Living in a digital world means that interpersonal interactions are happening more and more often online. For recruiters looking to engage candidates and fill new positions, this can blur the line between talent management and digital marketing.
Recruitment marketing applies modern marketing strategies and tools to the process of talent acquisition.
Social media marketing, which helps companies build online audiences, can bring more eyes to job posts. Search engine optimization (SEO) makes local and industry-specific jobs easy to search and find. And marketing analytics tools, normally used for marketing campaigns and website performance, allow recruiters to track efforts and refine their approach.
Why Is Recruitment Marketing So Important for Healthcare?
The goal of recruitment marketing is to drive talent towards open positions and into the hiring funnel. These talent acquisition strategies have become increasingly important for high-demand industries like healthcare that are facing nationwide talent shortages.
Nursing is one of the fast-growing healthcare occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But an aging workforce and limited nursing program enrollment indicate a widening gap between new job openings and available talent.
Healthcare Hiring During COVID-19
Despite an obvious and continued need for medical professionals during the pandemic, COVID-19 had a devastating effect on the healthcare employment rate. Over 1.5 million healthcare jobs were lost in the first few months alone. Issues of insufficient pay, understaffed facilities, health risks to family, and burnout may also have contributed, leading to higher turnover rates and more professionals leaving the workforce.
While COVID-19 has done nothing to solve the shortage, there is some indication that healthcare employment is in recovery. The BLS’ latest employment report showed a small increase in new healthcare jobs. Though long-term care and skilled nursing facilities have not seen much growth this year, home health services are rising steadily. Altogether, healthcare still needs to regain about 500,000 jobs to hit pre-pandemic levels.
In an uncertain job market, creating a solid recruitment marketing strategy can help position your facility competitively in a post-COVID economy.
Implementing Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy
Recruitment marketing, like any other marketing strategy, comes with a myriad of options and strategies. But your organization needs a plan that will capture quality candidates and allow you to hire and onboard at speed.
Here are a few ways to create a recruitment marketing strategy that stands out.
Build a Strong Brand
One of the challenges of a tight market is that the best talent is aware they’re able to be selective. Vying for candidates who can pick and choose makes it crucial for you to demonstrate your unique value as an employer. Treat your employer brand as you would your company’s brand and build assets around it to showcase why top talent should choose you over the competition.
Communicate your company’s mission, vision, values, and company culture in any recruitment content you send out. Your materials should also reflect the people that work there, so include individual bios of staff and photos of day-to-day work activities and company events. Employee testimonials are another great way to promote your organization and highlight a positive work culture.
If you offer employee development programs or benefits like child care assistance, flexible scheduling, or mental health days, make sure they’re listed on your careers page and in each job description.
Promote Jobs Like a Product or Service
Like employer branding, you should put the same time and care into promoting your open roles as you would marketing your company to potential residents or clients.
Effective marketing strategies require a budget and carefully chosen distribution channels, based on your audience’s needs and interests. Determine the best platforms to promote your job posts on (or have someone like us do it for you) and set a percentage of your marketing budget aside for distribution.
Promote open positions on your social media channels so they can easily be shared with your current audience. Consider adding paid ad campaigns to your strategy to increase the reach of each post and target potential candidates by location or occupation.
Take advantage of analytics and marketing reporting tools to track job post performance across multiple channels. This will also make it easier to isolate which platforms work best and refine your strategy.
Refine Your Job Post SEO
Major search engines like Google are often the first place people go to begin a job search, which presents recruiters with a huge marketing opportunity. SEO focuses on creating and updating search-friendly content so that it ranks higher on results pages, giving your facility a competitive advantage.
Position your job posts to rank well with unique job pages that include industry and title keywords, location, and other proper schema that search engine bots can crawl for searches.
A few examples of the types of information job posts and pages should include for better optimization and ranking:
- Job titles that use standard terminology and highlight industry sector
- Employment type and pay rate
- Expected work schedule and hours
- Education and experience requirements, including qualifications and certifications
- Other necessary skills, such as software proficiency or ability to lift more than 50lbs
- Clear summary of job responsibilities and duties
Streamline and Automate the Hiring Process
A recruitment marketing strategy is only as good as the tools that support it. With the right solutions and workflows in place, you can attract, engage, and onboard candidates quickly and efficiently.
Spending money on individual job boards can be time-consuming and costly, especially without a strategic approach. Consider investing in a platform that handles distribution for you and optimizes your job posts to entice more top talent.
Healthcare’s notoriously high days-to-hire and competitive market mean the speed at which you can review applications and request interviews makes all the difference. Solutions that automate applicant screening, allow you to book virtual interviews, and onboard talent within the platform can help reduce the time from application to offer.
Recruitment solutions like Apploi offer a customized, user-friendly hiring experience for both applicants and HR staff, leveraging digital tools for a streamlined process.
Interested in learning more about how you can recruit, hire, and on-board healthcare staff quickly? Contact us today for a free demo of our end-to-end solution.
