8 Tips and Techniques to Super-Charge Your Caregiver Job Postings
Published on August 11, 2021 by Sharon Morrisette
The demand for high-quality home care services has never been greater. Yet, staffing up with high-quality talent to meet this increased demand has never been more challenging for home care agencies.
The competitive recruitment and hiring market, along with the growing demand for home care services, means home care agencies need an effective strategy to master the fine art of recruiting caregivers to build a robust pipeline of quality candidates.
Caregiver recruitment, engagement and retention begin from the first point of contact applicants will have with your agency – your job posting. This is your opportunity to make a great first impression to attract top talent and promote your brand.
It is vital to write job posts that attract the type of caregivers you’re looking for, address the current climate, promote your agency’s culture, and ensure you stand out from the competition. Getting this element right can significantly increase your pipeline of quality caregivers and, as a result, increase overall productivity and profitability.
See our blog 8 Top Tips for Writing the Perfect Caregiver Job Posting for practical guidance and strategies to make sure your job postings make a positive, significant impact.
Once you’ve mastered the basics of writing good job postings, you can raise the stakes by using these extra tips and techniques to super-charge your caregiver job postings and put you way ahead in the home care recruitment battle.
1. Study your target audience
Before you even begin to construct your job postings, you must understand your target audience. Your target candidates need to be firmly in your mind, so you can tailor your job posting to speak directly to them.
For example, are the positions you need to fill suitable for highly qualified, experienced caregivers, first-time caregivers, or career switchers? Each target group will require a slightly different approach.
Spend some time researching your target audience (you may have more than one) and put yourself in their shoes to know how to grab their attention, what makes them tick, their goals and aspirations, what they are looking for, etc.
The more you tailor your job postings to attract and engage each target group specifically, the greater your chance of attracting the ideal candidates your agency is looking for.
2. Create a human connection
Knowing your target audience and directly addressing them allows you to show your agency’s personality and create that all-important human connection. The way you communicate in your caregiver job postings should also reflect your company culture. In this way, you can better resonate with and engage the most suitable candidates.
It’s common knowledge that people buy into emotion before rationalizing with logic, so make sure your caregiver job postings tap into those emotions. You want to captivate the attention of potential applicants so they can envision themselves performing the role and making a positive difference.
By creating a more personal connection, you can sell your career opportunities in a unique and engaging way to attract quality (not quantity) caregivers and compel them to apply for your job posting over those of your competitors.
3. Avoid industry-specific language/terminology
Industry-specific language and jargon are helpful as shorthand between professionals and perfectly acceptable when everyone reading a report or attending a meeting understand it. However, it can be excluded when you use it in your caregiver job postings.
Potential applicants are more likely to read your full job posting if they understand the language used (including the job title!).
It is particularly relevant to be mindful of this when your target audience is first-time caregivers and career-switchers. Using industry-specific terminology and jargon that they may not yet understand will immediately put them off. They will just skip past your job posting, even though (with a little upskilling) they may be the perfect candidate your home care agency is looking for.
4. Use appropriate gender-coded language
When looking through dozens of job postings, caregivers will be scanning and making split-second decisions on whether they are interested in a position or not. The words and phrases you use can influence whether a caregiver applies for a job with your agency or is deterred from doing so.
Their decisions can be subconsciously influenced by subtle words and phrases, specifically those traditionally viewed as masculine or feminine.
Research shows that ‘masculine-coded’ language is more likely to attract male applicants and deter female applicants, and vice versa. As AARP reports that 75% of caregivers are female, it’s clear that the majority of your target audience will respond best to ‘feminine-coded’ language.
However, your home care agency can attract both male and female applicants equally, attracting a wider variety of talented caregivers by using neutral language in your job postings.
For more information about masculine-coded, feminine-coded, and neutral words and phrases, visit Gender Decoder.
5. Include a realistic job preview
When reading a job posting, caregivers can assume an unrealistic view of what the job involves on a day-to-day basis. Realistic job previews (RJP) avoid this issue and can be a great recruiting tool.
You can use RJPs to provide an honest and transparent view of what ‘a day in the life’ of the job role realistically involves, including its unique challenges and opportunities. You can talk with the previous holder of the position or employees who has worked with people in this role, as they will offer insights into what you should include.
