No one can argue that nowadays when it comes to hiring, times are tough. There are more jobs than employees to fill them, and this problem is only more pronounced in the world of healthcare. In today’s landscape, finding quality applicants for roles like nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and physicians can be extraordinarily challenging.
Because of this, it is now more important than ever to make your company’s job posting stand out. No longer are generic postings bringing in enough applications. Even if you can get a good volume of applications, do you have the right, well-qualified applicants that your company needs? Are the people that are applying the right fit for your specific job posting and your organization?
Fortunately for employees and sometimes unfortunately for employers, healthcare workers now often have the ability to pick and choose which jobs they want to apply for. Many applicants are receiving multiple job offers and may skip over job postings that are bland, non-specific, or do not “stand out” to them.
Show Them the Money
With all of this in mind, how CAN you bring in more qualified and serious applicants to your job posting? As a provider, I can say that there are certain key things that can be placed into job postings that have been shown to bring in good candidates.
The first of these is the listing of salary ranges. It has been shown that even if the listed salary ranges are below average, job postings with specific salary numbers draw in more qualified applicants. Listing these types of numbers is almost always better than listing phrases like “great compensation” or “competitive salary.” Most job applicants, especially those to healthcare roles, know the salaries that they are aiming for when applying to a job. Thus, seeing a specific number is much more alluring than having to guess what exactly “great compensation” really means.
So, where exactly do you get this type of salary data? Because the information does not have to be exact, many employers will use numbers from specific job search sites like Indeed or Glassdoor. From a provider’s perspective, I would be even more interested in a job that lists location-specific salary data, the likes of which can be obtained from sources like the AAPA Salary Report or Medscape’s Physician Compensation Overview. Healthcare providers as a whole respect data-driven information, especially when it comes to their professional lives.
What Else Can You Offer?
Another way to bring in quality applicants is to list very specific information about a job, including things like office hours, on-call schedules, weekend schedules, and details on benefits packages. In general, the more specific a job posting is, the more applicants that will show interest.
As a healthcare provider, the last thing I would want is to spend time applying to a job, setting up an interview, and going through an entire interview process just to learn that the benefits are not a good fit for my family and me. Healthcare providers are generally very busy people, so if I see that a job has what I am looking for right on the job posting, I am much more likely to apply than to pass it up for something else.
It also cannot be overstated how important a schedule can be to healthcare providers. Often, we leave jobs or apply to new ones due to scheduling issues or conflicts at previous places of employment. If your job has no weekends, flaunt this! If you offer a generous shared call schedule, make sure applicants see this on the job posting.
One last thing to mention is something that is very often not present in job postings that I have seen: a job’s location. As healthcare providers, sometimes a new job means moving across the country. If your job is located next to beautiful beaches, pristine state parks, or up-and-coming college towns, put this in the job description. Applicants love to see these types of little details. After all, we often live where we work, so loving the area around our job is just as important as loving the job itself.
Why Are You Hiring in the First Place?
In order to make job postings more attractive to potential applicants, it has been shown to be very important to include information on why the actual job is available. It is very important to be open and honest when hiring to avoid quick turnover and maintain good employee retention.
For example, applicants really like to know why job positions have become available. Rather than saying something like “Our practice is looking for another Physician Assistant to join our team,” maybe a phrase like “We are growing our practice and are looking for a Physician Assistant to grow alongside us!” would sound better to applicants. As a provider, I would be happier knowing that I am entering a job not because someone was disgruntled and left, but because the practice is growing and seeking more providers to handle increasing patient referrals.
If you are indeed hiring to replace an employee who has left, applicants are more comfortable knowing this, as it will be made known eventually. Maybe a provider is retiring, moving specialties or practices, or is moving away. Within reason, it may be important to let applicants know this. I would be more willing to apply for a position with an employer who I know I can trust and who can trust me.
Conclusion
In the end, the hiring process can be lengthy and difficult. Providing more details about your specific job may make the entire hiring process more fluid and bring in more qualified candidates. If you want your job posting to stand out, it is important to be open, honest, and as detail oriented as possible. Healthcare personnel have more options than ever for employment, and in this competitive landscape, making your job posting stand out from the crowd is the key to finding good employees.
**Editor’s Note: Now that you’ve got some insight on what makes a job posting attractive to candidates, why not consider advertising your healthcare jobs with us?**
