Vetted Health

Recruiters disappear after 5 PM. Clinicians don’t. I came across a Facebook post where a nurse asked if it’s normal for recruiters to be unavailable after hours. The top comment? “Get a new recruiter.” And underneath a flood of recruiters pitching their services and offering to respond 24/7. Recruiters can’t be online 24/7 but candidates expect instant responses. The knee-jerk reaction to this would be “create a chatbot to monitor conversations after hours”. But it needs to go a step further than that. AI needs to be trained. Right now, Vetted has human agents assisting recruiters by engaging with clinicians after hours. The next step is to scale that 1,000x with AI. We’re fine-tuning large language models using tens of thousands of real recruiter conversations so AI doesn’t just sound like a recruiter, it sounds like a top 1% recruiter. The goal is to help staffing firms scale conversations without scaling headcount.?

Vetted Health was never built to scale. It started as an MVP built by a single engineer. It was functional and had minimal dependencies. Now as we grow, our biggest challenge isn’t adding new features but restructuring what already exists. And this is where my background as a product designer becomes critical. Engineers focus on the how and I focus on the why. 1. Understanding technical debt in context When we reviewed our codebase, the engineers immediately saw areas that needed restructuring. I added the business perspective: which fixes will have the biggest impact on user experience? 2. Scaling without unnecessary complexity A common mistake in scaling is over-engineering. Sometimes removing friction is more valuable than adding new features. 3. Aligning product roadmap with business growth We’re ensuring the next five years of development doesn’t lead to another rebuild. Vetted’s engineering expertise is in building architecture that makes scale possible. Mine is in ensuring we’re solving the right problems for recruiters.?

Who will be at NATHO this year in April? Would love to meet. Send me a message!

The healthcare staffing industry’s Covid hangover is a lesson in scaling gone wrong. Staffing firms had more demand than they could handle during Covid. Rates were sky high and contracts were everywhere. And many firms: - Scaled aggressively: hiring fast and expanding teams - Ignored long-term strategy: focusing on quick placements over sustainable growth - Got comfortable But now the job market has contracted and what we’re seeing are Small firms shutting down Mid-sized firms getting acquired This volatility has been seen in almost every other industry, including tech: - Meta scaled rapidly during Covid but then laid off 11,000 employees in 2022, spending nearly $1 billion in severance. That’s $88,000 per employee. - Dell and Salesforce both cut 10% of their workforce, laying off between 7,500 and 13,000 employees. - Microsoft shut down Skype once it lost relevance to Zoom and Team. Keep in mind that Skype was once a market leader. The lesson here is that booms never last. ? Don’t scale recklessly, do it intentionally. ? Plan for the downturn while riding the upturn. ? Sustainable businesses focus on retention and long term strategy This isn’t just a staffing industry problem. Every business should be paying attention.

Can offshore teams really compete with US-based recruiters? Some staffing firms, like Cynet, have built large offshore recruiting teams and scaled successfully. But for most, offshore recruiting won’t deliver the same results as onshore teams. US nurses expect a certain tone, style and industry knowledge from recruiters that offshore teams often lack. But they can still be effective in support functions, not direct candidate engagement. You can make it work by having: 1. Strict processes & training. Offshore teams need clear workflows to follow. 2. Defined roles. Keep relationship-building and sales onshore while offshore teams handle backend tasks. 3. Onshore leadership. The best offshore models still require strong oversight from experienced onshore recruiters. Thoughts?

Recruiters should be doing one thing: recruiting. Everything else (marketing, sourcing, admin) is just noise. There’s a growing push for recruiters to build personal brands and market on social media to generate leads. That’s not recruiting. Could a recruiter build an audience online? Sure. But a recruiter’s primary job should be to: - Sell candidates on jobs - Close placements - Build relationships A staffing company’s job is to remove distractions so recruiters can focus on what they do best. Strong staffing agencies invest in: 1. Job boards that deliver active candidates, not just passive leads 2. Automation to handle outreach and re-engagement 3. A marketing team to run campaigns and drive inbound leads 4. A support team to run ops and logistics Give recruiters the right tools, remove the noise and let them focus on what they do best.

