How do Nurse Recruiters Make Money?

Good question. And it’s one that both Nurses and new recruiters are curious about. How is it possible for a recruiter to make money from placing a nurse?

Well, nurse recruiters make decent money. The staffing agency actually makes the lions share of the profits, however. I’ll cover this in more detail elsewhere, but as a general rule, the staffing agency owners take a 90 to 90% cut of the profits.

Nurses, of course, are curious as to how their recruiter makes money. Does this money come out of their paycheck? Are they paying a lump sum to get hired?

Good questions and ones that need to be addressed if you’re a nurse and are planning on working with a nurse recruiter.

And these are also important questions if you’re someone who is new to recruiting, or at least new to nurse recruiting, and are curious about how you will make money.

This article is going to explain how nurse recruiters make money, how much money a nurse recruiter might make, and also what the exact process is.

Because nurses make so much money, recrutiers are eager to work with them. This article will cover just how that recruitment process works.

Do Nurse Recruiters Take  A Cut Nurses Pay?

It depends on the agency, but as a rule most agencies do not take a cut of anyones salary. Recrutiers definatly don’t take a cut.

And if the agency doesn’t take a cut of the nurses salary, then there is no way that the recruiter could take a cut of cut of your salary.

The people who run staffing agencies dictate the pricing policy, that’s not something that is up to the individual recruiter. Likewise, an individual recruiter can’t decide to take money out of a nurses pay.

What happens in most cases is that a staffing agency charges the hospital a certain amount per hour and then pays the nurse a lower number. The difference between the price that the staffing agency charges the hospital and the amount that they pay the nurse is where the profit comes from.

It’s important to remember that the number difference between what a staffing agency charges a hospital for the nurses service and the number paid to the nurse is not all profit. The costs associated with hiring and having an employee cut into that number slightly.

That said, there are nursing staffing agencies that do charge nurses to work. This is all spelled out in their contracts. It’s not something that will simply come up once you are working.

If you are a nurse and you are working with an agency, it is very important to have in writing exactly what the terms of your employment are.

This is why nurses seem to focus on only one thing: their contract.

In fact, ask any seasoned nurse recruiter and they will attest that nurses who have burned out and done years in the travel nurse game often times come off as robots. They might not want to have a conversation with the recruiter and instead simply ask for their “contract” to be sent to them.

It should be understood that some nurse staffing agencies do not act in a legal manner. Or at least, they do not act in an ethical manner.

Stories abound about nursing agencies that were run by businessman who profited off of government paid nursing contracts and withheld the pay for their nurses. In some instances they kept Passports or ID for the nurses.

Much of this is due to the incredibly lucrative government funded programs that nurses work for, along with the fact that many nursing agencies and hospitals are hiring nurses from overseas. Many of these nurses arrive here through suspect staffing agencies who hold their passports or other incentives to keep them working.

What Do Nurse Recruiters Make?

This wholly depends on a number of factors. The primary one is how the agency pays their recruiter’s.

Many nursing agencies are well known to be top heavy in terms of profit. What does that mean? Well, it means that the CEO and partners in the business reap all the rewards and the recruiters make very little.

Even in the best nursing agency, the ones where everything is on the up and up, a nurse recruiter can expect to max out at around 4 or 5% of the companies profit per nurse.

However, quite a few nursing agencies simply pay their recruiters a flat fee. While this might not be discussed in the hiring interview, it’s often what ends up happening.

What often happens in staffing firms that recruit nurses is that recruiters are often left in the dark about the behind the scenes economics of the business. It’s not unheard of to have nurses suddenly disappear off of rosters and then reappear on new schedules where the recruiters are said to have no claim.

This is one of the reasons why recruiters move so often from staffing agency to staffing agency: they aren’t being fairly paid.

While a nurse recruiter might make a base of 30k or 50k depending on city, they are often short changed on their lucrative commissions.

Staffing agencies that deal with nurses are on the lower end of the recruitment ladder. The industry that they work in is much different than higher end executive search firms that place Comptrollers and C-Level executives.

What About Travel Nurse Recruiters?

Travel nurse recruiters are no different than regular nurse recruiters. The only difference between regular nurse recruiters and travel recruiters is that travel nursing is more lucrative and therefore there is the possibility for higher commissions.

Travel nursing also involves quite a bit of logistical legwork that the other nurse recruiters don’t have to deal with.

Regular nurse recruiters only have to deal with local nurses and credentialing issues. Aside from that, it’s just a typical recruitment cycle. Obviously when dealing with medical personnel the process is difficult when compared to professionals.

