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The Recommended Recruiter List

As a Canadian nurse, a lot of recruiters will reach out to you...

...or maybe you will reach out to an agency and be assigned a recruiter at random. 

by Kat Ann

Looking to Permanently relocate to the U.S.A.?

Head to this article on relocation & fill out the form to get in touch with the top relocation agencies!

This is a recipe for disaster...

It is important to have a recruiter in your corner who is an expert with Canadian nurses. 

It means getting a recruiter who knows which facilities will accept Canadian nurses who do not have an American Social Security Number (SSN) yet. In some states (e.g. Texas and New York), something like 90% of facilities want a SSN just to get an interview with the facility.

It means they know what should be in the letter you must present to the border to get your TN visa and what is required to cross the border with minimal issues.

It means they can advise you along the way while keeping in mind you are from Canada and have very unique immigration, taxation, work-lifestyle, geographical, and cultural differences. 

And so much more!

So, what are the benefits of using a recruiter from this list? 

A recruiter in your corner who actively has Canadian nurses on assignments & is an absolute expert. 

A portion of the referral bonus depending on the recruiter you choose! This can help pay for some of the costs that might otherwise be out-of-pocket for you in order to start travel nursing.

It helps keep the community going! Because we manage the community and are constantly adding resources for free to hopeful travel nurses, the only real source of revenue to cover the costs involved is referral bonuses. There have been a few close calls in the past, but it is very important to admin that everything remain free for nurses. So, by utilizing the referral bonuses and sharing a portion with the nurses using 'Kat Ann' as the referral source, it's a win-win-win for everyone! The agency gets a nurse, the nurse gets some extra money from the referral bonus and all the resources from this community, and the community is able to keep going!

Connect to the community! 

So, what do you think? are you ready for a recruiter that knows how to work with Canadian nurses? 

Here are our                 recruiters

favourite

Nick Garcia
TNAA

Alison Kon
Host Healthcare

*New* recruiter
and agency
coming soon!

Learn more & Connect!

Learn more & Connect!

 nurse bonus

$700*

$500*

 nurse bonus

* TNAA nurse bonus $500 USD (approx. $700 CAD) (taxable)
*Note: TNAA has a referral window of approx. 6 months. After which, no referral bonus is paid. I recommend contacting Nick when you are about 1 month from getting all your documents (e.g VisaScreen & state license)
* Host Healthcare Nurse Bonus $500 CAD (taxable)

Other  recruiters & their Agencies

Caitlin Locke

Contact Caitlin Today

Dijana (pronounced Diana) Lesh

CrossCountry

Contact Dijana Today

GetMed

Richard White

AHS

Contact Richard Today

* All Bonuses in CAD & presented as before tax amounts

$250*

 nurse bonus

$250*

 nurse bonus

$250*

 nurse bonus

Shay Lewis

Health Carousel

Contact Shay Today

$250*

 nurse bonus

If you have a recruiter or agency you want to recommned, contact us below and tell us what you like about them! Likewise, if there is an agency you'd like to see here, let us know!

FYI

See here for how it's made!

For every referral, Kat Ann will send a little Thank you gift:

A Canadian Care Package!

Here are our                      relocation agencies

least favourite

***Bear in mind, this is my opinion, and you should still do your own research to see if you agree. It is nothing personal against these agencies, but it is based on speaking with and using their services or being told by others who have used their services to stay away and warn other Canadian nurses.

***Note: I will add more here if there are pretty major complaints. If you know of an agency that has conducted themselves especially poorly and want to warn others away, let me know!







AYA

Aya has the absolute worst reputation of any ​agency. I would give them an F rating.

Now, some would say they are the ​biggest, but even the second biggest ​(Medical Solutions) has a far superior ​reputation. Let's get into the rationale why...

1. The Class Actions
Aya had a class action for bait n' ​switch practices. This means they got nurses ​on assignments for high pay that didn’t ​really exist in the first place. Once the nurse ​got to their assignment, the recruiter would ​call and say something happened and the ​pay was lowered by several hundred. The ​money never changed, they lied in the first ​place about the pay to get the nurse there. It is believed the class action was dropped due to technicalities in the nurses' contracts.

