How can you acquire skilled nurses with minimal overhead costs?

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How can your acquire skilled nurses with minimal overhead costs?

Last Updated on February 4, 2020

Fresh graduates from nursing schools are easy to recruit. Employers can find them quickly, and their payment terms are amicable too. Finding specialized nurses with years’ worth experience are harder to find. The talent pool is quite limiting. As a result, the competition is fierce.

Specialized skills in new nurses increase the challenge

Nurses are highly talented with skills in different aspects of medicine. Form palliative care to diabetic care, they have acquired unique skills from interning in research facilities, hospitals, and healthcare organizations. Nursing recruiting is highly competitive, thanks to long term care clinic, urgent facility clinic, and skilled nursing facilities.

Sinceismore nurses are training in specialized fields a  need to be articulate in their ads. They must know what skills they need and precisely advertise for those skills. Most skilled and experienced nurses are never “looking” for a new job. However, most of them are willing to take up a new opportunity when they show up.

Most trained nurses view job opportunities differently from other professionals. It is not about payment; it is about better equipment, better doctors, better guidance and new challenges. They are willing to work for the rest of their lives as long as they get to try new things.

Why is it difficult for smaller organizations to recruit nurses?

As a result, smaller organizations often find it harder to recruit nurses. If you are one of them, you need good PR and HR professionals who can highlight all the pros of working in your organization or facility. Most good nurses are attracted to children’s wards and highly specialized palliative care. If you are concentrating on a clinical trial on particular drugs or caring for elderlies, mention the facets of the job requirement accurately for the experienced nurses to consider.

For smaller organization, nurse retention is a bigger problem than recruitment. One way to get around this issue is to go by direct referrals from other employees. If your employees are happy at your facility, they might want to bring in their friends and family. This boosts the morale of the work environment and creates a coordinated workforce.

How to hire nurses quickly?

The nursing community is quite small. Most of the times, you will come across resumes because they know someone who works at your organization. You can try the following to actually recruiting nurses –

Employee referral programs –

Proactive referrals: ask your employees to provide contacts each month or every two months.

Referrals from referrals: if someone gives you a referral that works, ask the references for more contacts.

Skill based recommendations: ask your employees about the best colleagues they have worked with.

Recruitment at events –

Sponsored conferences and seminars: these are the nexuses for talent. Most nursing students, interns, and experienced nurses attend all sorts of seminars and conferences.

Ask for referrals actively during new-hire orientation –

This is for the time you desperately need new recruits. Ask your new hires for a list of the top three or top five nurses they have worked with.

Referrals create a cascading effect in a small but thriving experienced nursing community. Do not forget to include incentives while asking for active referrals from your employees.