The Financial Advantage of 3 Month Contracts

When I first started looking into travel therapy, I thought negotiating contracts for 6 months duration would be ideal.

It would allow me to enjoy the area and form relationships better compared to 3-month contracts. I also wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of moving every 3 months.

However, after completing 2 travel contracts, I am now opposed to agreeing to contracts that are longer than 3 months duration, even if I want to stay in an area for greater than 3 months. The reason is that you have a lot of leverage at the end of the contract if the company wants to extend you.

The easiest way to determine if a company is willing to keep you longer than 3 months is to investigate this issue during the interview.

Some questions you can ask to determine whether a company is likely to extend you past 3 months are:

• Why are you hiring a traveler? If it’s because a permanent worker is on maternity leave, then ask how long that person is scheduled to be away from work. If it’s longer than 3 months, then the company is highly likely to extend you past 3 months.
• How long have travelers worked there in the past? If the answer is longer than 3 months on average, then that means you will likely be able to work there longer than 3 months.
• Simply ask if they would be willing to extend you past 3 months.

 

Even if a company initially offers to sign you for a contract longer than 3 months, I would still advise you to only agree to a 3-month contract initially. The main reason is because of the leverage you will have in obtaining more money during an extension. Your travel agent will do everything in their power to extend you, because it is easy money for them to have you stay on board with the same job for an additional 2-3 months rather than having to find you a new job while competing with other travel companies for your services. The travel agent should at minimum offer you the following during an extension:

• The same travel reimbursement and CEU reimbursement you were offered at the beginning of the contract.
• The cost of medical tests you had to take before you started the job (drug test, background check, immunizations). This should cost around $100-$200.

For my extension, I was able to get:

• $1000 travel reimbursement (which was actually $800 more than my initial travel reimbursement)
• $300 CEU reimbursement (the same amount that I got during the initial contract)
• A free plane ticket home ($200).

I extended for 2 months, so this translated into an increase in weekly take home pay of $187.50 ($1500/8 months).

I would recommend extending for 1-2 months at a time, rather than extending for 3 months, so that you can continue receiving additional reimbursements with each extension.

If I could go back, I would have also asked for an additional $2/hour on my hourly taxable wage.

The company who hired you is going to want to extend you over other travelers if they can because you have worked there for 3 months already and know how their documentation system works and you are already familiar with the facility. Unless you do a horrible job during your first 3 months, the company is most likely going to always want to extend you rather than spending resources hiring a new traveler.