A practical look at where nurses are actually getting hired, what works, and what most people get wrong
A lot of the nurses I talk to ask me the same thing.
“Where should I actually be looking for a job?”
It’s a fair question. The number of nursing job platforms out there has exploded over the last few years, and they all promise to help you find your next role. Some are genuinely useful. Some are full of stale listings. Some are great for travel and useless for direct hire. Some send you ten emails a day and never connect you with an actual person.
Most articles on this topic are written by the platforms themselves, which is a bit like asking a barber if you need a haircut. So I figured it might be useful to write something from the recruiter side, where I see the whole picture.
If you’re job hunting right now, this is where I’d point you.
1. Indeed
The biggest job board on the internet, and a reasonable starting point for most nurses.
What it’s good for: Volume. Indeed pulls listings from thousands of sources, so if a hospital, clinic, or staffing firm has a public posting anywhere, it’s probably here. The search filters are solid, the salary estimates are decent, and you can apply quickly.
What it’s not great for: Indeed is a massive, mostly automated platform, which means a lot of the listings are stale, duplicated, or already filled. A hospital may post a role, fill it internally, and forget to take it down. You also tend to compete with hundreds of other applicants for the same job, and your resume often gets filtered through an Applicant Tracking System before a human ever sees it.
Best use: Cast a wide net early in your search. Set up alerts. Don’t expect a high response rate.
2. LinkedIn
Better than most nurses give it credit for, especially for direct hire and leadership roles.
What it’s good for: LinkedIn is where hospital recruiters and nurse managers actually spend their time. If you have a complete profile and you’re following the right hospitals, you’ll often see roles posted here before they hit other boards. It’s also the best platform for networking your way into a job, which still matters more than most people think.
What it’s not great for: LinkedIn skews toward salaried, leadership, and specialty roles. It’s not the right place for travel or PRN. The job filters are also less specialized than the dedicated nursing platforms.
Best use: Build a clean, complete profile with all your certifications listed. Follow hospitals you’re interested in. Engage occasionally so you’re not invisible. When recruiters reach out, respond, even if it’s just to say “not now, but stay in touch.”
3. Vivian Health
The dominant platform for travel nursing, and increasingly active in direct hire.
What it’s good for: Vivian aggregates listings from hundreds of staffing agencies, which means you can see a huge slice of the travel market in one place. Pay transparency is one of its strongest features. You can compare contract rates, weekly stipends, and benefits across agencies side by side. For nurses who are travel-curious or already traveling, Vivian is hard to beat.
What it’s not great for: Pure direct hire searches are limited. The interface is built for travel-first thinking, so direct hire roles can feel buried.
Best use: Travel nursing comparison shopping, or for nurses considering a transition between travel and direct hire who want to see both sides of the market.
🔗 Browse nursing jobs on Vivian Health
4. Incredible Health
A direct hire-only platform with a unique flip-the-script model.
What it’s good for: On Incredible Health, employers apply to you, not the other way around. You build a profile, set your preferences, and hospitals send you interview requests. For experienced RNs in high-demand specialties (ICU, ER, OR, L&D), this can lead to interview offers within a week. They also assign you a free “nurse advocate” who helps with negotiations.
What it’s not great for: Newer nurses or nurses in less-competitive specialties may see fewer matches. The platform is designed around hospitals seeking experienced bedside RNs, so the fit isn’t universal.
Best use: Experienced direct hire candidates who want offers to come to them rather than spending hours filling out applications.
🔗 Create a profile on Incredible Health
5. Nurse.com
A nursing-specific platform with a heavy focus on continuing education and career resources alongside its job board.
What it’s good for: The job board itself is solid, but the real value is the surrounding ecosystem. CE courses, salary data, career articles, and a national nurse community. For nurses who want to stay current professionally while job hunting, it’s a one-stop shop.
What it’s not great for: The job board volume isn’t as high as Indeed or LinkedIn, and you’ll miss out on roles that are only posted to general boards.
