Nursing
Staff RN across all specialties, charge and preceptor roles, clinical educators, and new graduate residency cohorts.
Home / Services / Permanent placement
Direct hire, from staff nurse to chief nursing officer
Contingent search for volume roles, retained search for leadership, and full RPO when you need a recruiting function rather than a vendor. Every placement carries a written guarantee period.
PlannedSearch timeline agreed at intake
90 daysStandard placement guarantee
ShortlistsScreened, not forwarded
30 · 60 · 90Day check-ins after start
Engagement models
Three ways to buy a search
The right structure depends on how many roles you are filling, how confidential the search needs to be, and whether the problem is one vacancy or a broken recruiting funnel.
Contingent search
You pay only on a successful hire. Best for staff-level and specialty roles where you want additional pipeline without committing budget up front, and you are comfortable running in parallel with your internal team.
Fee: percentage of first-year base salary, invoiced on start date. Guarantee: 90 days — if the placement leaves or is terminated for cause, we replace at no additional fee.
Fits
- Staff RN, allied health, and advanced practice roles
- Open searches where speed matters more than exclusivity
- No budget commitment until someone starts
Retained search
A dedicated search consultant, a committed timeline, and a documented market map. Used for nursing leadership, executive, and confidential replacements where a contingent recruiter's incentive to move fast works against the quality of the outcome.
Fee: staged — engagement, shortlist delivery, and placement. Guarantee: 90 days with a full re-search. Deliverable: written market map and compensation benchmark whether or not you hire.
Fits
- CNO, DON, service line director, and manager searches
- Confidential replacements where discretion is the requirement
- Hard markets where the candidate must be recruited, not sourced
Recruitment process outsourcing
Blue Water recruiters embed with your talent acquisition team — using your ATS, your employer brand, and your interview process — to run high-volume hiring at a fixed cost per hire rather than a percentage of salary.
Fee: monthly program fee or fixed cost-per-hire. Scope: sourcing through offer, including scheduling, screening, and candidate experience management.
Fits
- New tower or facility openings with 40+ hires in a window
- New graduate residency cohort recruitment
- Systems where cost-per-hire on percentage fees has become untenable
Search process
What happens between the requisition and the start date
Permanent search fails most often at the offer stage, not the sourcing stage — because expectations on compensation, schedule, or scope were never surfaced early. We front-load those conversations.
Open a search- Intake & calibration
Hiring manager intake covering must-haves, deal-breakers, compensation band, schedule, and the last three people who turned this role down and why.
- Sourcing & screening
Market mapping, direct outreach, and clinical screening by a recruiter who knows the specialty. Every submittal includes a written screen summary and compensation expectations.
- Interviews
Scheduling coordination, interview prep for the candidate, and structured debrief with your panel within 24 hours of each interview.
- Offer & close
Offer strategy set against benchmark data, counter-offer coaching, resignation support, and reference and credential verification in parallel rather than after.
- Guarantee period
Check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days with both the hire and the manager. Problems surface early enough to fix rather than at the exit interview.
What we search
Disciplines and levels
Advanced practice
Nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, and clinical nurse specialists across primary and specialty care.
Allied health
Imaging, laboratory, respiratory, rehab therapy, surgical services, pharmacy, and dietary professionals.
Leadership
Nurse managers, directors, service line leaders, DONs, CNOs, and interim leadership placements.
Search visibility
You see the search, not just the invoice
Most search engagements go quiet between kickoff and the first submittal. Yours does not — every stage is visible, with the numbers behind it.
- A written market map delivered in week one on retained searches, whether or not you end up hiring: who is in the market, where they sit, and what they are paid.
- A compensation benchmark against your band, so an offer is not rejected for a reason we could have flagged on day two.
- Every submittal with a screen summary — why they fit, what they want, and what would make them decline.
- Structured debrief within 24 hours of each panel interview, so momentum does not die in a scheduling gap.
- Check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days with both the hire and the manager, so problems surface early enough to fix.
How a search runs
01Intake & calibrationRole, comp band, and must-haves agreed in writing
02Market map deliveredWho is in market, and who could be moved
03Screened & submittedOnly candidates screened against the brief
04Panel interviewsScheduled and debriefed with you
05Offer & closeOffer, references, and start date
Client FAQ
Before you open a search
Fees, guarantees, and how we handle a search that stalls.
Every placement, contingent or retained, carries a 90-day guarantee. If the hire leaves voluntarily or is terminated for cause inside that window, we re-run the search at no additional fee. The guarantee is written into the services agreement, not offered verbally.
No. Candidates already in your ATS or known to your team at the point of engagement are excluded, and we agree that exclusion list in writing before sourcing starts.
At day 21 without a viable shortlist we call a reset: re-open the intake, review whether the compensation band or requirements are out of step with the market, and give you the data. On retained engagements you keep the market map regardless of outcome.
That is the most common pattern. A travel clinician covers the seat while the permanent search runs, then rolls off at the new hire's start date. Both sit on one invoice and one account team.
No. An off-limits agreement covering your facilities is standard in our services agreement, and it extends for the life of the engagement plus twelve months.
Open a search with a market map, not a promise
Hiring managers get a market map and a compensation benchmark before we ever discuss a fee. If the band is wrong for the market, you will hear it in week one.