There is no doubt that the healthcare sector will remain an important part of the U.S. economy for years to come. It’s not just that health care is, for obvious reasons, indispensable to society. The march of time is another factor. Due to the aging of the Boomer generation, as well as the general increase in the national population, the need for trained medical personnel will only rise in the coming years.
That’s certainly good news for persons employed in this industry. For healthcare recruiters, however, the news is mixed. Finding the right talent for a given position can be difficult, due to the relative dearth of qualified candidates, as demand for capable individuals frequently exceeds the available supply by a considerable margin. Often, recruiters are forced to draw candidates from a much smaller pool than they would prefer.
It’s not easy for a healthcare recruiting agency to promote organizational growth in this environment—but that’s what needs to happen if you expect to remain in business over the long term. Here are some ideas for growing your agency.
Get Involved in the Industry – Don’t assume that you can just post job listings on the internet and wait for the resumes to arrive. Industry associations, such as the American Health Care Association (www.ahcancal.org) and the American Staffing Association (www.americanstaffing.net), provide excellent educational and networking tools that you should take advantage of.
Trade shows offer additional opportunities. Unlike a generalist recruiter, you have the luxury of focusing your attention on a particular industry, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be properly educated on developing trends in healthcare.
Stay in Contact with Your Clients & Candidates – We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: We live in a 24/7 recruiting world these days. You can’t afford to let emails sit in your inbox for days at a time. That means you need tools that enable you to check and respond to emails, access resumes and related materials, and make phone calls with minimal effort, even when you’re in the parking lot, sitting in traffic, or waiting for the bagels to pop out of the toaster. You can do all this and more with Exelare cloud-based applicant tracking software.
Take a Look at Your Expenses – Your efforts at achieving growth could come to nothing if you’re simply throwing money out the window. What are you spending money on? What is taking up valuable company time? Try to eliminate wasteful spending—simply doing that may enable you to pull out of the red.
One way to save money is by outsourcing certain business functions, such as accounting. Similarly, look at your recruiting metrics for more opportunities to squeeze out waste. How long does it take to fill a position? How much time and energy are you devoting to each client? Check the numbers for areas that need improvement.