Did you know that many healthcare organizations are giving their candidates:
- Shorter registration forms (instead of starting with an application)?
- Access to their recruiting team before candidates formally apply?
- Online office hours, open houses, and regular Q/A sessions?
- Options to virtually connect with recruiters and hiring managers?
- Job offers on the same day as an interview?
And do you know why? Because their talent acquisition teams are determined to achieve better recruiting results in order to hire top healthcare candidates and thereby provide their patients with optimal standards of care. In the current talent shortage for both clinical and non-clinical workers, healthcare organizations are taking bold steps to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and that includes modifying their hiring practices to attract, retain, and engage the limited pools of talent they want to reach.
So what are the main takeaways that TA leaders from our 2022 Healthcare Recruiting and Candidate Attraction Tips and Tricks webinar want you to learn and apply to your own recruiting process? Read all their advice below, or click here to watch the on-demand recording now.
Skip the Hurdles to Getting Candidates into Your Talent Pipeline
What can you do to minimize the friction points in your application process? While there are multiple ways to streamline any intake process, we suggest you start with two important aspects that make (or break) many organizations’ hiring prospects.
1. Job Application Form(s)
While application forms can be an important part of an automated hiring process, if that application form is preventing candidates from even initiating a conversation in the first place, then it’s definitely going to negatively impact the rest of your recruitment funnel.
As Cathy Henesey, VP of Talent Acquisition at AdventHealth advised during our latest webinar titled Healthcare Recruiting and Candidate Attraction Tips and Tricks, “get candidates into your funnel FIRST, then have them fill out an application LATER. It’s all about capturing that initial attraction first”.
So instead of starting your application process with a lengthy intake form for each job, consider using a brief registration to capture your candidate’s basic information in your database. Then, regularly invite them to connect in ways that are specially meaningful and relevant to them, such as informational events, office hours, Q&A sessions, and role-specific hiring events where both passive and active candidates can easily learn more about your teams, mission, and future openings.
2. Reduce/ Eliminate the Need to Travel or Take Time Off
Virtual hiring events and video chat technology allows healthcare professionals to talk to recruiters at the times which are most convenient for them, and this is key. Due to their highly demanding schedules and the fact that most healthcare candidates need to be on-site to perform their work duties, you want to make it extremely easy and convenient for them to get in touch with you. As Henesey attests,
“I’ve been in healthcare for over 12 years now. We started using Brazen long before Covid hit, and in the Chicago and Orlando areas it was a genius move to not require people to join a hiring event in-person, because it takes at least an hour to get anywhere. That’s how we promoted virtual recruiting both then and now: ‘skip the traffic, skip the snowstorm, and the icy roads and talk to someone live before ever having to fill an application’. Nurses in particular were very happy to jump online and talk with somebody virtually.”
And the data supports this observation. A 2022 poll showed that 82.5% of candidates said they prefer virtual hiring events over in-person events. Plus, 97% of candidates said they are as likely or more likely to take that next step in the hiring process after attending a virtual hiring event on Brazen, showing clear and strong signs that the use of similar technologies will become the new “gold standard” in recruitment practices.
Experiment with Different Events, Guests, and Themes
When it comes to talent attraction, the attraction strategy very much depends on the type of role you’re trying to fill. As Aaron Crouse, National Sourcing Manager for Ascension points out, “when it comes to attraction nowadays, it's really difficult. You really have to try to come up with ways to be unique and to stand out in order to grab someone’s attention, from your email subject lines to the technology you use at events”.
For City of Hope, it was access to hiring managers that got people interested, not only in current roles, but future opportunities too. Lori Burt, Executive Director for Talent Acquisition said, “we're getting our managers involved and they're participating with us in the job fairs. It's all about keeping the candidates engaged and then recycling really good candidates that we have already in our hands who've already expressed interest in City of Hope and who we know were the silver medalist in the last job. [With us], no nurse is left behind!”.
AdventHealth has also successfully been implementing a similar attraction strategy with virtual events. As Henesey explains:
"Every week on our website we offer virtual events of all kinds. You can talk to a nurse, you can talk to a recruiter, etc. We try to promote our high volume roles this way so that candidates have the opportunity to come in and sign up for a live event later on. It's offering them something they may not get somewhere else, and it entices them to come to future events even more."
Use Technology to Scale Quality Conversations
You don’t need an endless supply of recruiters if you have the right technology to help them begin and maintain the relationships that are critical to short and long-term pipelining success. In fact, hosting virtual hiring events with Brazen is incredibly easy for both recruiters and attendees. But don’t take our word for it:
“We get 1,000 registrations for a big expo, and out of those we'll get about 600 attendees. We use a simple registration form, which we can do through Brazen, and then follow up. With reminders, we can make sure candidates are going to be at our virtual event. [We say] ‘here's what's going to be happening, come meet our CNO (Chief Nursing Officer), or come meet our director’. We always try to bring something unique and fun for them to look forward to if they come to an in-person event.
Lately, we’ve also been promoting what our hiring ratio has been at those events. So we did a big hiring event in Tampa for nursing, and we literally hired 60% of the people on site. So potential attendees think, “wow, if I go to this event, I've got a 60% chance of being hired on the same day” and that entices them to come even more. It does a lot to make sure that turnout numbers are high.” - Cathy Henesey, AdventHealth
Brazen boosts our healthcare clients' ability to attract and engage larger pools of candidates. To see how we can help you do the same in your industry, book a demo today.
Like this post? Try these!
- Make it Easy for Healthcare Talent to Talk to You Before They Apply
- How to Grab Candidates' Attention (and Why It's More Important than Ever)
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