No matter what field or specialty you work in, life as a traveling allied health professional has its perks! You get to live in new places frequently, visit unique facilities, and find amazing networking opportunities. While all of this sounds great, it’s sometimes difficult to realize when you can be maximizing your allied health career. Taking full control of your profession is a special balance of planning and realizing opportunities as they arise. Here we’ll discuss ways you can elevate your allied health career and more!
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Whether you’re a long-time travel therapist or someone just considering traveling for work, allied health travel jobs fit with many specialties. Given the range of professionals under the allied health umbrella, the opportunities are vast. Really though, when maximizing your allied health career it’s important to consider the nuances that make your career unique.
3 Tips for Maximizing Your Allied Health Career:
1. Know and Leverage Your Value
Just because you have a degree and the right certifications doesn’t make you a standout candidate. Sure, these things indicate a base-level value to employers, but many want to hire beyond the minimum amount of skill. Every allied health pro has something that makes them a unique asset to any team, and best know how to leverage that. Capitalize on your clinical skills in the interview, but don’t forget that it’s your perspective and application that can make you a valuable candidate!
You can lean on other life experience that informs your approach to your specialty. For instance, if you have experience in things like social media marketing or high school sports coaching, use these skills to show that you add value beyond a medical context. Better yet, show how your other skills can improve additional areas of an employer’s facility or practice!
2. Consider Using Multiple Recruiters
Maximizing your allied health career is really about learning what options others frequently take advantage of. Although it’s not always the best approach in terms of building recruiter relationships, many allied health pros actually seek jobs through multiple recruiters at any given point. In many cases, recruiters share nearly 80 percent of the same job pool, making it harder to find that additional 20 percent of unique offers.
Overall, working with three or more recruiting agencies helps traveling allied health pros find diverse jobs, thereby adding flexibility to your career!
3. Go for the Full Housing Stipend
Although it sounds oxymoronic, traveling in allied health is actually mostly about finding an appropriate place to stay during your assignment. Sure, being cooped up in a hotel for 13 weeks sounds like fun to some, but it’s not ideal for many experienced travelers. Maximizing your allied health career often means cutting whatever costs possible to make the best paycheck possible before the next assignment. That’s why we recommend trying to find your own housing whenever possible!
When recruiters have to arrange a place for you to stay, your housing stipend doesn’t always get you the perfect temporary home base. Remember, housing stipends are tax-free so they often make up a significant portion of your weekly paycheck. If you surrender your housing stipend, you have much less control over where you live and how much money you end up making in the end. Do the housing legwork yourself and use that extra cash for what really fits in with your career goals!
Remember, you’re the one calling the shots when it comes to maximizing your allied health career. Negotiating your allied healthcare contract, stipends, and terms allow professionals to make the most out of each assignment. That said, if an offer isn’t exactly what you need to stay on target to meet your career goals, just walk away. If you know your value as an allied health professional and have the skills to back it up, finding the right fitting job is just the around the corner!
Any tips you would give our readers for maximizing an allied health career? Let us know in the comments below!
