Q: Can I take a job offered to me by one company to another company to shop for a better offer?
A: The travel healthcare staffing industry is a very competitive space. With that, there comes some interesting tactics to earn business.
For example, some companies are more than willing to ask candidates to essentially solicit jobs from other companies with the promise of paying the traveler more for the same job.
Ultimately, it is 100% the traveler’s decision to participate in these tactics or not.
That said, the fact of the matter is this practice is risky for travelers for a couple of reasons.
For one, if you do this you could very well burn bridges between you and the company from which the job was solicited. That could systematically take away hundreds of unique jobs that the company has.
Secondly, if the original company has a good relationship with the facility, the hospital/facility will surely tell the original company that you are trying to accept the job with someone else.
Not only will they tell us about it, but a lot of the time they will decline you and will likely be very weary of hiring you for future assignments. That could prove to be detrimental if they are a part of a large network of facilities/hospitals across the country.
Another piece to consider is how your recruiter would feel. A lot of recruiters personally invest in the relationships they have with their candidates. It can really hurt to hear news that they were betrayed. Most of them work really hard to find jobs for their candidates and it is frustrating if someone else enjoys the fruit of that labor. Consider how it feel if the shoe was on the other foot.
In an industry trying to repair trust on both sides, it goes a long way to approach traveling with integrity.