5 Best Practices for Healthcare Recruitment Marketing

Smart healthcare recruiters know that the industry is shifting—fast. It’s no longer about meeting your immediate needs; it’s about building a robust talent pipeline of active and passive candidates so you can fill your positions with the right people at the right time. But how do you do that when there are growing healthcare worker shortages and hospitals are competing for the same doctors and nurses?¹

The answer: healthcare recruitment marketing. You need to incorporate recruitment strategies and best practices that:

• Build your employer brand
• Broadcast open positions
• Nurture candidates
• Attract top healthcare talent

However, most health systems are either not doing this at all—relying instead on job boards and word of mouth—or not doing this effectively. Here are the secrets and best practices to doing healthcare recruitment marketing right.

Best Practice #1: Utilize Comprehensive Data

In many industries, recruiting candidates who are actively looking for a new role is as simple as posting a position on your careers site and a few job boards. The trouble is: most healthcare workers aren’t searching for a job. For example, 76% of nurses and 86% of physicians aren’t actively looking to change employers.^2,3 That’s why healthcare recruiters need to proactively market open positions and source passive candidates.

So how do you reach passive candidates? The key element is data. You need a comprehensive database of local and national clinical talent, and having the names of potential candidates isn’t enough. You need to have:

Without this data, it’s almost impossible to run successful omni-channel marketing campaigns, which we’ll discuss later on.

Best Practice #2: Create Best-in-Class Employer-Branded Materials

Once you have the necessary data, the next step is developing marketing materials that bolster your health system and attract nursing and physician candidates. Here are some healthcare recruitment marketing best practices for your landing pages, emails, and other collateral:

Write Compelling Recruitment Messaging

• To get an edge over other healthcare organizations, emphasize your benefits and flexible work environment. For example, do you offer a signing bonus, 401(k) matching, or generous PTO? Make that clear in your employer-branded materials.
• Make your copy engaging and digestible by utilizing clear headlines, bullet lists, and short sentences.
• Tailor your messaging to where the candidate is in the engagement funnel, and make sure your wording is consistent with your brand voice.

Include Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

• Always include a call-to-action so candidates know what to do next and can easily move through the funnel.
• Keep the CTA text short—no longer than four words—and use strong verbs to urge quick action.
• Use CTA buttons, as they convert better than images, links, or plain text.
• Personalize your CTAs to boost conversion rates by over 200%.⁴

Execute Creative Designs

• Utilize whitespace and never overcrowd the content with text or images.
• Construct a typography hierarchy and use contrasting colors to make the important information stand out.
• Take a single design approach across your headers, fonts, color palettes, logos, and images.
• Use high-quality, engaging images, making sure the subject is clear and easily identifiable.

Best Practice #3: Take Advantage of Omni-Channel Marketing

Studies show that passive candidates need as many as 15 touchpoints with an organization before they consider switching jobs.⁵ That’s why it’s best practice to target potential candidates on multiple channels, including:

• Email marketing
• Social media
• Organic search
• Direct mail
• Live calls
• Paid search
• Banner ads
• Virtual solutions
• Landing pages

Best Practice #4: Optimize Continuously

Running healthcare recruitment marketing campaigns isn’t enough; you need to constantly optimize and tweak. Here are some best practices in healthcare recruitment marketing to follow:

A/B Test Often

Running healthcare recruitment marketing campaigns isn’t enough; you need to constantly optimize and tweak. Here are some best practices to follow:

• Follow a step-by-step process that includes designing a base layout, creating two variations, defining a test plan, collecting data, and then using the best variation moving forward.
• Only test one element of an email or webpage at a time. For example, you can A/B test the layout, subject line, headline, copy, form, or CTA button.
• Run the test long enough to have a substantive sample size; this will make it easier to tell if the results are statistically significant.

Score Candidates Based on Engagement

Set up a system to continuously rank nursing and physician candidates based on their interest in your health system. This will make it a lot easier to engage the right candidates at the right time. Here’s how this process works:

• For every action a candidate takes in the funnel, they earn points. (i.e., opening an email may be 1 point while clicking to your hospital’s career page may be 5.)
• Once a candidate hits a certain point total, the healthcare recruiter is immediately notified and will reach out.
• Every 30 days, the scoring system should be reviewed and tweaked to improve performance over time.

Best Practice #5: Communicate Effectively With Candidates

The Keys to Candidate Relationship Management

Sourcing healthcare candidates and getting them to fill out an application are only half the battle. After that, you need to follow best practices for candidate relationship management:

• Follow up within 24 hours of a candidate applying.
• Reach out to candidates at least 5 times.
• Vary the time of outreach, making sure to connect outside of business hours.
• Use different types of outreach, including calls, texts, and emails.
• Schedule and track your outreach, uploading responses to your CRM.

Moving Forward With Healthcare Recruitment Marketing

Implementing the above strategies will help healthcare recruiters build a robust talent pipeline and reduce time to hire by over 37%. However, the process can be complex and challenging, especially if you don’t have the expertise and know-how. The Katon Direct team has 17+ years of experience in healthcare recruitment marketing, and we’ll handle every step of the process so you don’t have to.

References

1. https://onlinenursing.duq.edu/post-master-certificates/ shortage-of-healthcare-workers/
2. https://mediakit.nurse.com/how-to-reach-passive-job-seekers/
3. https://www.nejmcareercenter.org/ minisites/rpt/ understanding-the-physician-passive-jobseeker-/
4. https://www.nejmcareercenter.org/ minisites/rpt/ understanding-the-physician-passive-jobseeker-/
5. https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/recruiting-active-and-passive-candidates/