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Posted by Positive People Recruitment Ltd on 23/04/2016

Healthcare recruiting mistakes you should avoid

Healthcare recruiting mistakes you should avoid

Recruiting in healthcare is complex; you’re dealing with a high volume of job applicants for multi-disciplinary positions, competing in the search for talented, experience and qualified candidates, adjusting to ever reducing budgets, responding to staff shortages, and many many more.

Essentially, recruiters and hiring managers are expected “to do more with less,” and in the hectic healthcare environment, that is no easy feat.

In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible in the increasingly complex world of healthcare recruitment, here are four healthcare hiring mistakes that can easily be avoided

Mistake 1: Looking for the perfect CV

It’s important to remember that it’s not about finding the perfect CV. It’s about finding the perfect person. It would be naive to base your new healthcare recruitment plan on CVs alone. When recruiting in healthcare, you can’t just look at an applicant’s professional experience, academic credentials, and skill-sets. You have to look at the applicant’s inherent behavioural competencies, such as compassion, adaptability, and service-orientation. By using behavioural assessments, you’ll have the opportunity to evaluate whether or not the candidate is a cultural best fit for your organisation.

It’s important to choose a behavioural assessment solution that compares the individual’s results to healthcare peer benchmark data in order to objectively uncover their innate strengths and weaknesses. These types of assessments are a proven way to identify those who are most likely to succeed in your organisation. Remember, no matter how perfect someone looks on paper, it’s not going to work out in the long run if their personal values and behavioural competencies lack alignment with the organisation’s culture and mission.

Mistake 2: Going with your gut instinct and your gut instinct alone

A gut feeling is an instinctual and/or emotional reaction to something based on unconscious thoughts, rather than logical rationale. While you may feel pressure from senior leaders and hiring managers to fill open positions and reduce your time this takes, it’s important to be sure that you’re thoroughly evaluating all candidates before extending a formal job offer.  While your gut may be right at times, it can also be wrong. With that said, you can avoid the risk and repercussions of a bad hire by taking a proactive and formalised approach to interviewing with behavioural assessments.

By incorporating assessments and behavioural based interviewing into your recruiting processes, you’ll be able to conduct more strategic in person interviews by asking questions that will reveal a candidate’s cultural competencies.  When qualified candidates are interviewed in person, recruiters and hiring managers can rely on customised follow up questions, designed to probe any potential weaknesses revealed in the results. Candidates often say that the questions really make them think about themselves and their behaviours in more depth. And those same individuals frequently turn out to be the best applicants. We find that the percentage of quality candidates we interview is much higher as a result of using a behaviour assessment tool, and higher quality staff translates into a better service.

Even though they may have sailed through the interview and used the “I want to get into healthcare to help people” line, it’s important to focus recruiting those who have the competencies to succeed, not just the desire.

Mistake 3: Overlooking a candidates reference checks

Using the old phone based reference checking is always a hassle (and now not allowed under CQC guidelines), and never gives you the insights you really need on the candidate. Often, recruiters give up on getting through to the reference over the phone or the former employer gives a glowing review of an average (or worse, bad) candidate.

By using an automated reference assessment, everything is done online and the reference questions are based on behavioural information. The questions are more focused on how the former employee has actually seen the candidate perform on the job. For example, the old phone based reference question, which isn’t terribly accurate would be, “How would you rate this care support worker’s ability to interact in a caring manner with clients/service users?” However, giving the referee the ability to rank a statement such as, “He/she takes actions that demonstrate concern for the feelings of the clients/service users,” allows for a more accurate response. Unfortunately in some instances past employers will refuse to give opinions about past employees so it’s worth contacting a few from their CV if in doubt. Alternatively a good character reference from someone impartial can also pull out facts about their ability, skill, experience and desire.

Mistake 4: Assuming your job is done after the offer is accepted 

After going through the whole recruiting process, recruiters tend to move on to filling the next position. But wait, you’re not done yet!  It’s important to keep track of how well the new employee is performing. Engage the employee by following up with them for the first 90 days or a slightly longer duration. An applicant tracking system that was used before the recruiting process should now be used to track and check in with the new employee. If you positively contribute to new hire retention, you’ll become even more valuable to your healthcare organisation.

And never forget that healthcare recruiters are a supportive backbone of healthcare by indirectly delivering quality care by providing quality talent for their clients and customers. Working with a reliable, tried & tested and bespoke healthcare recruitment company like Positive People is key. If you work with the same recruiter on a regular basis you can be sure they match to your requirements and understand your company values and culture and are there when you need them either for temporary staffing or to find you the right person to fill a vacant post.

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