In the dynamic landscape of the healthcare industry, navigating talent acquisition has become increasingly complex in an already competitive talent market. Let’s look at some of the top recruiting challenges in the healthcare industry, along with emerging trends and effective strategies for attracting and retaining top talent in this dynamic field.
A Strong Employer Brand is Critical in Attracting & Retaining Top Talent
Building a strong employer brand in healthcare is essential for attracting and retaining top talent amidst fierce competition and rising labor costs. At a recent event we hosted about healthcare hiring trends featuring three large health systems, panelists shared several strategies healthcare TA teams are using to enhance employer branding.
In healthcare, it’s particularly important to showcase your organization’s values and mission in your employer brand. Aligning your values, like patient care and community health, with your employer brand resonates deeply with candidates. Organizations can best highlight their brand by sharing employee testimonials, showcasing community engagement and creating a strong employer brand content strategy on their career site. After all, healthcare professionals are often driven by a strong sense of purpose and a commitment to making a difference in people’s lives.
Ensuring your employer brand reflects the core values of healthcare talent helps you connect with individuals who are looking not just for a job, but for a place where they can truly make an impact. When candidates see that their personal and professional values align with your organization’s mission, they’re more likely to join and stay with your team. This alignment is key to building a dedicated, passionate workforce that is committed to driving excellence and innovation in healthcare.
Leveraging Technology & Innovation is Key
In the fast-paced world of healthcare hiring, where demand often exceeds supply, leveraging technology is not just an option—it’s a necessity. With the increasing competition for top-tier talent, TA teams are turning to innovative technological solutions to streamline the recruitment process, enhance sourcing capabilities, improve candidate communication and drive faster internal decision-making.
As highlighted by panelists at our recent healthcare webinar, today’s healthcare candidates are likely to receive two to three job offers at a time. The faster you can identify and make an offer to top talent, the more likely they are to choose your organization. TA technology can significantly reduce the time and effort required to identify and engage with potential candidates, starting with automating repetitive tasks like interview scheduling. This empowers recruiters to focus more on strategic activities like building relationships with candidates and understanding their career aspirations, ultimately enhancing the candidate experience and making an employer more desirable.
In addition, utilizing advanced technology, such as sourcing tools can help TA teams cast a wider net and identify qualified candidates more efficiently. These tools can analyze large volumes of data from various sources, including job boards, social media and professional networks, to identify potential candidates who match the specific skills and experience required for healthcare roles. This speeds up the sourcing process and helps your organization drive a higher quality of candidates into your talent pipeline.
Retention & Recruiting Must Be Hand-in-Hand
You’ll often hear it said that “retention is the new talent acquisition.” Well in healthcare recruiting, this pattern is proving true even at the early career stage. At our webinar, panelists highlighted a recurring pattern of early talent who start at an organization by working in one of their early-career training programs, then go on to graduate college or apply to other advanced training programs and then ultimately go on to work somewhere else. In this case, healthcare systems are supplying the training and resources to talent just for them to use what they have learned elsewhere. To address this issue, healthcare systems have found that creating transitional roles, where students can continue to learn after completing their training programs, in addition to giving them return offers as full-time employees before they graduate, grants the healthcare system a better chance at retaining their talent.
Internal mobility is another key aspect of employee retention that can also directly benefit recruiting teams. It involves identifying and promoting employees from within the organization to fill open positions, rather than always seeking external candidates. This approach not only reduces hiring costs and time-to-fill rates, but also boosts employee morale and engagement.
A critical component of internal mobility and talent rediscovery is providing employees with the resources they need to advance in their careers. This can be particularly effective in a healthcare setting, where the demand for specific skills and specialties can change rapidly. By investing in comprehensive talent management systems, healthcare organizations can maintain detailed records of employees’ qualifications, certifications and career aspirations. This can also be achieved through regular performance reviews and career development discussions to help identify employees who are ready for a new challenge. Lastly, offering access to additional certifications, training programs and professional development opportunities equips employees to obtain additional certifications and specialties.
Deeply aligning the work of recruiting and retention in the healthcare field is a critical ongoing discipline that requires continual measurement, testing and refinement – a winning strategy for healthcare hiring.
Staying Ahead of Healthcare Hiring Trends
In healthcare hiring, it’s critical to stay informed about the evolving dynamics of healthcare talent so your team can continually adapt to evolving healthcare hiring trends. This requires a continuous assessment of candidate motivations beyond traditional compensation packages, focusing on aspects like wellness benefits and flexible work arrangements to engage candidates. This adaptation reflects a broader industry trend where healthcare organizations are reevaluating their offerings to attract and retain talent in competitive markets.
Looking forward, employers who embrace the trends outlined above will be in the best shape to improve their hiring process, retain skilled and dedicated healthcare workers and ultimately build a stronger, more resilient healthcare system.
