment of the assignment.

Tip #5: Conclude with confidence.

When the interview begins to wrap up, remember to thank your interviewer for their time and for the opportunity to speak with them. It’s important to conclude with a follow up question about what the next steps are in the interview process. This will show the interviewer that you are interested in the travel nursing assignment and eager to move forward in the process.

These tips, plus a healthy dose of just being yourself, will set you up for success on your next travel nursing phone interview. Best of luck!

Planning ahead

Even without any unfriendly island inhabitants, the task of acclimating to a new community in a short period of time can be overwhelming for a travel nurse or therapist. Once you arrive in town, you typically have only a day or two before you report to the hospital for your assignment. For that reason, it’s important to do a little research before you arrive.

There are many approaches to exploring a new city.  Start by exploring the local Chamber of Commerce website, just to get a feel for the area. Investigate the city on Wikipedia, or visit its official website. Any information you can find on weather patterns, traffic, and local lifestyle will prepare you for what to expect. AAA TourBooks are another great resource to have on hand; they contain local and regional maps, area descriptions, and listings for restaurants and recreational activities.

“When I’m traveling to a new city, the first thing I do is check out the area to make sure I feel safe,” says Karen Wise, an Onward Healthcare travel nurse. “When I recently accepted an assignment in Maryland, I checked the satellite picture of my potential residence on Google Earth.  I could tell it was a tall hi-rise, which I would feel comfortable at, since there’s only one way in and one way out.”

Getting around town

Initially, you won’t have time for casual exploring and sightseeing when traveling to a new city. Cassandra Lindquist, Travel Nursing Director for Onward Healthcare, advises her staff to focus on the basics in those first few days:

• Hunt for the nearest grocery store and pharmacy. Drive up and down the streets in the immediate vicinity of your apartment, noting street names, landmarks, and any unusual traffic patterns (like one-way streets or traffic circles).
• Take a practice drive. “Know how to get specifically from your apartment to the hospital,” Lindquist says, “and consider what the traffic is going to be like.”
• Keep your eyes peeled for Internet hot spots. Starbucks, Panera Bread, and many sports bars offer free Wi-Fi connections. If all else fails, ask a neighbor for directions to the closest public library.
• Pick up a newspaper and any local magazines you can find at the grocery store. Hotels are a great source of information, too; they often stock free publications and brochures that detail the city’s dining, shopping, and entertainment areas.

Making new friends

Speed up the acclimation process by comparing notes with your fellow nurse travelers, colleagues and hospital employees. (Remember, you’ll be attending orientation with other travelers and your new employees also looking to make friends.) That gives you a great opportunity to strike up some conversations about what’s around town, and where to find essential services. Once you’ve began your assignment, you can also chat with your local co-workers—and don’t worry, they’ll be a lot nicer than those wicked island inhabitants on Lost.

By Barbara Eisner Bayer, Featured Contributor

So what does this mean for RN travel nurses? According to the travel nurse recruitment staff at Onward Healthcare, it doesn’t have to mean much if you play your cards right. Here are four tips for finding a travel nursing job you want in today’s economic market courtesy of our travel nurse recruiters:

1. Be Flexible – From Suzanne Haar, Nurse Recruiter
“Decide what factor is most important to you on your next assignment and make that your focus. If you are set on a particular destination or facility, you may have to be a little flexible with your pay rate, however if you are open to a handful of locations you can still earn a great hourly wage for those hard to fill positions.”

2. Have Licensure – From Catalina Vady, Nurse Recruiter
“Always be sure your current state nursing license is up-to-date and stockpile additional ones when possible. If you know the location you want to go on your next travel nursing job, obtain the licensure for that state midway through your current assignment so that you will be ready to hit the road when the time comes.”

3. Maintain Relationships – From Angela Spruill, Nurse Recruiter
“Establish a relationship with your assigned recruiter. Be open to what you are looking for and any personal preferences that can help them narrow down the best assignment options for you.  The more information you can provide our team, the better job we can do of finding you your ideal travel nursing job.”

4. Be Positive – From Cassandra Lindquist, Travel Nursing Director
“Upon accepting a travel nursing assignment, keep in mind that while you are off to somewhere exciting and new that may feel like a vacation, you have also been hired to do a job.  So do it to the best of your ability!  Having good reviews from your nurse managers can be the key to getting the travel nursing job you want over another candidate the next time around.”

By following these simple guidelines, you will be able to advance you career and put yourself in a position to obtain the travel nursing job you desire.

The top physical therapy resources differs slightly from the travel nursing list in that it focuses entirely on industry specific sites for physical therapists, physical therapy assistants, physical therapy job seekers, PT students as well as travel physical therapists.  The list was broken down into eight categories, which consist of PT links to informational sites, interactive resources, PT Blogs and social media sites, as well as an extensive list of nationwide physical therapy organizations and sections of the APTA.

We hope that this list proves to be a valuable resource to the physical therapy community, and will act as a one-stop web page to bookmark and come back to for your physical therapy news and needs.  For those travel physical therapists looking for additional information on relocation, we encourage your to visit our Top 101 Travel Nursing Websites and check out the last nine categories, which focus on travel, housing, getting settled and staying connected to family and friends.

Click here to view the Top 51 Physical Therapy Resources on the Web.

If your organization was named as one of the Top 101 PT Resources, please visit the page to find out how to download an award’s badge to place on your website.

If you have any suggestions for additional physical therapy websites, please email us or leave a comment below.