How LTC & Senior Living Providers Can Hire Job Applicants In One Hour

A lot goes in to sourcing, interviewing and hiring new candidates. When you factor in all of the areas out of your control, such as background checks and drug screenings, it starts to get even more complex – adding additional time to the process, where employees might opt to seek employment elsewhere. It’s no wonder that hiring employees is such a headache for recruiters.

Or so we thought. I recently attended an industry event for HR professionals, where a speaker told attendees that they could hire direct-care workers in one hour. I was skeptical at first, but now think he might be onto something. Hear me out and decide for yourself.

With some teamwork and the proper sign offs from your legal department, it’s possible to hire employees in one hour. Once you have a candidate in the door – this can be one you source yourself, or an interested party that walks in on his or her own accord – take these steps to secure them as employees in as little as sixty minutes.

Step 1: Start The Interview Process Immediately

Don’t waste any time. Give your prospective employee a warm welcome and invite them to do an on-the-spot interview. This might require you have several people on your staff trained to conduct interviews. Remember, someone should be available to meet with walk-in candidates at all times.

Ask them a few of your typical interview questions to get a sense of who they are as a person, whether or not they have the compassion needed to care for the elderly and to determine if they’re a good fit for your organization. Make sure to also incorporate questions that uncover previous experience, credentials and availability.

After you've completed the interview, have them jot down a few references with phone numbers. Directly follow that with a tour of your community, where the interviewer can see how the candidate interacts with residents and staff.

Step 2: Check Their References

While the interviewer is giving the candidate a tour, have another employee begin the reference checking process. Hopefully, you will be able to reach one or all of the people on the list and ask basic verification and character questions.

Afterwards, ask the candidate to have a seat for a few minutes, so the person who checked references, the interviewer and any other hiring decision makers can touch base and compare notes privately. If you come to the conclusion that the candidate is a good fit and you’d like to present an offer, move to step three.

Step 3: Present a Conditional Job Offer

You’ve decided you want to offer the candidate a conditional job offer on the spot. Make sure your community has the offer with terms and conditions on hand. The contract should clearly state that if the candidate passes a drug test, background check and reference check (if you were unable to connect initially), the job is theirs.

This conditional job offer helps you secure their employment, stops them from going to the community down the street and shows them you’re eager and excited to have them on the team. It can also help to weed out candidates who know they won’t pass certain steps of your interview process.

Of course, to leverage this process, providers need to get applicants into their communities. Relying on walk-ins will only get you so far. That’s where OnShift® Text2Hire™ comes in—our text-based recruitment software that uses automation and artificial intelligence to speed up the hiring process. Recruiters can quickly connect with candidates to schedule interviews, reducing time-to-hire, minimizing no-shows and increasing the number of new hires.

So, what do you think about this method? Would your community consider implementing it? Or are you already doing something similar? I’m curious to know. Drop me a line at tmarzella@onshift.com. I’d love to hear what you think!