Roles like clinical specialist, clinical educator and applications specialist get advertised under Sales or Education, because that is where HR files them. Nurses search nursing. So the people you actually want never see the job, and the ones who do apply can sell but cannot hold their own in a clinical conversation.
Meanwhile the vacancy costs you every week it stays open. A territory with no clinical specialist is revenue you can name to the month. A facility with no director of nursing is agency rates, documentation slipping, and a problem that surfaces at audit.
There is a reason the role is still open, and it is usually not the salary.
I find the nurse whose clinical credibility is the reason you want them, and I will tell you when a role does not need a nurse at all.
Two nurses with identical registration, and one of them thrives as a clinical educator while the other is gone in six months. It is almost never clinical depth that separates them.
It is whether they have already changed how a ward does something without having the authority to make anyone do it. Whether they moved toward the work or away from a roster. Whether they flinch when you mention a number attached to their name.
And the part most agencies will not say out loud: sometimes the role does not need a nurse at all. Pure territory sales with clinical support behind it is usually better filled by a commercial hire. If that is what I think, I will tell you, and I would rather lose the brief than fill it badly.
Most agencies will not tell you what they charge until you are on a call with them. Mine is on the site, and so are the terms behind it.
Published rate, current as at August 2026
I read every brief myself and reply within one business day. If I do not think I am the right person for it, I will say so, and I will usually tell you who is.
Exclusive, with a deadline I chose rather than one you had to ask for. Usually around two weeks. If a role needs longer, I tell you that when I name it, not three weeks later. Miss my own date and exclusivity lapses that day and you owe nothing.
Not a longlist. The ones I would put my name to, what each of them is strong at, and what I think the risk is with each. Including the candidate I liked and did not send, and why.
I am Michelle Mexted. Twenty-two years in recruitment, including with two of the largest agencies in the world, and the last seven running my own business.
When you brief a role with ANR, you brief me. I take the brief, I do the search, I make the calls, and I am the one who rings you when something changes.
Nobody hands you to someone junior once the agreement is signed, because there is nobody to hand you to. Six live roles at a time across the whole business is the ceiling. If I am full, I will tell you I am full rather than take your brief and sit on it.
Your shortlist does not come from an advert. It comes from a private list of nurses who have already told me they want to work away from the bedside, and from a community of them I run myself. Your role goes to that list in week one, before it is advertised anywhere.
And one person is not one person’s capacity. A search that used to need a researcher and a week takes me a day, and nothing gets lost. What I will not do is let a machine write your shortlist, because software that ranks two hundred applicants in nine seconds is how you end up with five people who match the advert and none who can hold a clinical conversation.
And what happens if I am hit by a bus is a fair question. If I am unavailable for more than five working days during your search, you hear it from me the day it happens. You get every candidate contacted so far with my notes, and you are released from exclusivity. You will never find out from silence.
A healthcare supplier that trains hospitals on infection control needed nurse educators at $110,000 plus super. Not salespeople who had learned the product, but nurses who could stand in front of theatre staff and be taken seriously.
Another agency had already tried and failed. I shortlisted every one of those roles inside two weeks, and placed three.
I will not tell you who they are, and that is the point. I do not put my clients on my website, and I will not put you on it either.
Tell me what you are trying to fill. Send me the role and you will hear back today. If I do not think I am the right person for it, I will say so, and I will usually tell you who is.