To avoid overly lengthy job postings, RJPs can be delivered via video. A recent study showed that over 30% of prospective applicants prefer to see a job preview video before applying for a job.
A job preview gives prospective applicants an excellent feel for what the job at your agency entails and what to expect and helps them decide if they are a good fit before applying. This can help improve the quality of the caregiver applicants you receive and also help with job satisfaction and reduced turnover, as caregivers clearly understand their role before they start.
Here are six great examples of RJPs to inspire you: https://thrivemap.io/realistic-job-preview/
6. Show your commitment to caregiver training
The majority of caregivers are looking for more than just a good work environment. They are looking for opportunities that will help them to progress and achieve growth in their careers.
Every job posting should promote your home care agency’s commitment to continued caregiver training and development, including any programs you offer such as mentoring, upskilling, and personalized learning paths. These are all things that attract growth-mindset caregivers who are motivated to learn and improve.
Highlighting that your agency is a place where learning happens on a day-to-day basis, where caregivers can develop and grow, is key to attracting and engaging top talent.
It is a powerful message to send in your job postings, demonstrating that you care about your caregivers and support their personal and career growth.
7. Sell your agency’s culture, vision and values
It isn’t enough to simply list the job requirements in your job posting and call it a day in the current climate. You have to sell your home care agency in order to entice the brightest and the best. This means using strong messaging that sells your agency’s culture, vision, and values.
Recruiting is selling, and successful home care agencies know they need to transfer their enthusiasm for their agency and team. They don’t assume that potential applicants will automatically see the value of working for them!
What makes your home care agency so great to work for? Why do your caregivers look forward to going to work every day? What benefits do you provide? Do you have a caregiver reward program? What sets your agency apart? Tell your target audience how great your agency is to work for, using persuasive language that energizes and motivates them. Include links to awards, testimonials, and recommendations to back up your statements.
These are all aspects that you can use in your caregiver job postings to help applicants decide if your agency is right for them. Yes, you may lose some applicants by taking this approach, but they will be the ones that aren’t a good fit for your agency and will end up costing you time and money to replace.
Instead, focus on the applicants you will get, who are a good fit and much easier to retain. Caregiver applicants that feel aligned with and motivated by your agency’s culture, vision, and values will be more committed to working harder and staying longer.
8. Build a compelling career site
Beyond writing great job postings, your home care agency may benefit from a compelling career site. Most high-quality candidates apply to open roles on career sites rather than simply clicking ‘apply’ on several job board postings.
You can use your career site to highlight details about your agency’s culture, career progression opportunities, and unique benefits to incentivize top talent to join your team. Also, ensure your career site is mobile-friendly, so prospective applicants can read and apply to open roles via their mobile devices.
With the right job postings on your career site, you can attract and engage talented caregivers, helping to build a consistently strong pipeline for your open roles.
Top talent can only be attracted and engaged by top job postings. So even if you are offering fantastic opportunities within your agency, if you can’t sell them to potential applicants, you won’t find the candidates you are looking for.
Many tools are available to help streamline your entire recruitment process – saving you valuable time and resources. For example, with Smartcare’s applicant tracking system, all you have to do is write a great job posting and then let Smartcare software take care of the rest.
For more great tips on writing the perfect caregiver job postings, read our blog: 8 Top Tips for Writing the Perfect Caregiver Job Posting.
Smartcare software is a Complete Home Care Platform designed by caregivers. With Smartcare you have everything you need to manage, schedule, and operate your home care business. As a result, you can achieve better outcomes, higher satisfaction, and increase caregiver retention with a system that supports your home care agency and its goals.
Smartcare is currently offering its COVID-19 Toolset at no charge to all home care agencies. The Toolset App includes reminders, agency notices, symptom checks, contact tracing, and other essential virus risk mitigation tools to help you manage your response to the pandemic.
We are in this together. To find out more, email: covid19@smartcaresoftware.com.
To find out how Smartcare software can help you differentiate your service and strategy, contact us by phone: 1+ (800) 450-9104 or email: hello@smartcaresoftware.com.