If you’ve spent any time looking for travel nursing assignments, you probably have come across both platforms already. They basically solve the same problem, finding your next contract but they both do it with fundamentally different models. Understanding that difference before you commit your time to one or both of them is worth a few minutes.
How Vivian and SkillGigs Actually Work
Vivian is a healthcare job marketplace and aggregator. You create a profile (specialty, licensure, preferred places, shift preferences) and Vivian find listings from more than 100 partner staffing agencies, including big national names. Recruiters from the concerned agency are assigned to follow up on the application.
Vivian is not a staffing agency, and doesn’t work for you directly. It serves as a search and a comparison layer that can be used in front of the current agency model, to search what’s on offer from lots of agencies without filling out separate applications on every single agency.
SkillGigs is a direct sourcing platform. Rather than simply compiling lists of agencies, it is a direct link between professionals and hospitals and healthcare employers. With SkillsCreed, you create a verified 3D Resume which is the result of validating your skills on the basis of a work history and real performance signals, rather than by filling a form. There’s no staffing agency between the employer and the recruiter, and they find and match you on SkillRadar based on those verified skills.
The distinction matters because it shapes everything that follows: who sets your rate, who owns the relationship after your contract ends, and how your profile is actually read on the other side.
Who Owns the Relationship and the Rate
This is the most significant structural difference between the two platforms and it’s the one most nurses don’t fully think through until they’re already mid-assignment.
The discovery occurs on Vivian’s platform, but the employment contract, rate negotiation and relationship continues with the staffing agency that provided the listing. The agency is the employer of record. This includes a markup on the bill rate the hospital pays for the agency, for their sourcing, payroll, compliance and profit. That markup is not listed as a line item. This is the salary package which the agency has designed after accounting for their expenses. While it may be better than it was prior to the advent of travel nurse transparency systems, the fundamentals of agency economics remain in place with Vivian.
On SkillGigs, you decide or work out the rate with the employer. No agency between you and the market which sets the terms of your service. Employers view your verified profile and bid on you – or you view an employer’s profile and determine whether it is worthwhile. The rate is displayed on both sides and who determines travel nurse pay rates is quite easy to answer: You do, and that’s in direct negotiation with the facility.
The other is what happens after the contract has expired. If you complete an assignment with an agency through Vivian, they are in your system, not the hospital’s. Once you have finished an assignment with the SkillGigs, both your verified profile and the hospital relationship remain with you.
Basic Comparison
| Vivian | SkillGigs | |
| Who negotiates the rate | The staffing agency, on your behalf | You, directly with the employer |
| Rate visibility | Pay package visible, but bill rate and agency markup are not | Both sides see the rate transparently |
| Who owns the relationship after contract ends | The staffing agency | You, relationship stays in your SkillGigs profile |
| Employment model | Employed through the agency | Direct engagement with the employer |
The agency markup question comes up often in travel nursing communities. Because exact percentages vary by agency and contract, there’s no single published number, but markup built into travel contracts is well-documented across the industry and is a structural feature of every agency placement, whether or not it’s visible to the nurse.
Job Volume and Where Listings Come From
Vivian’s greatest strength is being versatile. Nurses have access to a broad range of contract opportunities and specialties spanning the region from a variety of partner agencies in a single search. In the case of offering more options in one place, the aggregator model is an actual benefit. That’s what makes Vivian seem like the best place to start many travel nurses’ searches early on.
It’s a different approach by design at SkillGigs. Instead of aggregating all agencies’ listings, it enables nurses to reach employers directly, and to even find opportunities that have been made available via SkillRadar’s database of 850 million professional profiles on the employer side. This pool is not all agencies listed, it’s direct employer relationships and active recruiters looking for the true talent. That’s a purposeful, smaller, more specific set of connections, and not a comparison to an aggregator like-for-like.
The honest answer is that these are different models, not competing volume claims. If you’re comparing raw listing count, Vivian has more because it’s aggregating from hundreds of agencies. If you’re comparing the quality and directness of the connection when a match happens, SkillGigs operates differently, an employer who finds you through SkillRadar has already seen your verified skills and is reaching out with real intent, not routing through a recruiter who’s working a pipeline of 50 other candidates.
How Your Profile and Skills Are Evaluated
On Vivian, your profile is mostly self-created. You record your specialism, states where you are licensed, years of experience and preferences. That information then has to be manually reviewed by agencies and they will further screen you by their own intake processes. Each agency you reach out to from Vivian will do that screening in their own way, some will conduct a deep dive, while others will make a quick decision based on your submission.
