Caregiver Recruitment: Tips for Building a More Effective Recruitment Funnel
Published on August 17, 2022 by Sharon Morrisette
The competition between home care providers to find and keep high-quality caregivers has never been hotter. The impact of the ongoing caregiver shortage can be seen across all states and is expected to continue through 2028.
There is no simple solution for a complex problem like this. However, innovative home care providers are looking to build and manage more effective recruitment funnels as part of their strategy to attract (and keep) top talent and support steady business growth.
What is a caregiver recruitment funnel?
A recruitment funnel looks like an inverted triangle and is a framework that defines the multiple stages of the caregiver recruitment process from start to finish. It gradually narrows down the caregiver candidate pool until the desired number of hires is reached.
It works in much the same way as a ‘sales and marketing’ funnel but converts potential candidates into valuable employees rather than leads into clients/sales.
When built and managed well, a recruitment funnel is proactive, constantly flowing, and creates a repeatable, scalable, and systematic approach – minimizing hiring obstacles and challenges.
Tips for building a more effective caregiver recruitment funnel
This blog highlights the key stages in a caregiver recruitment funnel, with tips to optimize candidate engagement at each stage.
We hope it will help your home care business build and manage a more effective recruitment funnel – to beat the competition in attracting, engaging, hiring, and retaining the best-fit caregivers.
Stage 1: Raise brand awareness
To attract as many potential candidates into your recruitment funnel as possible, you must build and promote your employer brand. This is where you can grab the attention of ‘informed caregiver candidates,’ build trust and create a lasting impression.
Employer branding in recruitment is critical to gaining an advantage over the competition, as home care providers look to enhance the candidate experience.
Stage 2: Attract the best candidates
To attract the best candidates, you must study your target audience and understand what inspires and motivates them. For example, an alignment of values, a good employer brand/reputation, rewards and benefits, opportunities for career development, and so on.
Combining this information with your ideal candidate profile will help you write focused, engaging job posts and descriptions that spark the interest of best-fit candidates. It will also reduce the number of unsuitable applicants you receive, saving you time and cost. For this first point of contact:
Stage 3: Automate the application process
An easy-to-use, streamlined, mobile-friendly application process – and quick response time – are essential to engage and secure the best candidates. Over 66% will apply for jobs via mobile phone, and up to 60% will abandon a job application if the process is too complex or the wait time is too long.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will significantly speed up the process, provide swift and valuable communication with all applicants, and guarantee HR compliance.
By automatically collecting and storing all candidates’ applications in one centralized hub, an ATS will help you manage applicants through the hiring pipeline to ensure quick, consistent and easy processing.
Stage 4: Utilize digital pre-selection tools
Home care providers are beginning to pay more attention to the pre-selection stage, rather than jumping straight from resumes to interviews. This stage is important in getting to know applicants better, filter out those that do not meet your basic requirements and fast-track those that seem ideal.
This can be an extremely time-consuming task, but digital tools are now widely available to reduce the hassle.
Consider an ATS, video interviews, chatbots, and pre-employment tests/assessments to further filter applicants before interview. As these are still part of the all-important candidate experience, you must make sure they are engaging.
Stage 5: Improve your interview strategy
Interviews are one of the most crucial stages in your recruitment funnel. They provide a perfect opportunity to get to know each applicant in greater detail and assess if they’re a good fit for your company, clients, and culture.
To improve your interview strategy, read our blogs on interview tips and techniques and the types of questions you should be asking.
Remember, it’s vital throughout all stages – but especially stages 4 and 5 – that you implement strategies that are inclusive and eliminate bias.
Stage 6: Make your offer compelling
Don’t let your processes fall apart at the final hurdle. After going to great lengths leading up to the job offer, now is not the time to lose focus. Caregivers are in high demand and have their pick of offers, so you need to make your offer quickly and make sure it is extremely attractive.
It’s essential to personalize job offers, as much as is feasible, to the chosen candidate(s) and be open to some negotiation. It isn’t just about the salary. Think flexible scheduling, training opportunities, unique additional benefits, etc.
Stage 7: Invest in the importance of onboarding
While onboarding is not typically considered part of the recruitment funnel, it should be for home care providers! The first 30 days in a new caregiver post are critical to recruitment and retention, and you need to find ways to support your new hires from Day 1.
Done well, onboarding can increase retention by up to 82%.
Please read our latest blogs for great tips and techniques to improve your orientation and onboarding processes – and deliver what you promised throughout the earlier stages.
Stage 8: Pay attention to the metrics
It isn’t enough to simply establish a recruitment funnel and hope for the best! You will need to track each stage and analyze the data to guarantee the most successful outcomes.
Pay attention to recruiting metrics, such as:
By measuring these metrics accurately and consistently, you gain the opportunity to carry out recruitment funnel analysis, which is vital for adjusting and improving your processes – and building the best-in-class recruitment funnel in home care!
Building an effective and challenge-free recruitment funnel for your home care business is no mean feat but it is well worth the effort, as it will:
For information on Smartcare Software tools to support your efforts in building a successful recruitment funnel, please call us, request a demo, or download a free copy of our Recruitment and Hiring E-Book.