Healthcare Recruiting: What the Next Era Looks Like

The state of healthcare recruiting is always evolving. As the demands of the global pandemic have introduced new challenges, healthcare recruiters are making big shifts to respond to the rising demand for healthcare workers, emerging hiring needs, and changing healthcare roles. They’re increasingly turning to virtual recruiting, hosting virtual career fairs, and conducting remote video interviews as the initial steps to meet ongoing hiring needs for healthcare professionals of all types, from physician assistants to senior executives.

While many traditional recruiting tactics are being reconsidered, recruiters across the country are wondering what the future will hold for the healthcare industry. When, if ever, will healthcare recruiting get ‘back to normal’? Clearly, there are many reasons that recruiting may never again look like what we’d all become accustomed to in the healthcare sector, and there will be some lasting changes stemming from the pandemic. The next era of healthcare recruiting will require recruiters to remain nimble, creative, and in touch with what candidates want and need, all while keeping safety top of mind. Here are a few key elements that will take healthcare recruiting and healthcare organizations into the future.

Virtual Career Fairs & Video Interviews

Over the past several months, the number of healthcare recruiters using virtual career fairs and video interviews has skyrocketed, and with good reason. Pivoting to virtual recruiting events was the easiest and most logical way to continue recruiting for vacant positions while maintaining safe social distancing. Nowadays, these virtual recruiting methods come with a host of other benefits as well. Virtual career fairs can help organizations reduce recruiting costs (including cost per hire), they are more convenient for the average job seeker and recruiter, and they make it easier to connect with talent outside your immediate geographic location.

Skeptics wonder if technology gets in the way of human relationships when interviewing for a job position, but using video interviews to connect with candidates is actually a good way to start a relationship. Video offers the next best alternative to meeting in person, because candidates can meet recruiters and hiring managers face-to-face from a distance. These conversations foster the same real human connection that candidates need to gain trust in a potential employer.

Virtual recruiting makes a lot of sense right now for healthcare jobs, because it’s basically the only option for healthcare providers that need to keep recruiting. What will happen once the dangers of the pandemic have passed? It’s not likely that recruiters will give up the benefits and convenience of virtual recruiting tools and platforms to return to expensive in-person career fairs and time-consuming phone screenings. Virtual career fairs and video interviews may well emerge as the new standard in the healthcare recruiting process of the post-COVID era.

Learn how one award-winning healthcare company - AdventHealth - is already doing just that, using virtual recruiting and virtual hiring events to speed up their time to hire, in this case study.

"Virtual hiring has cut our time in half! It’s definitely here to stay and helping us see better outcomes, in less time, at a lower cost." - Cathy Henesy, Executive Director of Talent Acquisition, AdventHealth

In-Person Interviews & Worksite Tours for Top Candidates

Typically, in-person interviews and worksite tours are a crucial part of the healthcare recruiting cycle. Healthcare candidates need to understand what their day-to-day shifts will look like at specific healthcare facilities before they accept an offer, and that’s not just a priority for clinicians. Fortunately, hospitals and medical centers can safely continue these visits because they already have procedures in place to reduce risks of exposure to all manner of contagions. Amid the pandemic, healthcare recruiters may be reserving these in-person visits for the most serious of candidates, when in the past, they may have invited passive candidates or applicants at earlier stages of recruiting. Reducing the number of candidates invited for in-person visits helps reduce risks, while saving time and allowing recruiters to focus on the most promising candidates. In the next era of healthcare recruiting, these visits will continue to be an essential component of the recruiting cycle, and recruiters may limit these visits further in an attempt to keep risks low and use their time more judiciously.

This combination of virtual recruiting, hiring events, and interviews followed up by more targeted in-person elements is called hybrid recruiting, and many experts believe it's the future of recruiting in healthcare and beyond.

Using Technology to Follow up with Candidates

With the shift to virtual recruiting tools and recruiting software, healthcare recruiters are recognizing the importance of following up with candidates — after online chats, virtual career fairs, and video interviews. The best virtual recruiting event platforms have built-in follow-up tools that help recruiters gather feedback and stay in touch with their candidate pool. This continued communication improves the candidate experience, increases engagement, and strengthens the employer brand across the interview process. Recruiting during the pandemic using virtual tools has put a spotlight on the need to continue communicating after recruiting events, even when potential candidates aren’t selected to move forward in the recruitment process. Whether you’re continuing the conversation with a qualified candidate via email or text messaging (according to each candidate’s preference), following up will become a standard best practice in the next era of healthcare recruitment efforts.

The Evolution of Healthcare Recruiting

The trends made essential by the pandemic will continue to shape healthcare recruiting for years to come. As technology improves and candidate attitudes shift in the healthcare domain, so too will healthcare recruiters continue adopting new strategies and honing old ones to respond to the needs of job seekers and the changing landscape of recruiting for medical professionals and healthcare employees. Getting comfortable with virtual recruiting options and recruitment software will help healthcare recruiters compete for highly qualified healthcare professionals, and keep the frontlines fully staffed throughout our current global health crisis, as well as prepare their organizations to face future challenges. In short, we’re all going to need a lot more virtually-sourced talent in order to provide patients with quality care, so this is an important time to review your recruiting strategy and consider how you might adapt it to the changing demands of the current job-seeker's market.

This Healthcare Company Created an Award-Winning Candidate Experience

Want to learn exactly how one healthcare company has evolved their hiring process to integrate virtual and in-person recruiting across the candidate journey? Then don't miss our case study with AdventHealth — a CandE award winner known for creating an incredible candidate experience. Download the AdventHealth Case Study here or in the banner below.