5 Healthcare Recruitment Best Practices You Should Follow
The healthcare industry is known for its low retention rates when it comes to staffing. And healthcare talent acquisition is expected to be even more challenging in the future. Jobs are projected to grow 15 percent from last year to 2029—much faster than many other occupations—adding about 2.4 million new jobs.
Compounding the challenge is the dearth of individuals that will be available to fill needed roles. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Center for Workforce Studies revealed there will be a projected shortage of between 54,100 and 139,000 physicians alone by 2033.
So, how do you attract and recruit quality candidates during an increasingly competitive environment? Here are a few key strategies to keep in mind.
Use AI To Prescreen Talent
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are becoming commonplace in many areas. Healthcare recruitment practices are adopting AI to help speed time-to-fill and solve staff retention issues. AI can quickly screen resumes, looking for key phrases, qualifications, and more. An AI recruitment tool can surface qualified candidates within a large candidate pool in a matter of seconds.
In addition, AI technology can help reduce bias in the sourcing process, which optimizes the candidate selection process. This allows your organization to engage with candidates that might not otherwise pass pre-screening and can lead to greater diversity of talent. Replacing a manual process with an automated system that objectively and consistently applies the same set of screening rules across all candidates should help foster a stronger brand image and lead to better hires.
Make Behavioral Health Assessments Routine
It’s been said that the best indicator of future performance is past behavior. Behavioral health assessments enable you to query candidates about how they’ve responded to certain situations in the past, which helps ensure they are a good fit for your organization. These assessments reveal the traits, temperament, and behavioral competencies required for the position and for working in healthcare settings in general.
Embrace Diversity and Inclusion
With potentially challenging healthcare employment times ahead, now is the time to focus on diversity hires. Recruiting healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds allows you to widen your talent pipeline, foster innovation and creativity from varied perspectives, and target diverse patient markets. Hiring diversity also helps to build collaboration. By recruiting candidates with diversity in mind, you show your brand to be more inclusive, which can help with staff retention and referral hires.
Maintain Brand Visibility
Branding plays a huge part in recruitment and maintaining a strong company profile counts in a market competing for limited human resources. Although the pandemic has restricted traditional in-person channels, such as career fairs, there are still plenty of digital and print options to impress potential hires.
Virtual talent acquisition has quickly become the norm for now. So it’s key to be a leader in that space. Digital branding through ads, virtual conference sponsorship, and social media will keep your organization top-of-mind when seasoned healthcare professionals and incoming recruits are online.
Advertise Where HCPs Are
Speaking of ads, with the expected rise in occupational demand in the near future, it’s more important than ever to target candidate audiences on the platforms and in the publications that they value professionally. Online resources such as myHealthTalent.com provide opportunities to promote your brand using an ideal mix, reach, and style that fits your brand.
Not all HCPs search for positions on industry-agnostic job boards. Healthcare recruits with limited bandwidth often stick to industry-related sources, where they are exploring the latest medical advances and trends. Posting your recruitment ads within credible platforms increases your chances of finding motivated, qualified and experienced candidates.
