The Affordable Care Act is dropping 32 million additional patients into the U.S. healthcare system. This means the war for talent is on, and if you’re not thinking ahead then you’re already behind.
Unfortunately a horde of new patients isn’t the only issue facing healthcare recruiting. The skills gap is also making competition for the best candidates downright brutal. According to Careerbuilder, 23 percent of employers have open healthcare positions they just can’t fill due to the difficulty of finding candidates with the right skills.
Things are especially dire if you’re looking to recruit doctors or other medical professionals. Currently the U.S. is suffering a shortfall of about 20,000 doctors, but it’s about to get much worse. Projections estimate by 2020 this shortfall will grow to encompass more than 90,000 doctors. One of the major reasons for this shortfall is a retiring physician population; today nearly half of all doctors are over the age of 50.
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With so many challenges, finding the right person for your open positions can feel insurmountable. Every challenge, however, is really an opportunity in disguise. To find the right people faster than your competition, you’re going to need to display some ingenuity. You’re going to need to be one step ahead of the pack.
Here are a few ways to beat your competition to the best people and jump the skills gap in a single bound:
Look for temp talent
Sometimes the best way to find great people is to hire temporary talent. Temporary workers can help your organization plug holes in your workforce while you continue the hard work at recruiting. But these temporary workers can often impress you so much they transition into full time superstar employees.
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According to a Careerbuilder survey, 27 percent of employers are looking to hire temporary talent this year. This number might not seem impressive until you consider the year before only 12 percent of employers were looking for temporary workers. Obviously the temporary market is heating up, since temp workers are a great way to test-drive a candidate before you commit to a long-term commitment.
Reduce employee turnover
Speaking of a long-term commitment, a way to cut down on your recruiting volume is to ensure employees stick around. Currently 75 percent of employed healthcare workers don’t feel they’re being paid enough. These dissatisfied employees will be dreaming of greener pastures, leaving you with open positions to fill. They’ll also be leaving you with a big bill: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports it costs on average over $36,000 to replace a registered nurse.
How do you reduce employee turnover and save money? One way is to ensure candidates will fit into the company culture before hiring. It’s not enough for candidates to have the right skills, they also need to sincerely enjoy the work environment and mesh well with coworkers and patients.
It’s important to use the interview process to ask about working style, communication skills, and their ideal workplace. Know what your candidate wants out of the job, before you hire someone who will soon set sail for brighter shores.
Find better ways to evaluate high candidate volume
The Society of Human Resource Management discovered the typical time-to-hire is between 29 and 43 days. You certainly can’t afford to wait this long to fill some of your essential healthcare positions, especially not with 32 million additional patients on the way. You need a faster way to evaluate candidates.
The one-way video interview can help. In a one-way video interview, candidates answer employer’s questions on video. These video answers can then be watched at any time and for any duration. If you discover someone is all wrong for the job, you can easily move on to the next person without losing any extra time.
A typical phone screen will have you stuck on the line for 30 minutes or more, when you could have watched about 10 one-way video interviews in that time, according to research from the Aberdeen Group. This allows you to focus your time and efforts on the right people.
Build up talent pipelines
Using new technology to solve old problems is a great way to get ahead of the hiring curve when it comes to filling your healthcare positions. Social media might be how you keep track of far-flung family members, but it can also be a vital recruiting tool.
You can use social media to connect with candidates on a more personal level, evaluate their professionalism, and build up your talent pipelines. This is probably why 94 percent of recruiters are currently using social media in the hiring process.
Twitter chats, Facebook discussions, and LinkedIn posts can all be great places to connect with talent and see the way they think about industry-related issues. Some of these people might be great hires, but they’re just not right for your current positions. Thanks to social media connections, you can build a relationship with these smart candidates so when the right opening comes along, you already know the perfect person for the job. Like video interviews, social media shortens time-to-hire, while also helping you build up a tech-savvy employer brand.
With 32 million patients coming, you can’t afford to be left behind in the stampede. It’s time to get ahead of the curve so you never miss out on hiring the best.
What are some ways you plan to use to win the healthcare war for talent? Share in the comments!