Best use: Pair it with one of the bigger boards, and use it as a career resource alongside your active search.
🔗 Browse nursing jobs on Nurse.com
6. Hospital direct websites
Often overlooked. Often the highest-yield place to apply.
What it’s good for: Many hospitals only post their open roles on their own career pages. By the time those listings reach Indeed or LinkedIn, they’ve already been seen by hundreds of applicants who applied directly. Nurses on industry forums consistently say the same thing: if there’s a hospital you actually want to work at, go straight to their website.
What it’s not great for: Time. You’re searching one hospital at a time. There’s no aggregated view.
Best use: Once you’ve narrowed down a few hospitals you’d genuinely want to work at, bookmark their career pages and check them weekly. This is one of the highest-conversion channels in the entire nursing job market.
7. Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter
Worth a look, but secondary tools.
What they’re good for: Glassdoor is genuinely useful for hospital reviews, salary transparency, and getting a sense of what working at a specific facility is actually like. ZipRecruiter is solid for general job aggregation and some specialty roles.
What they’re not great for: Both pull from the same source pool as Indeed and LinkedIn, so you’ll see a lot of overlap. Use them for research more than as primary application channels.
🔗 Browse RN jobs on Glassdoor 🔗 Browse RN jobs on ZipRecruiter
What most nurses get wrong about applying
A few patterns I see over and over:
Applying without tailoring. Most hospitals use Applicant Tracking Systems that scan your resume for specific keywords from the job posting. If your resume says “Bachelor of Science in Nursing” but the posting requires “BSN,” the system might not connect them. Take a few minutes per application to mirror the language in the job description.
Submitting and disappearing. A surprisingly high number of nurses submit an application and never follow up. A short, professional follow-up email a week later, addressed to the recruiter or nurse manager, can move you out of the resume pile.
Going wide instead of deep. Sending out 50 applications in one weekend with the same generic resume rarely works. Five well-tailored applications, with personalized cover letters and clear specialty alignment, will outperform that 50 every time.
Underestimating timing. Hospital hiring tends to surge in January and September and slow down in summer and December. If you have flexibility, time your search.
Where a recruiter actually fits
I’m a recruiter, so I’ll be straight with you about what we do and don’t do.
A good recruiter isn’t a job board. A good recruiter is a person who already has direct relationships with hiring managers at specific hospitals, knows which roles are about to open before they’re posted publicly, and can advocate for you directly when your resume hits the table.
The best time to talk to a recruiter is when you have a clear sense of what you’re looking for, even if it’s just “I want to leave my current role in the next few months and I’m open to direct hire in this region.” A recruiter can then keep an eye out and reach out when something matches.
Working with a recruiter is also free for the nurse. The hospital pays the placement fee, not you.
That said, recruiters aren’t the right fit for every situation. If you’re job hunting casually, a recruiter probably isn’t necessary. If you have a specific hospital in mind that you want to work at, applying directly is usually faster. But if you want someone in your corner who knows the market and can do the legwork while you focus on your current job, that’s where a recruiter earns their keep.
A note from me
If you do want to talk to someone about an active or upcoming job search, you can reach me at rex@zenexpartners.net. We work with hospitals across the country, particularly in healthcare staffing, and we keep our conversations practical. Worst case, you walk away with a clearer picture of what’s actually open and what your specialty is worth in this market.
If you’d rather start with platforms first, I genuinely hope this guide helps. The job market for nurses is in your favor right now. The tools to find the right next chapter are all out there. It’s just a matter of knowing how to use each one.
Written By
Rex Ansaldo
Rex is a healthcare recruiter at Zenex Partners with a gift for finding great people and making them feel valued from the first hello. With nearly six years of experience in sourcing and recruiting, he's known on the team for his sharp instincts, his warm personality, and the way he turns even a quick screening call into a real conversation.
