By: Adam Gomez
Ever wondered what the most common question a consultant in the travel healthcare staffing world hears? Wonder no more. The question is, “How do I hire recruiters?”
It truly isn’t surprising, given the important role recruiters play. After all, you can strip the agency of all the executives and leadership positions and still function. Some would argue you may even thrive as a company in the present market.
The recruiter role is the only revenue-generating position within a travel healthcare staffing firm. Some will argue account managers can also generate, or at a minimum, contribute to revenue. I would absolutely agree. But, without talent, you can have all the jobs in the world to fill and not generate revenue. Finding a job these days in a heavy VMS/MSP market is actually much easier than finding a candidate.
Attracting Top Talent
Hiring top performers is a challenge in a competitive market. With so much riding on your ability to bring in new talent, it’s important that you have a strategy for attracting these highly sought-after individuals. Here are some keys to attracting top candidates to your recruitment team:
1. Become an “employer of choice” in your market.
A friend of mine mentioned this phrase to me many months ago and it stuck in my head. It’s a concept that entails attracting A-players from within your industry and keeping them.
Attracting top talent to your company is critical to your company’s overall success rate when it comes to hiring. If you’re attracting a large group of “B and C” candidates, you’re going to hire B- and C-grade talent. To attract top talent, your company must focus on becoming an employer of choice in your local market. How does one become an employer of choice?
Commitment to Training and Development. Leading organizations invest heavily in their employees when it comes to professional training and development. These organizations are perceived to be more employee-friendly and place greater value on each employee.
On-boarding and the Employee Experience. Great organizations invite new employees to immerse themselves into the culture from day one – and even before! Yes, your company should have a clear process in place for training your new talent on your company’s CRM, your policies and procedures, and the many “other” not-so-sexy bits of information they’ll need to know. But, smart organizations understand the significance of the employees’ experiences with other members of the team. And, they commit time and resources to create these opportunities throughout employment, beginning on the first day. In a nutshell, they place tremendous value on each member of their internal team.
Trusted Leadership Team. You know the phrase. It goes like this: “Employees don’t leave bad jobs; they leave bad bosses.” It doesn’t take long for information to spread these days and you better believe that word about how your leadership team “manages” your employees will get out on the streets. It’s important that you promote and train leaders who empower and develop members of your team.
2. Understand Your “Why” and Put it On Display.
If you’re solely focusing on how much your recruiters make during their first year of employment, you will attract opportunists looking for the next big thing. It may help you in the short-term, but long-term sustainable growth is what many can – and should, in my opinion – prefer. How do you attract talent any other way? Connect the vision of your company along with your values to the mission your team is committed to. And no, the mission is not to make a lot of money. Although, in reviewing several job postings for recruiters in travel healthcare, it seems that is the “go-to” carrot for marketers promoting their jobs! Companies that can successfully connect each of these dots (i.e.,vision, values, and mission) are able to capture the imagination of these talented folks and draw them in. How will you impact the market in a way that is different from the competition? What is it about joining your team that will improve their lives?
3. Survey, Survey, Survey.
Develop a system for collecting feedback from each of these key areas:
Current employees. How do they feel about working for your company? Would they recommend a friend to your company? Why, or why not? It’s important you look for any patterns here.
Previous employees. What are they saying about your company? Sure, there are circumstances where we know what we’re going to get if we ask but it can be potentially valuable information, especially if you begin to see patterns emerge in the feedback you receive.
Applicants You Didn’t Hire or Those Who Rejected an Offer. Wait…what? Yes, that’s right! You should solicit feedback from applicants who didn’t land on your team for one reason or another. These can be applicants you simply didn’t choose to proceed with or who rejected an offer. These folks have a very limited perspective of your company which is exactly the reason you should be asking for their feedback. They are likely not going to pull any punches if the hiring process at your company is lacking in any way.
4. Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.
Every organization must withstand market pressures. And every organization will have to navigate unforeseen challenges. Cultural shifts which are a part of growth in any business will sometimes work to undermine all efforts to stay the course. In the end, every business must always have the ability to improvise based on the present situation, adapt to the market, and ultimately overcome all barriers and obstacles they face. The best organizations in any industry recognize this and many have adopted guiding principles which promote it.
It seems kinda funny when you think about it. Travel healthcare staffing businesses are built around the fact they are able to effectively recruit. And yet, many agencies struggle when it comes to recruiting recruiters! The reason many companies struggle is they have not committed to a clear strategy when it comes to hiring. Many are simply hiring based on a gut feeling, or a process that varies from applicant to applicant. As with anything in life, you surely get what you put into it when it comes to hiring recruiters. If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that you need to make some changes, please contact us here at Moxie. We’ve got some experience in this area and can help! Contact us at info@moxiementoring.me. And if you’ve got some feedback on this topic, please share away in the comments section below! Thank you for reading! Please be sure to check out Part 2 of this series on hiring travel healthcare recruiters, coming soon. If you don’t want to miss out on this article and future articles by our team at Moxie, click on https://moxiementoring.me/moxie-musings and sign up to receive all future blogs directly to your inbox!