Job Placement · Healthcare · Registered Nurse
Hiring a registered nurse means recruiting someone who already holds a badge somewhere else, because the national RN vacancy rate sits at 8.6% and the strongest candidates are employed. BEG sources passive RNs directly and places permanent hires your organisation employs, billed at $9,381 to $11,257 against milestones rather than a share of salary.
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TL;DR
Two facts decide an RN search. The first is licensure geography: 43 jurisdictions belong to the Nurse Licensure Compact, and an employer inside it can hire from a multistate pool that an employer outside it cannot touch without a board application. The second is that nobody unemployed is waiting. NSI puts the national RN shortage at 158,600 and the average time to fill an experienced RN at 78 days. BEG runs a permanent search on Tier II milestone billing at $9,381 to $11,257, against the $19,510 to $24,388 a contingency percentage would take on the national median.
Why This Line Specifically
Because the supply is employed and the openings are mostly replacements. The annual new graduate pipeline does not cover projected annual openings, and a new graduate cannot take an experienced specialty line anyway.
The Licensure Question Nobody Asks Early Enough
Whether your state is in the Nurse Licensure Compact, whether the candidate holds a multistate licence, and where their primary state of residence is. Those three answers set the start date.
| Situation | What the nurse needs | What it does to your start date |
|---|---|---|
| Your state is in the compact, the nurse lives in another compact state | A multistate licence issued by their home state board. | Fastest case. They can practise in your state on the licence they already hold, so the start date is an onboarding question rather than a regulatory one. |
| Your state is in the compact, the nurse is relocating to it | Application for licensure in the new primary state of residence within 60 days of the move, under the compact rules. | Still quick to start, but the 60 day clock is a real deadline that belongs on the onboarding checklist and is routinely missed. |
| Your state is not in the compact | Licensure by endorsement from your state board before the first shift. | Board processing, not your offer letter, sets the date. This is the single most common reason an accepted out-of-state RN offer produces a start six weeks later than planned. |
| Any state, specialty line | Current specialty certification and the competencies your unit requires, on top of the RN licence itself. | Adds screening time at the front rather than delay at the back, which is why we scope the unit before sourcing instead of after the shortlist. |
Compact membership is published and current at the Nurse Licensure Compact site, which lists 43 participating jurisdictions. Licensure remains the nurse's and the board's business, not ours. What BEG does is make sure the question is answered while the shortlist is being built, not after an offer is signed. Full scope on the healthcare placement service page.
Milestone Billing Against A Percentage Of Salary
A contingency recruiter takes a percentage of the nurse's first-year salary. At the $97,550 national median that is $19,510 at 20% and $24,388 at 25%, and it rises every time you agree a higher base to win the candidate. BEG prices an RN search as a Tier II engagement at $9,381 to $11,257 billed against defined milestones, so the number is fixed when the search opens. On the same hire that is roughly $10,100 to $13,100 less, and nobody on our side has a reason to push your offer up.
What The Open Line Costs While You Wait
At that same median, an unfilled RN line is about $1,875 a week of clinical work not being done, before overtime, agency premium or closed beds. NSI separately puts the cost of a single staff RN turnover at $60,090 and calculates that each percentage point of RN turnover is worth $295,000 a year to the average hospital. A 78 day fill is roughly eleven weeks of that. The 23 to 35 day average, on isolved placement data, is the figure worth holding your last search against.
If You Arrived Here Searching For An Agency
It depends on whether you are covering shifts or filling a budgeted line. Travel and per diem agencies employ the nurse and bill you by the hour. A permanent search puts the nurse on your own payroll.
| Model | Who employs the nurse | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel nursing agency | The agency | Hourly bill rate for the length of the contract, typically thirteen weeks | You have to cover a unit now, through a leave or a census spike, and are not trying to close the line permanently. |
| Per diem or float pool agency | The agency | Hourly, shift by shift, with no commitment either way | Your gap is intermittent and unpredictable, and a permanent hire would sit idle between the peaks. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier II milestone fee of $9,381 to $11,257, fixed when the search opens | The line is budgeted and permanent, and you want the fee known up front with a 45-day replacement term. |
These answer different questions and organisations frequently run both at once. NSI found 70.7% of responding hospitals want to reduce their reliance on travel and agency staff, which is a permanent hiring problem, not a booking problem. BEG does not employ clinicians and does not bill hourly, so if coverage next week is the real need, say so on the call and we will point you elsewhere. Related searches: LPN and LVN placement and charge nurse recruiting.
FAQ
23 to 35 days from discovery call to signed offer on BEG searches, based on isolved placement data, against a national RN Recruitment Difficulty Index of 78 days reported by NSI Nursing Solutions for 2026. NSI describes that as over two and a half months to hire one experienced RN.
It changes who can start quickly. 43 jurisdictions now participate in the compact. An RN whose primary state of residence is a compact state and who holds a multistate licence can practise in the others without applying for a second licence, so a compact employer is recruiting from a far larger immediately available pool.
Then every out-of-state candidate needs licensure by endorsement in your state before their first shift, and the board processing time sets the start date rather than the offer date. We scope that during the search instead of discovering it after acceptance.
Not permanently. Under the compact rules published by NCSBN, a nurse moving from one compact state to another must apply for licensure in their new primary state of residence within 60 days. It is a real administrative step and it belongs on the onboarding checklist.
An RN is a Tier II search at $9,381 to $11,257, billed against defined milestones rather than as a percentage of salary. A 20% to 25% contingency fee on the $97,550 national median would be $19,510 to $24,388 for the same hire.
No. A staffing agency employs the nurse and bills you an hourly rate for coverage. BEG runs a permanent search and the nurse goes on your payroll. If your actual problem is next month’s schedule rather than an open budgeted line, a travel or per diem service is the right call and we will tell you so.
Sometimes, but the maths is tighter than it looks. NCSBN recorded 186,760 first-time, United States educated candidates taking the NCLEX-RN in 2024, of whom 170,256 passed. BLS projects about 180,800 RN openings a year, so the new graduate pipeline alone does not cover replacement demand, and a new graduate cannot take an experienced charge or specialty line.
Because the nurse you want already has a badge. NSI puts the national RN vacancy rate at 8.6%, with a third of hospitals above 10%, and estimates a national RN shortage of 158,600. A posting reaches nurses who are looking. Direct sourcing reaches the ones who are not.
Two ways to count it. At the $97,550 median the unworked clinical time is roughly $1,875 a week. Separately, NSI puts the cost of one staff RN turnover at $60,090 and calculates that each percentage point of RN turnover moves the average hospital by $295,000 a year.
Yes, and the specialty sets the timeline. NSI reports time to fill ranging from 56 to 102 days by specialty, with telemetry hardest at 87 days and med surg at 83. We scope the unit, the ratio and the acuity before sourcing, because a telemetry search and a perioperative search are not the same market.
A 45-day replacement guarantee applies, plus 50% off a repeat search for the same line. It is worth noting why the term matters here: NSI found 22.7% of newly hired RNs left within a year, and first year exits accounted for 29.0% of all RN separations.
Yes, and the pitch differs. A health system competes on specialty depth, ratios and clinical ladder. A clinic competes on schedule and autonomy. Long-term care competes on stability and team. We write the approach to the setting rather than sending one message to every RN in the market.
Building out the rest of the unit? See nurse manager, nurse practitioner, medical assistant and CNA and director of nursing, or all healthcare placement.
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