I went down a circuitous academic path to become a nurse. I started college majoring in political science in Washington DC. Many of my classmates were doing internships on the Hill and thinking about law school. I had little interest in either of those pursuits. I started thinking about what type of career I wanted to pursue. I had always thought about being a nurse and the profession really excited me. So I made a sharp turn. I spoke with a counselor at school and learned there was more than a one-year waiting list to transfer into the nursing program. She suggested that I go to the local hospital for my RN and return back to the university to finish my BSN. And off I went. While I was enrolled in the RN program at Washington Hospital Center (WHC), I worked nights and weekends as an aide and practical nurse. Through this work, I got to experience all the different nursing specialties in the hospital. Shortly before I graduated with my RN, I met with the (WHC) VP of Nursing, who asked me where in the hospital I wanted to work. I chose cardiology and she sent me to the personnel department to complete the paperwork. I started one week after I graduated and never looked back.
Life was so simple back then… the hospital had positions to fill and the schools of nursing were graduating nurses who wanted jobs. It was a really easy match that didn’t require a sophisticated recruiting strategy. Today, the process is more complicated. The candidate marketplace is changing. In many parts of the country there are shortages of qualified workers to fill open positions. Yet, many skilled nursing and senior living leaders are still using outdated recruiting strategies with less and less success. For these individuals the time has come to adopt innovative ways to fill their open positions.
The first step toward improving your recruiting and hiring processes is to critically assess your current practices. Are those newspaper ads producing good candidates for you? If not, cancel them and save your money. Consider the following ideas for recruiting:
- Talk to your existing workforce and determine what strategies they used to find their current position. Learn from your workforce where they spend their time on line, what job boards they look at, etc. This will give you a feel for where you should focus your efforts.
- Take social media seriously. There are many candidates on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- Review the data that you have in your recruiting software system to learn how you found the majority of your successful hires. If you don’t a have a recruiting system or, if the one you have doesn’t produce the needed information, you should consider upgrading your processes so that you can get out of the dark and make informed decisions.
Successful recruiting and hiring processes are the foundation that will enable you to build a sustainable workforce. And workforce is the key to your clinical and business success as well as overall customer satisfaction. It’s time for your hiring practices to move into the 21st century with your recruiting and hiring strategies.