Given the labor shortage, virtually every organization is struggling to recruit the talent they need. However, many healthcare organizations are struggling even more than most. For example, nurses are currently in very high demand and the shortage is expected to increase significantly over the next decade.
It’s hard enough to hire healthcare professionals, let alone hire the right professionals. Making a bad hire can be even more detrimental in the long term. It can affect patient experience, damage reputation, lead to expenses associated with turnover and recruiting all over again. With that in mind, it’s essential that recruiters tap every available resource and use every avenue to find and vet talent.
Here are three tips for finding and recruiting great talent in the healthcare sphere.
Look into Professional Associations
Many medical professionals are enrolled in professional associations for their field of work. The benefit here is that in addition to helping you identify more candidates; these candidates are more likely to be interested in advancing their career. After all, people typically join a professional association in hopes of doing just that.
Connecting and ideally partnering with associations is the gold standard here. If possible, try to attend their events, post on their job boards, and tap into their network. Leverage the fact that you share a common goal with them: finding gainful, quality employment for talented healthcare professionals.
Understand the Unique Needs of the Client and the Needs of the Candidate
One of the best things you can do for any recruiting search is being cognizant of the fact that every client and candidate has different needs. Every recruiter enters a search assuming they understand this, but it’s all too easy to jump to conclusions and skip past the hard questions. Are we asking the client about the dynamics of their existing team? Any weak spots in their team that need to be addressed? Are we double-checking that the job description is up to date and accurately expresses these needs?
The same can be said for our candidates. Are we assuming that salary or titles are the most important things for candidates? Or we asking about their likes and dislikes at their current job and trying to get an in-depth look at what they want out of another position?
Every candidate and every client will have unique needs, but it’s not enough to acknowledge this and proceed as usual. We must ask questions until we feel we do truly understand those unique needs, then find and vet candidates accordingly.
Consider Incorporating Real-Life Scenarios in Your Interview
Certifications, qualifications, and standard interview questions are all great for getting a basic assessment of a candidate. But what about their bedside manners? We all know that being a great healthcare professional goes past technical skills. If they can’t talk to patients in a friendly manner, their other qualifications might not be worth it.
For this reason, consider including a simple exam or another real-life scenario in your interview process. It doesn’t need to take more than 30 minutes, which is plenty of time to see how they deal with patients in a work environment.
The Talent is Out There…
It’s easy to throw up your hands and say that a recruiting project can’t be completed because the odds are stacked against us. While that certainly is sometimes the case, the key is to keep your expectations realistic ahead of time. It’s the recruiter’s job to work with the client to let them know what is and is not realistic in a given situation. More often than not, the candidates are out there…you just have to find them and engage with them in a strategic manner.
Contact us today to learn more about how companies can recruit healthcare professionals despite the talent shortage.
