Hiring in the healthcare industry often feels like an impossible task, but getting it right from the first interaction to the final hire is critical to the patient experience.
Paradox partnered with industry analyst, Tim Sackett, to host TA pros, Teri Cayler of SSM Health and Carlos Fernandez of Houston Methodist, for a deep-dive discussion on healthcare’s dire hiring situation.
Here are five takeaways from their conversation about the future of healthcare hiring:
1. Automation has become a necessity.
Teri and Carlos agreed that automated interview scheduling software and interview coordination has been the biggest game changer for their team. Rather than playing calendar tetris and messaging candidates and their recruits back and forth via email to find the right time — their AI recruiting assistant streamlines the process through automated text-to-apply software and scheduling tools which saves everyone a headache. Getting to candidates before anyone else and nurturing them throughout the process is crucial for hiring hard-to-fill roles like nurses.
At SSM Health, Teri shared that automated scheduling took their time to schedule interviews from 2-3 days down to just 3 minutes. That’s helped them convert candidates at a much higher rate.
2. Placing the right people matters now more than ever.
Metrics in healthcare hiring used to be centered around two things: time-to-fill and the amount of yearly hires. Teri and Carlos are being intentional about switching the focus from the number of hires to the quality of hires — businesses are starting to realize that it’s more important getting the right employees in the right jobs rather than simply getting any person.
Hiring the right employees for the right jobs instead of simply maximizing the number of hires has helped Houston Methodist and SSM Health decrease turnover in their organizations.
3. Speed to hire is critical.
Typically, hiring an employee in healthcare takes 60 days; for RN's — it's more than 80. The best nurses expect to apply for a job today and get hired for one tomorrow. As the gig economy becomes more prevalent, it's taking hospitals even longer to hire RN's.
Imagine, Sunday at 9 p.m., you have an emergency room nurse that just got off a bad shift and is tired of working for her hospital. She's already looking for new opportunities. And if you wait until Monday morning, at that point, they may have already been hired somewhere else.
Speed is everything. Automation ensures candidates are cared for 24/7.
4. Candidate expectations have evolved.
Personalization and providing a positive candidate experience has become incredibly important within the hiring process. Both Teri and Carlos noted that recruiters need to stay engaged with candidates to avoid candidate drop-off and stand out within a sea of opportunities. Something as simple as letting candidates know where they stand in the process can go a long way.
The focus on user experience makes such a massive difference. Getting the right content to the right person at the right time: as you talk to the conversational AI assistant the career page will start to personalize based on who the candidate is. Conversational AI ensures candidates are taken care of immediately, and allows recruiters to identify and engage in warm conversation with candidates that have expressed interest.
5. In-person is back in vogue.
Both Teri and Carlos are seeing more and more candidates interested in meeting in person. Carlos found this interesting because it's almost a throwback to pre-pandemic — people are really excited to see them opening their doors and meeting in person. Especially on the graduate nurse and early professional front, candidates are eager to meet hiring leaders, recruiters, and other ambassadors throughout the organization.
Over at SSM, With the help of Paradox, Teri and team were able to host a nursing-specific hiring event, where they invited over 1,500 candidates to talk with a recruiter or nursing leader. Within two weeks of sending invites out, SSM’s recruiters were fully booked for the in-person event.
Interested in seeing their full conversation? Watch the recording here.
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