Talent pooling is an important recruitment practice that creates and maintains a database with qualified candidates for a company. Candidates can apply to open requisitions or evergreen job postings for the company to start building their application pool.
This recruitment activity does more than collect applications, resumes, and cover letters. It also ensures the company is obtaining a curated list of potential high-quality candidates to fill future requisitions. Healthcare recruitment requires a strong talent pool to ensure the best candidates are in charge of patient care.
Why Talent Pooling Is Crucial for Healthcare Recruitment
Building a candidate pool for healthcare recruitment is important because it builds a steady pipeline of qualified healthcare professionals. Hospitals, nursing homes, drug rehabs, and other healthcare organizations can benefit from building a candidate pool in many ways. Having access to qualified candidates can immediately answer staffing needs and reduce the time-to-fill metric. Increased candidate quality from talent pooling can also ensure the highest standards of patient care are met within this competitive landscape.
Shortages and High Turnover
The healthcare industry experiences staffing shortages and high turnover levels. Talent pooling in this industry ensures that the most qualified candidates can fulfill their roles in patient care. Some patients’ conditions are a matter of life and death, especially in surgery and emergency sectors. Hence, healthcare recruitment requires the most talented candidates who are mentally prepared for anything.
It was clear at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that turnover was at its highest for healthcare professionals for fear of catching the virus. Turnover levels have reduced since then, but they are still too high, hindering sick patients from receiving care.
The 2024 NSI National HealthCare Retention & RN Staffing Report revealed the changes in turnover rates for various healthcare organizations and professions. Hospitals nationwide experienced a turnover rate of 25.9% in 2021. That high rate thankfully leveled out to 20.7% in 2023.
Registered Nurses (RNs) had the highest turnover rate of 27.1% in 2021 during a five-year range between 2019 to 2023. The current turnover rate examined in 2023 is now 18.4%, which is a considerable drop from its highest level in 2021.
When evaluating the highest turnover rates for RNs by profession, telemetry took the cake in 2022 at 27.1%. This decreased to 23.7% in 2023, but it was still the highest turnover rate amongst RN professions. Other evaluated professions were pediatrics, surgical services, burn center, women’s health, critical care, medical/surgical, behavioral health, step-down, and emergency services.
Faster Hiring Processes
With more candidates in a healthcare organization’s talent pool, you can hasten time-to-hire. You don’t have to wait for more applicants to fill the pool once you post a requisition. Instead, you can browse the candidate matches from your ATS software’s resume parsing feature to get started on recruitment immediately.
Cost Efficiency
Healthcare recruitment invokes a sense of urgency because staff shortages can hinder patient care. Developing a talent pool controls recruitment costs. Rather than purchasing a sponsored job post for every open requisition, cost efficiency is best achieved by keeping evergreen job postings on your website to help build the talent pool.
Building An Effective Talent Pool
Now that you know why candidate pooling is important for healthcare, let’s learn how to build an effective one.
Identify Your Needs
What are your company’s current and future staffing needs? Which position requires more professionals on staff than others? Determining these needs ensures you build an applicant pool for your company’s most in-demand positions.
Engage With Potential Candidates
Remain engaged with all potential candidates in online communities and at job fairs and networking events. If a candidate asks about an open requisition on your company’s social media account, answer immediately with a link to the job board. At in-person events, answer all the candidates’ questions and tell them everything they need to know about open requisitions and company culture.
Leverage Technology
Recruitment technology is your best friend as you build an effective talent pool. Track candidate progress through the application process with an applicant tracking system. Once a candidate is officially a new hire, you can transfer their data from the ATS software to the HRIS.
Don’t forget to integrate with customer relationship (CRM) tools for your recruitment strategy. This can be found in Cadient’s ATS software where you can send correspondence through Cadient Texting for candidate engagement. CRMs can also help to run background checks, enhance lead generation, and institute customizable workflows to automate recruitment tasks.
Nurture Your Talent Pool
Send mass emails or texts to your talent pool to regularly engage with them. Send company newsletters to them to make them feel like they are a part of the team already. You can also invite candidates to webinars to learn more about involved roles and company culture. Making potential hires feel like part of the team will make them more willing to join if they receive a job offer from your company.
Assess and Update Regularly
Evaluate your talent pool at least every 6 months. Engage with responsive candidates and remove the people who are unresponsive or applied a long time ago. When you send requisition updates to these candidates, you can also offer an opt-out option to manage your talent pool list.
Healthcare Recruiting Strategies for Effective Talent Pooling
Follow these strategies to recruit top candidates from your healthcare organization’s talent pool.
Develop a Stronger Employer Brand
Developing a strong employer brand attracts candidates to apply for open requisitions. What is the mission and vision of your healthcare organization? What are some unique benefits of being affiliated with your company? Also, note any career development opportunities you want to give current employees.
Utilize Social Media and Online Platforms
Healthcare talent management is most effective when candidate sourcing with social media and other online platforms. Job boards and online healthcare societies are other online options where you can post open requisitions to seek top talent.
Posting jobs on healthcare-specialized job boards (HealthcareSource) can ensure higher candidate quality because more field professionals will frequent these specific job boards. Posting on general job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter can enhance candidate outreach, but it may not yield as high quality of candidates as the former suggestion.
Collaborate With Educational Institutions
Host outreach events at healthcare schools and universities for graduates to consider working for your organization once they complete their degrees. Offering internship programs during their collegiate journey can also nurture future long-term full-time employees.
Implement An Employee Referral Program
Employee referral programs are essential for successful healthcare recruitment. Chances are, some of your employees know another healthcare professional from a prior workplace. Develop an employee referral program and share the link with current staff so they can help your recruitment team add to the talent pool.
Focus On Diversity and Inclusion
Focusing on diversity and inclusion enhances your company’s cultural competence. Candidates want to see that you are willing to employ people of various backgrounds, races, and ethnicities to fill the needs of an also diverse patient population. Inclusive recruiting practices will boost employee morale while strengthening your employer’s brand.
