What Should You Share With a New Agency, and When?
Before an offer, an agency needs what it takes to put you forward for a job: your discipline, licenses, work history, preferred settings and start date. Employment paperwork, including the federal work-eligibility form, belongs after you accept an offer, and no honest employer asks you to pay to get a job.
What does an agency need before it submits you?
When you first talk to an agency, the recruiter is working out whether you can be placed and where. That takes your discipline, the states where you hold a license or compact privilege, your recent settings and caseloads, your available start date, and a résumé. When a facility is interested, expect requests for references and for the documents its credentialing checks.
At the comparing stage an agency is quoting you, not hiring you, so ask why before you send anything beyond those basics. If you are talking to several agencies, give each the same basics, so the packages you get back are quotes for the same traveler. Ask each recruiter to name the facility before any submission, and keep your own list; working with multiple agencies explains why a double submission can cost you the job.
When do you have to give your Social Security number?
The federal form that confirms you may work in the U.S. (Form I-9) is completed once you are hired. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says employees must complete their section “no later than their first day of employment” and may do so “any time after they accept the job offer” (USCIS: the employee section of the form).
On that form, the Social Security number is required in one case only. USCIS says: “If you do not participate in E-Verify, employees are not required to enter their Social Security number.” Employers that use E-Verify must collect it. Payroll needs it once you are hired, too: the IRS asks you to complete a withholding form “so that your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay” (IRS: the employee withholding form).
So the order is: basics to compare, then an offer in writing, then hiring paperwork. If someone wants the hiring paperwork first, ask what it is for.
If you want an offer in writing before anyone asks for your hiring paperwork, ask a ProTherapy recruiter: Find my next contract.
What should no agency ask you for?
The Federal Trade Commission is plain about money: “Honest employers, including the federal government, will never ask you to pay to get a job.” It adds: “If a placement firm asks you for a fee — especially one you have to pay in advance — walk away” (FTC: job scams).
The same page warns about checks: “No honest potential employer will ever send you a check to deposit and then tell you to send on part of the money.” A so-called sign-on bonus that arrives with instructions to forward part of it for equipment or housing fits that description.
How do you check that a recruiter is real?
The FTC describes the pattern: “They promise you a job, but what they want is your money and your personal information.” It also warns that “if you gave your personal information thinking it was for payroll, you may now have an identity theft problem.”
A few habits help. Find the agency's main number on its own website, not in the message you received, and call to confirm the recruiter works there. Expect the offer in writing from the agency that will employ you, with its name on it. Hold hiring paperwork until you have accepted that offer. If something turns out to be a scam, the FTC asks you to report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
What changes once you accept an offer?
After you accept, the agency becomes your employer and the paperwork changes with it: the work-eligibility form, tax withholding, direct deposit and the credentialing file the facility asks for. This is the point to hand those over, through the agency's own secure portal if it has one rather than by text or ordinary email.
If you later switch agencies, the same order applies again. The new agency starts its own file, so expect to go through the hiring paperwork a second time, and only after its offer is in writing.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to give a recruiter my Social Security number to be considered?
Federal hiring paperwork comes after an offer: USCIS says the employee section of Form I-9 is completed after you accept the job offer and by your first day, and the Social Security number on it is required only when the employer uses E-Verify. If a recruiter asks for it earlier, ask what it is for.
Is it normal to pay an agency a fee to get placed?
No. The FTC says honest employers will never ask you to pay to get a job, and that if a placement firm asks for a fee, especially one paid in advance, you should walk away.
Where do I report a fake recruiter?
The FTC asks people to report job scams at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. If you already shared personal information, its job-scams page warns that you may now have an identity theft problem, so deal with that as well.
Sources
- USCIS: Completing Section 1, Employee Information and Attestation (Form I-9), read October 22, 2026
- IRS: About Form W-4, Employee's Withholding Certificate, read October 22, 2026
- FTC Consumer Advice: Job Scams, read October 22, 2026
- FTC: ReportFraud.ftc.gov, read October 22, 2026