As the baby boomer generation continues to age, the demand for quality healthcare is increasing. In fact, about 80% of older adults have at least one chronic disease. Nurses work throughout the day and night to provide quality healthcare to patients all around the world. However, due to such hours, they have to sacrifice on a lot of family time.
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It is for this reason that there is a nursing shortage in the industry today. And it can be challenging for hospitals and clinics to find the best nurses to recruit. In fact, the number of nursing jobs in the US is expected to increase by 16% by 2024.
Here are a few steps you can take to successfully recruit nurses.
1. Use an Employee Referral Program
Employee referral programs are a great option for successful nurse recruitment. You can ask your top nurses to provide referrals to your organization. This will allow you to get direct access to nurses who have the requisite skill sets in their immediate circles.
If that is not enough, you can even set up a program to get referrals from other referrals. So when you get a great candidate as a referral, you can ask them if they know anyone else as well. This will give you access to an even bigger talent pool.
To sweeten the deal even further, you can provide incentives to your nurses. For each referral that they bring in who gets hired, you can give them some sort of incentive. This will motivate them to actively look for referrals.
2. Have a Strong and Effective Onboarding Program
Nursing is a challenging profession. It can be particularly difficult for new recruits to adjust to this challenging environment.
For this reason, it is important that, as an organization, you give them enough time and assistance to ease into it. You should have a strong, effective onboarding program that can help boost your employee retention. This can help make nurse recruitment a lot simpler.
Do everything you can to make them feel at home when they join your organization. Even something as simple as a casual gathering can help build a community among the new recruits.
Another great idea is to have a mentorship program. You can have new hire work under senior nurses before they practice by themselves. Not only does this give them training but also helps them bond with other nurses in your organization.
3. Recruit Smart
You can involve your senior nurses in your nurse recruitment process as well. They know the exact problems that nurses face and know what, if anything, is missing in the job. These issues may not be known to the recruiters themselves. Thus, the senior nurses can bring in a new angle to the nurse recruitment process. This can help you get good talent on board.
Another way of getting access to more talent is through an orientation day. On the first day they join your organization, you can ask new hires to make a list of the top nurses from their previous job. You can then ask them to help you recruit them and even offer them incentives for doing the same.
4. Recruit Former Employees or Applicants
You should also ensure that you have good relationships with your former employees. Check with them to see if they are interested in your open positions. If they aren’t, you can ask them for referrals as well. This can get you access to a larger talent pool for nurse recruitment.
You can also get in touch with your previous applicants. These are the people who had almost landed the job but didn’t make the final cut. You can get in touch with them to see if they now have the requisite qualifications or are interested in the job.
And you can even reach out to those finalists who had turned down your offers in the past. Get in touch with them with your new offer and see if it interests them. If it’s still not the right fit for them, you can ask them for referrals.
5. Have a Great Offer Letter
You’ve managed to get some really good nurses through the interview process. However, if your offer letter doesn’t highlight the advantages of the job, the best nurses may not accept it. For this reason, it is important to craft an enticing job offer letter that shows all of the advantages of the job.
A great way to do this is through a platform like Candidate Rewards. You can create a customized landing page for each candidate where they can see the complete summary of their offer.
It shows the monetary value of each benefit that is offered along with the compensation. This will help you show the actual value of the offer to the candidates. You can even include videos from other employees and your CEO for candidates to view.
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With Candidate Rewards, you can also see how the candidates interact with the offer letters in real time. So you’ll be able to figure out trends and determine what the candidates seem to value the most. And these insights will help you sweeten up the offer for them.
Final Thoughts
Although there definitely is a shortage in the supply of nurses, through smart recruitment, you can get good talent onboard. Through referrals, you can get direct access to the close circles of your employees. By giving them attractive offer letters, you can show them the complete value of the job and entice them with it. A good onboarding process can also make all the difference.
How important is the offer letter in the nurse recruitment process? Let us know your views in the comments section below.