How Healthcare Systems Can Drastically Improve Recruiting Outcomes

Updated on July 9, 2022
HR

By Aman Brar

Healthcare leaders today are being faced with unprecedented staffing challenges. Recruiting for healthcare talent is increasingly competitive and unpredictable. Even before the current pandemic, there was an expected shortage of healthcare talent. In fact, by 2025, the U.S. will need to hire 2.3 million new healthcare workers to adequately handle these shortages.

Luckily, healthcare systems can dramatically improve their recruiting outcomes with the following innovative tips. Incorporating these tips can enable organizations to effectively attract and retain talent, saving time for what really matters: providing patient-centric care.  

Embrace Technology 

Targeting top applicants in the healthcare industry is a challenge, especially when the best doctors and nurse practitioners are being recruited to name-brand hospitals across the country. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a plan in place to reach top talent for your healthcare organization.  

One company suffering from the staffing shortage was Premise Health, which works with more than 280 employer partners and provides healthcare for millions. In order to overhaul their recruiting process, Premise Health partnered with Jobvite to better engage with tough-to-reach talent and improve the candidate experience throughout the hiring funnel. 

Software, such as Arya Pulse by Leoforce, that offers both a candidate relationship management (CRM) system and an applicant tracking system (ATS) can amplify your team’s recruiting efforts. Utilizing this advanced technology allows campaigns and programs to be more successful because the content is actually reaching the audience it was designed for. For example, creating an audience plan specifically for nurses can ensure that your application process is optimized for nurses, the content shared is relevant to nurses, and your outreach channels will find them where they are.  

Create a Veteran Hiring Program

Nearly 80% of companies don’t have veteran programs, despite them being highly effective. Hiring veterans through specialized programs was a strategic priority for Premise Health. 

Deploying campaigns specific to veterans, military-friendly, and military-spouse candidates can be successful in recruiting talented healthcare professionals. By coupling this strategy with advanced technology, Premise Health was able to strengthen their program to reach more veterans than ever. Creating programs specific to individuals with certain skill sets, backgrounds, or demographics can fill in skill gaps and target individuals with new perspectives.

Control Costs

According to the 2018 Health eCareers Healthcare Recruiting Trends Report, 55% of healthcare organizations choose to increase advertising when they are unable to fill an open position and 53% widen their search to an expanded geographic region. Rather than increasing advertising costs to reach more people, investing in recruiting can actually be much more effective in narrowing the search and pinpointing individuals that would be a good fit. 

Recruiting costs are high in any industry, but they are particularly high in healthcare. According to the American Organization of Nursing Leadership, it costs $10,000 in direct recruitment fees to hire a nurse. There are also indirect costs related to the lost productivity and education of new nurses. Costs for hiring a specialty or surgical nurse can easily exceed $40,000 in costs. Connecting with these individuals faster and more efficiently with specialized software significantly reduces time-to-hire and increases applicants, which leads to lower recruitment costs. 

Measure Results

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Having a recruitment marketing platform that’s fully integrated with your ATS gives you the ability to track your analytics without the hassle. It’s easy to see where your best talent is coming from when numbers are easily accessible. These analytics can help guide and improve your recruitment strategy based on what’s working and what isn’t. For instance, by leveraging an ATS, Premise Health was able to engage with a greater amount of high-quality candidates and increase applicant number by 20% year-over-year. 

About Aman Brar

Aman Brar is currently the CEO of Jobvite, a category leader in recruiting software. Aman has an extensive background in leading technology companies through periods of high growth and has also held key strategic planning and finance roles at Fortune 500 companies. 

Aman sits on the Board of Trustees for Wabash College, is the board chair for Teach for America Indianapolis, and a board member of the Orr Fellowship and EmployIndy. Aman earned his undergraduate degree from Wabash College and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University – Bloomington.

For more information on Jobvite, please visit www.jobvite.com

The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.