My engineering team broke our tech stack. On the first day of what would’ve been a hackathon. My goal was to bring the engineering team together and work on a shared problem. But on day one, a huge release broke in production. Suddenly, the hackathon became something else entirely: - A deep dive into our infrastructure issues - A roadmap to fix years of technical debt - A crash course in how we need to scale And I actually couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. Here’s what we learned: 1. Your biggest problems aren’t always the ones you plan for We set out to build on an existing feature but instead, we uncovered foundational issues that could have slowed us down for years. 2. Technical debt is easy to ignore Vetted Health was originally built by a single engineer as an MVP. Fast forward, and the same codebase was expected to scale. It couldn’t. Fixing it now saves us from major bottlenecks later. 3. In-person collaboration moves 10x faster Engineers shared knowledge across different parts of the codebase and now they have the context to step in and build across the system without blockers. We didn’t get the hackathon we planned.? But sometimes setbacks force you to solve the problems you should have tackled long ago.

I rented a multi-million dollar mansion in Mexico for our team retreat. And we covered everything: flights, accommodation, food, and yes, even tequila. For most of the team, it was their first-ever company retreat. Something common in North America but rare in Mexico. Why did I do it? Because remote teams are only as good as their interpersonal connections. I wanted to: 1. Break down communication barriers When you know someone beyond a green dot on Slack, collaboration improves. Meeting in person meant understanding each other’s personalities, sense of humour, and nuances. To be honest: my team now gets along better with each other than they do with me. 2. Build team synergy We deep-dived into Vetted’s vision, our product and the code base. On a higher level, I shared Vetted’s history, our Q1 priorities, revenue targets and each person’s role in achieving those goals. Your team needs to be able to connect the dots between roles and business goals. 3. Align on a shared vision Every team member left knowing exactly what we’re building, why we’re building it and how they contribute to the company’s success. This retreat wasn’t just a one-time thing. It’s now a Vetted Health tradition. Investing in your team isn’t an expense but a way to build a company that lasts.? Now to start planning the next one…

This chart is nuts. Nursing job postings are down 32% from the Covid peak. People will blame the end of free money. But something way more interesting is happening. During the pandemic, demand surged and new staffing agencies popped up overnight. Even the smallest firms could place clinicians with ease. But now? The market has stabilized. Job supply has dropped significantly and the reality is setting in: only the best agencies will survive. At Vetted Health we’ve already seen what happens when demand shrinks. Some agencies have been acquired. Others have shut down completely. And the pattern is clear: the cream rises to the top. Top-performing agencies continue to win placements, while the rest struggle to stay afloat. The best agencies are still thriving because they’ve built strong clinician relationships, streamlined operations and adapted to the changing market. Some of them have even maintained their peak revenue, despite job supply dropping 50% or more. In 2025, "travel nurse recruiter" doesn't mean what it meant in 2020. And that's what this chart really shows. The middle is gone. The top are recruiters who know how to navigate the dip.?

Your best marketing tool as a recruiter isn’t ads. It’s your reputation and word of mouth. I see posts like these daily. Nurses asking for recruiter or agency recommendations OR nurses warning others against certain recruiters or agencies. When it comes to finding work, nurses trust each other way more than they will a marketing campaign. Take ShiftKey, for example: their growth wasn’t driven by traditional sales tactics or big-budget advertising. It exploded because nurses loved the platform and they told their friends. Matt Creason said it himself: “Once nurses got their hours and saw there were too many open shifts, it was like, ‘Let me go tell my friend’. And our recruiting doubled just because we had a bunch of hours being displayed in ShiftKey.” That referral snowball helped ShiftKey grow 60x in revenue in just a few years. This applies to recruiting too. You can have the best job postings and the most aggressive outreach strategy, but if candidates have a bad experience with you, they will talk. On the flip side, if you treat candidates with respect and transparency, they will send their friends your way. Or in this case, even strangers. What does this look like in practice? ?? Check in post-placement to see if there are any issues ?? Help with logistical challenges like housing recommendations or connecting them with other travelers in the area ?? Stay in touch between contracts. Don’t disappear until they need another job ?? Personalize your outreach and show you really listen. Mention details like, "I saw you worked in ICU in Phoenix last winter—would you be open to another warm-weather contract this season?" ?? Act like a career partner and not just a salesperson. Yes, you DO need to know what their long-term career goals are. Relationships are your best marketing tool.?