4 Tips for Recruiting in Healthcare: How Marketing Can Help You Build Up Your Workforce

As demand for healthcare professionals increases, the healthcare workforce is shrinking. Between the start of 2020 and 2021, the number of healthcare employees in the United States declined by nearly 900,000, even as a growing and aging population is reporting increased healthcare needs.

A shortage of healthcare workers was already developing prior to the pandemic. A 2020 survey of healthcare professionals found that 59 percent of managers believed recruiting had become more difficult in the past 12 months. But after mass layoffs to address the plunging revenues healthcare systems were experiencing, the challenge of hiring skilled professionals to open healthcare positions is tougher than ever.

To combat the challenges created by this workforce shortage, healthcare recruiting has taken center stage in the race to hire and retain top job candidates. Through advertising campaigns that support your healthcare recruiting efforts, your organization can bolster its workforce by attracting qualified applicants, targeting strategic hires, and identifying job candidates most likely to be retained for the long run.

As you build an ad strategy in support of your recruiting, here are some tips to gain a competitive edge.

1. Highlight Telehealth and Virtual Health Options for Job Applicants

More than a year after the pandemic pushed businesses to adopt remote work arrangements almost overnight, many workers—including healthcare professionals—have shown a preference for at least some measure of remote and flexible work options from their employer.

In healthcare, these remote work options are paralleled by increased patient demand for telehealth and virtual health services. Healthcare organizations can satisfy both sides of the patient-provider divide by accommodating telehealth and virtual health for both patients and healthcare professionals. Nurses, doctors, therapists, nutritionists and other professionals may be attracted to roles that offer at least partial work-from-home options.

By highlighting this flexibility in your recruiting, you can increase both the quantity and quality of your job applicants.

2. Polish Up Your Local Brand Reputation

Your company’s culture has become an important point of consideration for most healthcare job applicants. In a recent survey of healthcare leaders, 69 percent said they value “cultural fit” over other attributes when evaluating job candidates. But this priority cuts both ways: prospective employees are also very concerned with the reputation of prospective employers, especially in the context of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healthcare recruiters can speak to these job applicant priorities—and attract the right kind of workers to your organization—by promoting your company’s core values in your recruiting content and advertising. Highlighting your emergency response to the pandemic, your community involvement, and employee support through these difficult times can help teach applicants about your workplace culture—which can become a point of attraction for some of your most coveted candidates.

3. Improve Your Quality of Care By Hiring Diverse Candidates

With a patient population that continues to grow more diverse, as well as a larger body of evidence that diverse workforces deliver better healthcare outcomes, today’s healthcare organizations are discovering the value that comes with bringing diverse professionals into your organization.

Recruiters can support these efforts to build a better healthcare workforce by seeking out hires with backgrounds that match segments of your patient population. A healthcare organization that serves a local immigrant community, for example, can provide better healthcare when the organization is staffed by professionals with similar backgrounds, or even workers who come directly from that community. This can improve your new patient conversion and patient retention efforts, creating more value for the organization.

4. Increase Employee Retention Through Refined Hiring Practices

Employee turnover can be very high for certain professional roles, and/or at certain healthcare organizations. Registered nurses traditionally see extremely high turnover, with the average hospital experiencing a full turnover of their RN staffs every six years—and at an average organizational cost of $44,000 per registered nurse.

Improved employee retention can be pursued as early as the recruiting process. For example, recruiters can look for professionals with a past history of sticking at a single employer for multiple years at a time. Recruiters can also improve employee retention by offering transparency and openness during the recruiting process, so that workers understand exactly what to expect from their job. And you can highlight potential advancement and career development opportunities to position your company as an employer that can help workers build successful careers.

With so much competition for a limited pool of qualified applicants, healthcare recruiters have their work cut out for them when pursuing top candidates and building a company workforce that is productive and stable.

Your advertising can play a huge role in shaping applicant impressions of your organization and incentivizing applications to open positions. A digital advertising partner can help you create ad campaigns that support these recruiting goals—contact us today to learn more.