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Find Jobs You want - Heres HowWhere do you find Nursing Jobs? On-line of course! To find jobs go to the web. Most places, including hospital, nursing agencies and recruitment companies, all do business on line. There are literally thousands of jobs out there, so be ready to make sure you get what you want not what an agency wants you to take! They can be quite persuasive when they want to get you to apply for a job that may benefit them more than you. Ask around see if anyone has had experience with any agencies, you are sure to find someone who has! Doing this will ensure you find jobs that suit you. Find jobs with a Health ServiceHealth services advertise nursing jobs on their websites regularly and you can apply directly to the health service, some even have an online application to make the process even easier! Each State also list jobs on the Department of Health website so it is worth checking that out. I have provided links to the State Nursing websites on the
Nurse Registration page.
It is often worth while picking up the phone and calling the hospital and asking to speak to someone about working there as a nurse, chances are they will have vacancies! They may also have a casual bank, most hospitals have this to backfill the permanent nurses when they take leave, or for times of high demand on the hospital. You can find jobs links on the health services websites. I have provided directories for health services in each State on the Australian Hospitals page What About Recruitment Agencies?Recruitment Agencies are usually big business. Employers pay these agencies to recruit for them. They will often manage the process right up until final shortlisted interviews. So be careful, you may go to an interview and feel it went really well, only to find it was only a preliminary interview and the employer will still filter the process further. I would recommend thinking twice if one of these agencies ask you to pay a fee. It is not necessary there are plenty of ways to find jobs for free, especially in Nursing! Many, if not all, recruitment agencies do business on-line. There will be simply hundreds of jobs advertised and finding the one you want can be a bit overwhelming when you don’t know the area’s and what type of facility it may be. I employed a Travel Nurse once who came to my small seaside hospital from a large inner city hospital. She explained to me she had made a mistake with her first job. She had wanted to work in a small town, out of the big city, but had signed up for a major hospital in the inner city through a recruitment agency. Mistakenly, over the phone the agency had indicated to her that the hospital was out of the city, meaning in a surrounding suburb; she meant way out of town like in the country! You need to be able to assert yourself and get the agency working for you to find jobs, not the agency filling jobs vacancies they need to fill! Nursing AgenciesNursing Agencies are everywhere around Australia. They are agencies that provide short term, casual nurses to Health Services to help back fill for leave, especially unplanned leave like sick leave. The way they work is that Nurses sign up and join the agency. There should be no fee attached as they make their money by taking a cut of the fee they charge the Health Service for providing you to them! Health Services put out calls to these agencies when they need nurses to work shifts, then the agency matches them with Nurses who are available to work at those times. The agency will call all the nurses on their list, some send text messages to your phone, asking for someone who is interested in the shift. You can choose to take a shift or decline, if its a sunny day you might want to go to the beach instead! What this means though is that work is not guaranteed and you may get last minute calls for shifts. This also means that you can choose when you want to work also, giving you more freedom to enjoy your travel nurse experience! A Nursing Agency may be what would suit a Travel Nurse best, at least to start with. Working through an agency gives you plenty of flexibility and you get a “try before you buy” experience to test out different places before you start trying to find jobs and sign up for a contract.It is a good idea to join one that has a local presence in the area you want to work in, as they will have good connections to the local health services. You can and should join more than one agency this way you can work where and when you want. Go Outback!There are sometimes opportunities, via nursing agencies or health services, for monthly, or longer, contracts to areas where nurses are hard to find, like rural and remote areas. These can be extremely interesting and educational placements. They could make great stories to tell when you get back home or in the future to your grandkids! See some of these stories on the
Nursing Stories Page
Just Enjoy!Whichever way you decide to find a job in Australia make sure you enjoy yourself. Find a job that fits in with your travel/work holiday and remember - if you are not enjoying a job there are plenty more out there and in plenty of exciting and exotic locations! Happy Travel Nursing! Return from Find Jobs to Travel Nurse Jobs
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