How to Find Effective Employees in the Healthcare Industry

The key to finding the perfect candidate is all about balancing needs and wants for your job position.

In the healthcare industry it is particularly important as companies set high requirements, but experience high turnover rates among applicants. To find qualified employees for entry level positions you need to balance what the position really requires with what’s available in the job market.

The first step to finding the right employee is knowing what resources are available to you. Too often hiring decisions are skimped and stripped to find a new employee the cheapest way possible. However, employees are the greatest resource for building your organization, regardless of what drives your company. We like to remind our clients that recruiting is an investment.

Balance the Job Qualification Requirements

When it comes to taking advantage of resources, you need to understand what characteristics your ideal job candidate possesses. First, know which job qualifications are really important and which are simply preferred. Do not set education or experience requirements higher than absolutely necessary.

Finding the ideal candidate isn’t always about and applicant's education and experience. One of the best hiring assets you can use are pre-hire assessments because they help you factor in traits beyond the resume. For CNAs, RNs, and LPNs, assessing candidates’ workplace personality measures their actual compatibility with your organization’s culture.

Know Where Your Applicants Are Looking

In addition to knowing your applicants’ qualifications, another resource you can take advantage of is knowing where your quality applicants come from.

For entry level positions in healthcare, an overlooked factor is work environment compatibility, including how they get along with coworkers.

The employee referral system ApplicantPro offers to clients gives them the perfect opportunity to improve teamwork among employees. If your hiring software doesn’t have an employee referral program built into its platform, you can create one yourself or give us a call to help you formulate an approach that works best for you and your organization. The key is to take advantage of this easy, but valuable source and get your employees to recruit for you.

Your best applicants are also searching for jobs on healthcare specific job boards, university recruitment options, and search for jobs on social media. As you know your applicant better, you can target your job advertisement to reach the ideal candidate.

In healthcare, the best applicants often come from college students. Using social media to reach these applicants can be invaluable. Millennials network with social media; as you search for your applicants do not overlook this vital source.

Use Internships to Recruit Applicants

Healthcare Global recommends posting internship positions to take advantage of the low risk, high return situation of an internship. An intern lets you test the employee’s compatibility with your company culture and gives you time to train employees and sculpt them to the proper fit for your organization.

Campus recruiting options let you really take advantage of the up and coming qualified applicant pool. Reaching out to university job boards as well as local universities can help you solve the common obstacle in healthcare: the high qualification requirements even for entry level positions. Simply by targeting the right applicant, you can decrease your turnover rates and increase your company’s workplace culture.

Healthcare Employee Retention

Hospitals, senior care facilities, and healthcare clinics all share a similar struggle of employee retention. Qualified applicants want to move up and low quality applicants tend to be unreliable. Using a hiring software like ApplicantPro helps you make the correct recruiting decision to invest your time, money and effort into an employee that will pay out. The key comes in knowing the requirements and screening for the undefinable qualities through applicant assessments, making advertising for your job easy through employee referrals and specialty job board integrations, and finally connecting with the rising generation through social media applicant recruiting and targeted job ads.

Not sure where to start with all your demands for healthcare hiring? We can help! Set up a Free Trial. One of our healthcare employment experts will guide you through finding qualified, long-term applicants without spending more time and more of your recruiting budget.