Amber Kerns
Amber Kerns is an experienced healthcare recruiter with over a decade of expertise connecting nurses and allied health professionals with opportunities that align with both their skills and career goals. She currently works with ProLink, a Cincinnati-based healthcare recruiting firm, where her role focuses on candidate sourcing, relationship management, and business development for hospitals and healthcare facilities. Amber’s approach emphasizes collaboration, empathy, and long-term relationship-building, ensuring that candidates not only find jobs but thrive in their placements.
Amber began her career in healthcare recruiting working with dental offices and later served as a regional director for emergency dental services in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. She transitioned into physician recruiting with Health Carousel before pivoting to nurse and allied health recruiting during the pandemic to meet market demand. Over the years, she has navigated agency closures and workforce shifts, helping healthcare professionals transition smoothly to new opportunities while maintaining strong personal connections.
What drives Amber is the relationships she builds with her candidates. Many stay in contact with her for five to six years, sharing life milestones, career progress, and personal achievements. She values the human side of recruiting in an increasingly digital industry, prioritizing phone calls and personal follow-ups over texts or emails to ensure meaningful outcomes. Amber measures her success not just by placements, but by the trust and loyalty she earns, making integrity and reputation central to her work philosophy.
• Rets Tech- Associate's
What do you attribute your success to?
I think it's having the consistency and the resilience, and not to mention the empathy for everybody and their situations. I think I'm a very genuine person, and I honestly focus on the follow-up and making sure that I do what I say I'm going to do and not giving up. We say it every single day that every no is closer to a yes. I would attribute most of it to that and to the integrity of it. It's the core of everything that I feel like I would stand by, regardless of what the situation is. It's making sure that my name is written all over the work that I do. People wouldn't follow me from company to company when all these companies go out of business and you have to struggle to find a new place to go if it wasn't for the fact that I've developed those good relationships and fought through the hard battles with them, understanding what their lives are and what they're going through. Everybody has challenges that come up and that change things, like the dynamics of their life and their family, sometimes on a dime.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I’ve received has come from several incredible mentors who have shaped my approach to recruiting and leadership. Kara Tudor, my current manager, taught me the value of patience, clear communication, and thoughtful coaching, showing me how to support others while building strong relationships. Emily Brookin inspired me with her work ethic, industry knowledge, and ability to cultivate meaningful connections across organizations. Stacey Stanley guided me through the nuances of the travel healthcare market, providing expertise, encouragement, and leadership insight that have been pivotal in advancing my career.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
This is an industry where you absolutely have to be resilient. You have to start at the ground floor with making connections. You can't rely on the technology of it and just sending out text messages like everybody else does, so hit the ground running. There's so many people in our industry, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, that mentor and give great advice. I get people that reach out to me all the time asking, you know, hey, could you take a look at this for me, just as another set of eyes, and these are people that I've connected with halfway across the United States that I would never have met otherwise. LinkedIn puts people together for us to be able to collaborate and be able to help, you know, jump in and get a second set of eyes on things that you normally wouldn't. I do use that platform, and a lot of the people that I've just met in the industry, I keep those contacts and make sure that I have good conversations. I've had people that cold-called me all the time that we instantly connect on platforms like LinkedIn and keep up our relationship and message each other about stuff going on in the industry. So not being afraid to reach out to people and say, hey, this is my name, and this is what I'm looking for. You just can't be afraid. You have to kind of put yourself out there because you don't know what you'll get back if you don't try.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges in my field right now include navigating agency instability, contract volatility, and the impact of technology and AI reducing personal interactions. At the same time, shifts in demand—like increased nursing needs and crisis or travel placements—create opportunities for building authentic relationships and delivering meaningful impact.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In my downtime, I enjoy spending quality time with my beautiful family, including my three children. My youngest daughter is extremely active and plays on two soccer teams. She plays on an Olympic development team for her age group in the state of Ohio, so we get to travel quite a bit and go to different soccer venues all over the United States sometimes. That's what drives my work, because of how expensive her extracurriculars are. It's so rewarding, though, and I'm very much involved in making sure that she gets what she needs and helping to get her to where she wants to go. Outside of that, I love to cook and I really love to take care of my home. I am a big shopper, and if I'm looking for a deal, I'm going to scour until I find the best price.