What are the best healthcare recruitment strategies?

Healthcare recruitment strategies for 2022

Why is medical recruitment so challenging and how to be more successful at it? What medical recruitment strategies should you choose?

Key Takeaways

The three main reasons why finding the right medical professionals for the job are:

There is an overall shortage of available skilled prospects
Being under high pressure to find the most qualified doctor in a specific region or is willing to move to another country
Making sure that their job performance matches the personality that can bring success to the employer’s business

Listen to this blog post

How to successfully recruit healthcare professionals?

According to Mercer’s Report:

Healthcare jobs will be among the fastest growing in the United States through 2026, accounting for about 2.3 million new jobs, according to projections released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). However, our analysis shows that, in many states, the projected supply of healthcare workers will be unable to fill demand.

Level up your brand

High-quality candidates want to work for employers with a good reputation and will research beyond salary and benefits.

In healthcare, where patients' lives are at stake, this is especially important.

Establishing yourself as a trustworthy brand and an excellent employer makes it significantly easier to attract talent.

This is a great way to stand out in an urgent and competitive market. Assess your brand’s fundamental values and communicate the vision clearly to potential job candidates.

Your company brand is more than a logo and how you present yourself in person. It speaks about your culture, values, messaging in person and online, goals, and how your employees and patients perceive you.

Consult your HR staff

The most commonly overlooked place when creating a recruitment strategy is your HR / TA (talent acquisition) department.

Your staff is involved in various groups and communities you may not even know about or have access to.

By talking to your staff and asking them to share open positions, you gain a chance to reach new audiences while giving your team the freedom to brag about what it’s like working for you.

Often, your employees have relatives, friends, and acquaintances who are medical personnel, students or know of people in the field.

The direct-contact sourcing can help retain talent by including referral systems in your recruitment strategy and will build better relationships in the team.

Develop relationships with universities

Creating partnerships with top institutions and well-established medical schools is critical to any plan for solid recruiting strategies for healthcare professionals.

Jobs in the medical field often require advanced degrees, so it is the quickest way to access well-qualified talent.

Hiring out from universities makes it easier to verify candidates’ credentials and seek references.

By participating in on-campus career fairs and career workshops, recruiters can meet prospects in person and arrange interviews on the spot.

The benefit of partnering with universities goes both ways – recruiters can get help with finding much-needed talent. At the same time, the institutions have a way to provide internship and job opportunities to students.

Post on niche job boards

Simply posting your open position and waiting around for the flood of applicants isn’t going to cut it anymore.

You may get a sea of applications, but the quality of those candidates will range from over to under-qualified.

By identifying niche job boards or communities in the healthcare industry, you can go right to the source to find nurses, practitioners, and other candidates.

See firsthand what candidates are looking for and pose your questions to find out how you can improve your hiring process.

Benefits increase chances of hire

Make sure healthcare candidates are offered enticing or uniques benefits.

A competitive salary isn’t enough for the recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals.

Attractive benefits are a must-have in your healthcare recruitment and retention strategies.

Another advantage of offering a good benefits package is higher business performance than those that do not strategically leverage a benefits program.

Perks like flexible time, mandatory time off, wellness perks, and education debt assistance are critical aspects of a good benefits package.

In these pandemic times, prospective candidates are also looking for mental health benefits to help keep anxiety and stress levels in check.

Less is more in the medical recruitment process

With limited top talent, the best and brightest medical professionals have their pick when considering multiple offers.

This means that your screening and interview processes must be efficient, or else these candidates will move on quickly.

Review your current recruitment process and identify where you can make improvements. To attract suitable applicants, make full use of your job postings to provide a detailed and accurate picture of the work scope.

Utilizing recruitment software helps simplify recruiting processes by bringing the best-fitting applicants to the forefront of your candidate pool.

Because interviewing is time-consuming, automate your pre-screening procedures to select the applicants you want to interview.

The more efficient you are at selecting, interviewing, screening, and making an offer, the better your chances are at ensuring prospects will accept your job opening over another.

Streamlining the interview and screening processes helps strengthen healthcare recruitment strategies even further.

Extra tips

Hire for culture fit. When a physician is a culture fit, there's a better chance you can retain them. Ensure they align with the employer’s core values, understand the expectations, and consider if they have the communication skills to function well in a team.

Opportunities for growth and development are appealing. Many doctors find themselves in leadership positions as department heads, but not many universities include leadership or budget management courses.

Work-life balance matters. A lot. Work-life balance is a top priority for job candidates today. This is especially true for millennials and Gen Z-ers, who prioritize flexible schedules, paid time off, and are slated to make up 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025.

If you are a recruitment company, the extra tips can “sell” the job and help attain the best medical staff.