Arizona is a top location for retiring and in conjunction is also a top destination for travel nurses.

Aside from the many assignments available from travel nursing job sites like Monster and Aya Healthcare; Arizona has a lot to offer as a state.

The beauty of Arizona is unparallel with its uniqe natural beauty. In terms of things to do, Phoenix offers everything one could expect form a major metropolis.

In today's competitive marketplace, there are many people looking for work and less and less jobs to choose from. Companies are sending more and more jobs "off-shore", "near-shore", or whatever the current buzzword happens to be. Finding a job can be extremely challenging and frustrating so you should use all available resources as part of your search. You've also got search both near and far, as some job opportunities may require you to relocate. Here are several ways you should use to help you find a job.

First of all, you should check print media and publications. Local print media such as newspaper classified ads and city or county magazines or newsletters are good sources of employment opportunties. Trade journals and industry publications will generally provide more refined job advertisements that concentrate on particular careers (i.e., travel nursing, radiology, psychiatry, computer technology, etc). These trade journals may contain jobs ads that take up an entire page for positions that are in high demand, and may be about jobs close to you, or across the country.

You may also enlist the services of a Headhunter or Employment Agencies. These will cost money, but may be able to match you up with employers that are looking for applicants. Many employers use nurse staffing agencies, or "Temp Agencies" to locate talent to fill their positions. Headhunters will usually also work for employers, looking for candidates with particular skills, qualifications and experience, so it's good to send them your resume. You can find headhunters and employment agencies in your local advertisements, and by searching on the internet.

Networking is also a good way to find out about job openings. By spreading the word that you're looking for a job, you increase the chance of someone you know letting you know about openings or opportunities that may not even be public knowledge. There are online sites such as LinkedIn.com or CIOZone.com that allow professionals to share knowledge, and also provide a place to publish your resume and experience. Employers, headhunters and recruiters check sites like this looking for qualified candidates to hire.

Online Job boards, or job sites are also a great way to quickly search for specific types of jobs, jobs in particular areas, or jobs that offer a particular salary. You can often define specific criteria with which to search national job databases, producing lists of jobs both locally, and in other parts of the country. You can get on mailing lists, or "Job Alert" notifications that will inform you when jobs based on your criteria become available. Online job sites are also a good place to post your resume. Employers visit these same sites looking for qualified employees to fill their positions.

It is like a perfect storm of opportunity. A serious nursing shortage meets a qualified professional that just doesn't want to get tied down in one place for too long. Put together this wandering soul and a temporary position in a hospital and you have a travel nurse. There is a serious shortage of nurses in this country. The average age of a registered nurse is around 49 and as they quit, retire or burn out there are not enough nurses to replace them. In addition, there are not enough instructors in our nursing schools to teach all of those that want to enter the nursing profession. Since there aren't enough nurses coming into the system to replace the nurses dropping out, hospitals just don't have enough nurses to fill all of the positions.

So what is a desperate Human Resource Director of a major medical institution to do? They need to hire somebody to fill in the gaps even if it is only on a temporary basis. And more and more that "somebody" is a travel nurse.

Travel nursing started as a solution to seasonal population growth in Sunbelt states. During the winter, northern "snowbirds" migrated to warmer climates in states like Florida and Arizona. Consequently, hospitals in these states saw a spike in activity during the winter months and they couldn't afford to staff up year round to be in a position to meet this temporary upswing in demand. A solution was to recruit nurses to come on board for a fixed period of time until the part-time seasonal citizens returned to their permanent homes for the summer.

It was a beautiful, mutually beneficial arrangement. Hospitals could hire nurses for about 13 weeks to fill a temporary need without adding permanent staff. Nurses could travel to very attractive sunny states during the winter and enjoy themselves during the off hours. It was like getting paid to take a vacation, even though the work is just as demanding. During days off or after hours, nurses were essentially tourists. Plus, the pay was pretty darn good.

But over the past couple of decades, the seasonal aspect of the travel nurse industry has changed. The nursing shortage no longer runs from December through February. It is a year-round national crisis. There are simply not enough nurses to fill all of the available positions and the travel nurse industry has exploded as a result. The competition among recruiters is fierce and the nurse willing to move away from home for anywhere from 13 to 26 weeks is a hot commodity.

