One of the major challenges that healthcare hiring managers experience is the recruitment of top-quality nursing candidates. As per the statistics, the nursing candidates graduating every year are insufficient to meet the current requirement of such professionals in the healthcare sector. On the other hand, however, there is a question of hiring the perfect candidate from a pool of applications that accentuates the importance of the manager’s expertise in distinguishing between a mediocre and a top quality nursing candidate. Being pivotal to a healthcare facility, recruiting the right candidate for a nursing position is going to be beneficial for the patients, the rest of the team members, and the entire organization in the long run. The good news is that there are a few simple steps that the healthcare hiring managers can take to ensure that they are hiring the perfect candidates for their teams.
- The Hiring Process Should Be Concise As per an estimate, the hiring process takes around 82 days on average to have a nursing candidate join your team. Some specialties may take a few days more. But unnecessarily procrastinating the process any further can render it inefficient that has major implications in terms of attracting the top nursing candidates. To begin with, it improves the likelihood that the top candidates will be chosen by the other healthcare facilities with an efficient hiring process. As a consequence, you would naturally be left with mediocre applications only. As a rule of thumb, the sooner you follow-up with a potential top candidate, the higher are your chances of keeping the professional’s interest in your organization.
- Add An Online Component To The Process Checking for references and evaluating the past experiences of a candidate is a time-consuming process. It is even more so when you are using the modes of phone calls or personal meetings for each of them. Such a shortcoming can easily be overcome if the candidate’s references are allowed to put in their feedback via a concise online survey. You can request for very specific information about the candidate that you deem highly relevant for recruitment, the provision of which will help you further the application process efficiently.
- Focus On The Fundamentals The healthcare hiring managers get hundreds of applications for a nursing vacancy and all of them are identical in terms of academic qualifications and the licensure. What drives the hiring process, therefore, should be the foundational characteristics and values of the candidates and how well they align with what the organization is looking for. There are pre-developed tools which can be used as are or modified a little to cater to the individual requirements of a healthcare facility. Such tools rate the nursing candidates on qualities like their approach to providing care to the patients, how well they serve as part of a team, their personal attributes like that of empathy and compassion, and their work attitude including leadership skills and flexibility, and how suitable it is for the healthcare facility. Such tools are precise in providing insight into the suitability of the nursing candidate for the organization.
- Understand The Power Of Choice A common mistake that creates a barricade for the healthcare hiring managers to attract the top nursing candidates is a misconception that the power of choice rests with the managers. Considering that the academic institutes are failing to meet the high-demand of nursing candidates at the healthcare facilities, it is usually the candidate who chooses your organization and not the other way around. This is what makes it imperative that you elaborate on the “Why Choose Us” for your organization as well. In order to entice a top nursing candidate to move forward with you, orientation is of the essence. The professional needs to know that it is in the best interest of your healthcare facility to support his career growth. His interest in your organization sky highs the moment he learns that he can expect continuous education, trust, respect, and a good living from your organization. A top nursing candidate is interested in knowing the details of job description upfront and wishes to be a part of ethical decision making.
- Communicate With The Nurse Managers When it comes to hiring the top candidates for nursing specifically for a particular specialty, the healthcare hiring managers can only have so much knowledge. The autonomy given to the recruiters comes with a trust that they will do everything in their power to find the perfect candidate for the position. Having said that, communicating with the nursing managers and making them a part of the screening process can help a great deal for the hiring managers to live up to that trust. It is understandable that the nursing managers are already stomped with work with barely any room for an additional responsibility, but as much as a simple conversation with them has the potential of increasing the likelihood of choosing the right candidate by many folds.
- Go An Extra Mile Lastly, it is indispensable for the healthcare hiring managers to realize that putting an advertisement via online and offline mediums is no longer sufficient to attract the top quality candidates. It is the need of the hour to go an extra mile and put an active effort into the process. Make it a habit to attend the job fairs, focus on building partnerships with the educational institutes which can promote your healthcare facility as a priority workplace among their graduates, offer additional perks to the employees. What’s amazing is that such perks are not required to be huge. Minor incentives like free snacks or beverages and gift cards for the nurse of the month can make a remarkable difference.
There is no argument over the fact that the entire reputation of your organization is dependent on the team that works for it. It surely takes effort to recruit and retain that perfect team for your healthcare facility, but the benefits that it offers, in the long run, make this effort absolutely worthwhile. Knowing that you played a part in ensuring optimal care for the patients and support for the rest of the staff is what drives the job satisfaction for the healthcare hiring managers.