Staffing shortages in the healthcare field have been a long-standing issue and the ongoing pandemic has only exacerbated the problem—especially for states like Texas, Florida, and Missouri. The demand for experienced healthcare professionals makes it a jobseeker’s market and employers face fierce competition to attract and retain top talent. To improve your competitiveness as an employer, you must improve your healthcare candidate experience.

What is a good candidate experience?

A good candidate experience includes a process designed to move a healthcare job candidate through interviews to an offer quickly and efficiently. Employers are responsive, replying promptly and without ghosting candidates. They’re fully engaged in listening to the candidate’s needs and transparent to ensure the candidate has all the information they need to decide whether they wish to proceed. The entire hiring process should be streamlined with minimal back and forth on documents, credentials, and other required qualifications.

A poor candidate experience results in low applicant flow and lots of dropouts. Without a higher volume of applicants, you can’t meet your hiring goals. It can also have long-term ill effects for your brand because job seekers often share negative candidate experiences with their friends and other people in their network. They’re also unlikely to reapply with an organization when the previous result was a negative experience. Use these five tips to improve your healthcare candidate experience and your odds of luring top talent to your open positions.

1) Communicate promptly through text and chat

Frequent communication is one of the most important steps of improving your candidate experience. Many job seekers are dissatisfied with the level of communication they receive from potential employers. Staying in touch with the candidate supports a quick process and communicating through text and chat offers an easy way to provide prompt responses. Your level of engagement makes candidates feel that you’re responsive and they’re being heard when they ask questions. Responding within 15 minutes makes it 90% more likely a candidate will agree to interview with you.

2) Be transparent about the role and pay

Transparency is a great way to attract the right healthcare professionals to your organization and screen out the wrong candidates. Discovering late in the hiring process that there’s a significant gap between offered and expected salary frustrates the candidate and employer, and creates a poor candidate experience.

Share the hourly rate, bonuses, benefits, and opportunities for advancement upfront. If the salary is variable, share a pay range or “starting at” pay rate to give candidates a clear idea of what to expect. Be open about what makes a candidate eligible for a higher salary, such as education level, type and years of experience, healthcare specialties and certifications, etc.

3) Propose jobs to candidates who appear to be a good fit

Whether your organization is a healthcare facility or staffing agency, platforms like Vivian Health make it easier to find and propose jobs to candidates with the right qualifications. Ensure candidates who appear to be a good fit are more likely to respond to your proposed job by personalizing your message to them.

4) Showcase what it’s like to work at your organization

Get candidates excited about working for your organization before they even speak with a recruiter by showcasing what it’s like to work with you. Candidates want information about your organization, including how it functions, its values, and the work environment. Fulfill this need by putting more thought into the messaging on your organization’s profile on job sites. Vivian Health helps clients improve their employer profile, messaging, and overall branding to increase the candidate’s enthusiasm about applying with your organization.

5) Let your employees speak for you

Employer review sites, such as those on Vivian Health, help candidates learn more about potential employers and make their final decision about where to work. While you may be hesitant in allowing employees to review you publicly, candidates will see that you trust your employees when you support honest reviews. Positive, honest reviews also are more likely to be believed than anything you write about yourself. Consider incentivizing your top performers to write reviews to ensure a balanced perspective.

Schedule a demo with Vivian Health to see how we can help you improve the healthcare candidate experience and meet your hiring needs.