There are many travel nurse jobs in Arizona. It is possible for a nurse to identify a destination that he or she is interested in and search around until they find the right position, at the right time, in the right institution, for the right pay. Travel nurses can command from $25-$55 per hour along with significant benefits and, in some cases, free housing. It is not unusual to qualify for a sizable bonus at the completion of an assignment.

Even though most nurses are compensated very well, travel nurses and receive significantly more than the nurses on the permanent staff. This, along with a perceived lack of commitment to the facility, may cause a bit of resentment. But, generally, the permanent staff recognizes that these temporary nurses fill a significant need and prevent the workload from becoming unmanageable.

The nursing shortage will not abate any time soon so the opportunity to travel, work hard, make a great income, fill a need and have a great time will be available to nurses that want to hit the road for years to come.

Selecting Assignments Where You Desire

No one else can tell you where to go as a travel nurse--well, not unless you're married. You are free to fly with the wind to the most exotic and out-of-the-way places like the rural areas of Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska or Iowa, or enjoy an assignment in the metropolis of New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, or Phoenix. Travel to the beaches of Southern California, Atlantic City or Hawaii. Assignments can also be found ranging in areas from the Virgin Islands to the great state of Alaska.

You might have to change companies, but so far I have gone every place that I have wanted to visit. This is easier done if you have more than one specialty, like medical intensive care, surgical intensive care, cardiovascular intensive care, and emergency room, or telemetry, medical, surgical, step-down and rehab.

What other career will allow you to be a snowbird when you are thirty-five years old instead of sixty-five years old? When it comes time to make a move, my husband selects what state he would like to go to, then I put my state into the mixture and we submit to those hospitals and see who gives us the best deal. My son would have a choice, but he just wants to go to Washington, where his girlfriend is. For the summer, I wanted Nebraska and hubby wanted Iowa; we went to Iowa. For the winter, I wanted Florida, hubby wanted southern Texas: I'm writing this chapter in Florida. And yes, next summer we plan on spending it in Washington State.

Miniature Vacations

One of my favorite aspects of travel nursing is the mini-vacations. These are little two nights away to some place a little farther than you could go on a day trip.

When I was in Central California, my family and I went to San Francisco one day then up the Pacific coast highway to the Redwoods. The first night we stayed at a small motel on the outskirts of San Francisco in an older fishing village.

The second night we stayed in the Redwoods. The trees were gorgeous, with their red and green colors. The Redwood Trail is also the site of the road picture on my first travel nursing book, Highway Hypodermics: Your Road Map to Travel Nursing.

While on assignment in Iowa, we toured the bridges of Madison County and John Wayne's birthplace on one road trip, and later made a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota to watch the Twins play baseball and visit the Mall of America.

One assignment in Tupelo, Mississippi not only took us to the site of Elvis's birthplace, but a day adventure took us to the place where he lived and died, at Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. On a bigger adventure, we spent some time a week before Christmas at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville and had the extraordinary experience of Christmas in Nashville. While in Nashville we explored many sites, such as the Ryman Auditorium, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and took in a show at the Grand Ole Opry.

See The United States

When I started out as a traveling nurse, I had been east of the Mississippi River once, and that was for less than twenty-four hours. Now I can say that I have not only crossed the mighty Mississip, but I have even made it to the Eastern Time Zone. In the last two years alone I have been from the beaches of Pismo, California to Southern Miami Beach, and from the swamps of Louisiana to the lakes of Minnesota.

If water and beaches are not your thing, then how about an amazing sunset in the Arizona sky (travel nursing jobs in Phoenix)? Or you can take in the breath-taking view from the top of the Colorado mountains.

How about a goal of seeing all the National Parks that the United States has to offer? You can visit the Everglades, the Appalachians, The Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, and Yosemite.

Are you into history? How about a trip through the history of the United States, from Washington D.C. to the Battle of New Orleans, the Battle of Shiloh, or the Alamo. Don't forget to visit the many military museums, including the Smithsonian, the Air Force Museum in Pensacola, FL, and there are several battleships to visit.