By Eric Semon, Director of Customer Success, HiringThing

Newsflash — Americans are living longer.

Okay, so that news isn’t really groundbreaking. According the the Department of Health and Human Services, we currently have approximately 50 million residents over the age of 65. That number is expected to soar over 72 million by the year 2025.

What is newsworthy here is the ramifications that our aging population presents. As the average life expectancy continues to climb, new and growing industries are being created to meet the needs of our senior citizens. One of those emerging markets is in Home Health Care. While a lot industries nationwide are seeing job growth declining, the need for home health aides and personal care aides is forecasted to grow by almost 70% between 2010 and 2020. These positions are attractive to job seekers because there are low barriers to enter this job market; no advanced degrees, no high technical knowledge, or extensive job history is required.



That being said, this industry also suffers from high employee turnover, so it is vital for Home Health Care organizations to be able to create a recruitment strategy that will reduce employee churn, while at the same time cultivate a rewarding and engaging workplace.

So what can Home Health Care providers do to meet the challenges that this job market presents? Here are a few suggestions moving forward:

1) Get Organized

It is vital for Home Health Care providers to have accurate and detailed documentation to manage the recruitment process. This starts with creating and storing compelling job descriptions for positions with heavy churn. Having your applicants stored electronically can help with the management process as well, both from a compliance standpoint, but also for the ability to create solid candidate database pools for future consideration.

2) Background Checks and Assessments

Given the lower barrier to entry and high degree of turnover, selecting applicants that fit with the desired personality traits of these positions is crucial. Identifying key characteristics, and employing effective assessment tools to measure these traits is critical. Equally important is to ensure that potential employees will not present a danger to those that you are entrusting them to care for.

3) Design an effective job advertising strategy

In addition to compelling job descriptions, Home Healthcare Providers need to be able to formulate an effective strategy for advertising their positions.

Start with a solid applicant management platform (like HiringThing) to help you organize the process.
Find niche job boards specifically geared to the healthcare industry – healthjobsusa.com, careervitals.com, and healthcarejobboardnetwork.com are all great examples of targeted job boards.
Take advantage of local sites that are effective in bringing in quality talent (Craigslist) and also take advantage of free job boards (Indeed.com, Simplyhired.com, and Directemployers.com).
Look out for local events and job fairs to meet directly with potential applicants.
Utilize social media to reach out to potential applicants where they live online.
Create a cohesive strategy across all of your external sources that reflects the brand and image you want your organization to display to job candidates.

4) Monitor Results

Be sure to have effective procedures and reporting in place that will let you know how your recruitment strategy is working. You will want to make sure you are effectively monitoring the following reporting criteria:

External recruitment sources to see where you are getting your best applicants
Cost per hire
Time to hire
Job post response over time

5) Brand your organization

Given the highly competitive market for care providers, you need to make your organization stand out from the competition by effectively marketing your company as a place that values the needs and motivations of your work staff. As with your job advertising strategy, you will want to create a campaign that captures the values of your organization, and makes it attractive to potential employees.

6) Create, Analyze, Modify

Remember that creating a recruitment strategy isn’t the end of your journey, but merely a start in the process to help improve future results. Monitor the process and be open and flexible to changes in the strategy to improve its overall effectiveness.