The consequence of this is that your experience can be re-interpreted differently as per which agency takes the conversation.
SkillGigs validates your actual work experience and real-world signals to create a verified nursing skills profile for you, rather than relying on data entered in a form. The result: a 3D Resume, a dynamic profile that can be updated continuously and which is based on your real-world skill depth, compared to the market demand for it. That profile is carried with you to engagements and is enhanced by the passage of time as a history builds up.
It is also an important travel nurse problem that it addresses. RNs with multiple agency experience often report re-entering their experience for each agency. A verified SkillGigs profile is separate and apart from any agency relationship, and is not required to be rebuilt every time.
Fees and Cost to the Professional
Both platforms are free for nurses to use. Creating a profile, browsing listings, and applying costs nothing on either Vivian or SkillGigs.
The revenue models are different. Vivian generates revenue on the agency side, agencies pay to access the platform and receive nurse leads. SkillGigs generates revenue on the employer side, where recruiters and hospitals pay to access verified candidate profiles through SkillRadar. In neither case does the nurse pay directly.
The downstream difference for nurses isn’t in platform fees, it’s in the rate structure. On Vivian, agency economics are built into the contract. On SkillGigs, the direct model means there’s no agency markup sitting between what the employer pays and what you receive.
Which One Should You Use?
The honest answer is that this doesn’t have to be either/or many travel nurses use multiple platforms simultaneously during a search, and that’s a reasonable approach.
Vivian is likely the better starting point if:
- You want the widest possible range of open assignments in one place
- You’re early in your travel nursing career and prefer having a recruiter manage the process
- You want to compare multiple agencies and their offerings side by side
- Speed to first offer matters more than rate control right now
SkillGigs is likely the better fit if:
- You want to control your own rate and negotiate directly with employers
- You’re tired of having your experience reinterpreted differently by every agency recruiter you talk to
- You want a verified profile that carries forward across engagements and builds over time
- You prefer knowing that when an employer reaches out, they’ve already seen your actual skills — not just your job title
Both can be running at the same time. Your SkillGigs profile costs nothing to build, and a verified 3D Resume is an asset regardless of where your next assignment ultimately comes from.
Conclusion
Vivian and SkillGigs both help travel nurses find assignments. The difference is in the model underneath. Vivian aggregates the existing agency ecosystem into a single search experience with more volume, more recruiters, more of the same underlying structure. SkillGigs removes that layer and connects professionals directly to employers using verified skills data.
Before deciding where to spend your search energy, the question worth asking is: who owns your rate and your relationship when the contract is done? On one model, the agency does. On the other, you do.
Build a SkillGigs profile and see how a verified, direct approach compares for your specialty. It’s free to start and the 3D Resume you build is yours regardless of where your search goes from here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Skillgigs a Staffing Agency Like the Ones Vivian Works With?
No. SkillGigs is a direct-sourcing platform, not a staffing agency. The distinction matters practically: staffing agencies sit between the nurse and the hospital, set pay packages from within a bill rate that includes their markup, and own the talent relationship. SkillGigs removes that layer. Nurses connect directly with employers, rates are negotiated directly, and the relationship belongs to the nurse and the employer, not a vendor in the middle.
Is Skillgigs Free for Travel Nurses to Use?
Yes. Creating a profile, building your 3D Resume through SkillsCreed, and being discoverable to employers all cost nothing for nurses. SkillGigs generates revenue on the employer side. Hospitals and recruiters pay to access verified candidate profiles through SkillRadar. The professional’s side of the platform is free.
Can I Use Both Vivian and Skillgigs at the Same Time?
Yes, and many nurses do. There’s no exclusivity requirement on either platform. A practical approach for an active job search is to use Vivian for breadth, browsing what’s available across many agencies, while running a SkillGigs profile in parallel for direct employer connections. The two models complement each other more than they compete, and building your verified SkillGigs profile costs nothing regardless of where your next assignment comes from.
Does Skillgigs Have as Many Job Listings as Vivian?
Not in a direct comparison, and it’s worth being clear about why. Vivian aggregates listings from over 100 partner staffing agencies, so its listing volume reflects the combined output of those agencies’ open positions at any given time. SkillGigs operates differently. It connects nurses directly to employers through SkillRadar’s database and direct employer relationships, rather than pulling in every agency’s open inventory.
These are different models, not a gap in one platform’s coverage. The relevant question isn’t which has more listings in total, but which produces the right connection for your specialty, location and rate expectations.
