Social media can be a great thing. It can keep people connected, which is especially important when you’re a healthcare traveler and live far from family and friends. However, if you’re a healthcare pro, you should be mindful of a couple things to keep yourself safe and your social media profile secure.
Consider Using a Variation of Your Name
While not terribly common, we’ve heard of healthcare pros being found by patients on social media. For that reason, we recommend using a variation of your name or a pseudonym. Many folks like to use initials instead of full names, especially if their name is unique. Of course, if you have an extremely common name, it’s probably not something you need to worry about.
Lock Down Your Profile
Regardless of what name you use on social media, lock down your profile. This means making sure any posts and photos are marked private so only your friends can see them. Then, be selective about who you accept as a friend. It’s a good idea to only accept people you’ve met in person and clean out your lists every few months deleting people you don’t see or talk to anymore.
Watch Out for Scammers
Scammers are all over social media, and you’re a target if they find out you’re a travel nurse. We’ve had reports of travelers being targeted by folks pretending to be recruiters. They go through the entire job process, including sending Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and bank account information, all to find out they’ve sent it to someone only pretending to be from Triage. Pro tip: if someone says they’re from Triage, check their email address. Triage employees will never use a Gmail account.
Housing scammers are all over too. These people will pretend that they have an apartment or house to rent and ask to handle everything via email or text. Travelers have sent in deposits via Venmo or Zelle and then arrived to find out that there’s no apartment for rent and the homeowner has no idea what they’re talking about. For this reason, we recommend waiting until you’re in the city before signing any paperwork for housing. It might cost you a bit more that first week to live in a hotel, but the payoffs will be well worth it.
Watch What You Post in Traveler Groups
As travelers, Facebook groups are excellent places to connect with other travelers and even find some friends. It can be super tempting to post all over these groups and air grievances about your facility, your agency and your recruiter. But know that a lot of recruiters are in these groups and if you’re overwhelmingly negative about every experience you have, it may be harder to find a position. That doesn’t mean you have to censor yourself—instead, just make sure that you’re not a drama llama.
Looking for allied or travel nurse jobs? Connect with a Triage recruiter or visit our job board.