2. Criminal Activity
Aya has been committing identity theft with Canadian nurses either with them knowing or not knowing.
I was just talking to Nick with TNAA and tNAA is partners with AYA and get all the same contracts as Aya without the horrible reputation.

He said he had a nurse who wanted a job with a hospital, and that hospital won’t take a nurse without an SSN. The nurse contacted him a few days later saying she got that hospital with Aya. He knows there is zero way to get the hospital without lying about the SSN or filling it in with a false one. 

What they do at Aya is enter a random number or ask the nurse for their Canadian SIN to put in the submission. The issue is that the same sequence of numbers in our SINs do not belong to us in the United States... That same sequence of numbers probably belongs to some lovely lady named Betsy Sue in Tennessee and Aya/the nurse is using her number.

It is identity theft and is a felony in the U.S.

If Aya is caught, and they have been. That is how a recruiter was recently let go, he was reported to the IRS. Aya can face fines, etc. and they’re so big, they can afford to pay them, no problem. But a Canadian nurse committing, even if unknowingly, identity theft in the U.S… well, you might have to say goodbye to your dreams of travel nursing there if the IRS suspects you knew what the recruiter was doing.

3. Personal Experience
personally, they wouldn’t give me a recruiter or let me talk to a real person when I called the main line until I had my Visascreen and state license.

Next, they told me my Massachusetts ​license was not able to be used. I panicked ​thinking I got a license I couldn’t use. Well, ​no. Aya just doesn’t put first time Canadians ​in MA. Another agency had me there about 3 ​weeks later making over 4k USD/week.

4. Majority of Nurses' Experience & Reviews are SCATHING
There are way ​too many things wrong with them to list but ​I have tried here.
I also suggest heading to the ​Gypsy Travel Nurse Facebook group, joining, ​and typing in ‘Aya’ in the search function. It ​is basically just negative review one after another...

I really strongly caution any Canadian nurses ​to AVOID Aya. Even if you find a good ​recruiter, it is a systemic problem with the ​organization and how they operate.

Since TNAA is partners with Aya and has access to Aya’s contracts without the horrible reputation, it reallllly isn’t worth it to work with Aya.

I’d just go straight to Nick Garcia with TNAA if I wanted to get a Aya contract tomorrow.







AMN

I can’t say I have used them personally. But I ​would just advise a lot of caution. They have ​probably the second worst reputation ​(second​ to Aya).






Cynet/Lancesoft

I didn’t get far in the interview because the ​pay was appallingly low. I was quoted way ​below what was out there with several other ​agencies. Additionally, the recruiter did not ​have experience working with Canadians. ​They also refused to match. D Rating.









Fastaff

They sometimes have high rates, but ​other times the high paying jobs are taken ​or not actually there.

The amount you see is gross. The weird part was they do not ​give the stipends tax-free. They tax ​everything. That kind of makes the higher ​pay pale in comparison since you will pay ​much higher taxes as a result. And I’m not sure ​if you will get your money back Tax-free.

I find in recent ​years they have really fallen into obscurity. ​Whether I am judging them harshly for their ​poor marketing, I am not sure. But they just ​don’t seem like one of the major players so ​that makes me wonder how many contracts ​they can get.








Atlas

Avoid like the plague! The spamming is strong with these ones...

These agencies are 'off-shore' meaning they can afford to pay a bit more to nurses because they pay the recruiters sweatshop wages as they are based somewhere, usually in India.

No shade on the recruiters, but they are not at all knowledgeable about the process for Canadian nurses.

Likewise, I spoke with the head of Cynet for N. America and she became extremely defensive when asked basic process questions. 









Nomad/Trusted

These agencies are 'recruiterless' and ill-advised for first-time Canadian travel nurses.

Even as an experienced travel nurse, I would never attempt to use them... even with my knowledgebase being what it is - and I like to think it's quite a bit!








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THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON HERE IS TO DO YOUR RESEARCH ON ANY AGENCY YOU PLAN TO WORK WITH (this applies to travel nursing AND relocation)!