However, the problem with travel nurse recruitment is that you are dealing with nurses who live in one city and are to be flown to another city. This causes a lot of chaos. Nurses often change their mind and don’t show up for scheduled appointments, which is not a major issue for local nurse recruitment.

But when you are dealing with travel nurses who must take airplanes, book into hotel rooms, and travel to different cities, then you can see how difficult it is.

Now, most of that difficulty is built into the extra price that travel nurses charge.

A regular nurse working in LA or NYC might make 90 dollars a hour. However, a Travel nurse can make double that in most major cities, especially during the pandemic.

Additionally, the tax free stipends that nurses make are lucrative and add to the benefits they make.

A good travel nurse recruiter should be able to pull in a lucrative salary, given that they work for an honest company. However, many nursing companies pull bait and switch routines.

That’s why I suggest doing research before signing up with an agency, either as a client or as an employee. Also, be forewarned that many agencies operate under multiple names and can often have different websites. This is a sign, along with others, that the agency can’t be trusted.

How to Become a Nurse Recruiter?

If you are interested in becoming a nurse recruiter, then you should first think about the three different approaches.

The first is to find a job at a hospital. Hospitals employ nurse recruiters all of the time because Nurses are one of the main type of employees in the hospitals in terms of staffing numbers.

The second type of nurse recruiter will work at a private or non-profit company that employs nurses. These might be non-profits such as Jewish Family Services, Envsion Unlimited, ICL (Institute for Community Living) or Project Renewal. Or they might be private clinics that operate as retail walk in medical centers.

The final type is to work as an agency nurse recruiter.

Let’s review the three different approaches and discuss the pros and cons of each, along with how you actually get the job at the different types of businesses.

Hospital Nurse Recruiters

These jobs are often contract, which means that you are not enrolled into a lucrative hospital union and can be terminated at any point. However, the job itself is much easier than working as an agency recruiter.

Hospitals need to hire enormous amounts of nurses and they have almost unlimited funding from the government and state. The job of a hospital nurse recruiter is difficult, but there is a more relaxed work atmosphere. Because hospital recruiters are only paid a flat salary, and most employees are union, the workplace is much slower and things move slow…really slow.

Finding a nurse recruiter job at a hospital is not somewhat difficult, as long as you have some experience, then many large hospitals will hire you. The problem is that most of the jobs are contract assignments and will pay a low, flat hourly rate. Something caping out at 20 an hour in most large hospitals. The large numbers you see advertised are often a bait and switch.

Most of the union roles at big hospitals are reserved for friends, family, and others who are connected somehow to the hiring committees. This is because in cities such as Chicago, LA, NYC and other large union strongholds, these are incredibly lucrative roles in terms of benefits and health insurance.

Finding a union job is going to be a big hurdle. It’s easier to get a job in the hospital under a contract without benefits. Then, my suggestion would be, you should try and find a connection within the hospital, someone who could fast track your application to a union spot.

Nurse Recruiter for a Non-Profit or Clinic

These jobs are most similar to nurse recruiter jobs at hospitals. The recruiters who work for a non-profit or a for profit clinic are paid a flat hourly rate, or a fixed yearly salary. There is no commission in most instances.

The upside to these jobs is that you have very little stress when compared to an agency recruiter. If you are working in a Non-Profit, for instance, the work culture is very relaxed. Three day work weeks are often the norm, with many non-profit employees spending months without securing even a single nurse.

Finding full time employment with a non-profit is not as difficult as finding it at a hospital. That’s because the benefits and salary are not as attractive. For instance, huge non-profits such as Praxis or Sheltering Arms might have a full time salary of 42k. That’s obviously a very low salary. But the job requirements are also low:  the ability to lift boxes, a doctors note, and a high school degree.

A Nurse Agency Recruiter

These jobs are the most lucrative, as long as you are able to make placements. A recruiter who works for for an agency is able to make commission. And as long as the agency isn’t stealing from their recruiter by hiding commissions or simply not paying them out, then it’s a more lucrative role.

The potential is quite high. A base salary might be anywhere from 35k to 50k, depending on the location. However, a talented recruiter might be able to make 80-100k, as long as the agency has good contracts and good job orders.

Most nurse agencies require a higher caliber of worker. They will tend to require people who have graduated college, as opposed to hospitals and non-profits who are more concerned with filling seats.

This is because the agency recruiters are working on nurse jobs that the in-house recruiters at hospitals can’t fill.

There is less downtime while working at an agency. The upside is the money, the downside is that the job is more stressful and there are no benefits most of the time. Nursing agencies have super high turnover and the only people who make great money there are the owners. So, don’t consider this a career where you will make more money because of seniority or have a pension, that’s something for hospital union recruiters.