Your long, arduous application process may be causing candidate drop off. Here’s how to fix that.
You don’t need to be reminded that good health care talent is hard to come by – you’re experiencing it daily as you try to fill your open positions. The proof is also in the data: According to CareerBuilder research, 60 percent of health care employers have positions that stay open 12 weeks or longer.
Tactics such as increasing compensation, offering starting bonuses and providing better training opportunities can help you seal the deal on a great health care hire; however, none of that will matter if you can’t get that candidate to apply in the first place. Yet many organizations still have a clunky, arduous application process that makes health care candidates jump through hoops, causing them to lose interest and drop off before they hit “apply.”
Understanding the Candidate Journey
If you want to create a better application process, first you need to understand the health care candidate’s journey to finding you – or your competitor. Start by asking yourself these questions:
- How are they finding your organization? Is it through a referral? Social media? A search on a job site? Knowing how they are getting to your organization can help you think through your apply process.
- How do these candidates look up information about your organization? Consider a health care worker’s typical day – they aren’t sitting in front a computer, so any information you provide should be mobile-friendly.
- What entices them to apply to your organization over a competitor? Think about a candidate looking for a job like a consumer shopping for a product. What would make a consumer buy one product over another? What are you offering in terms of candidate experience to make them want to continue their journey with you?
Getting Candidates to Apply
More often than not in this job market, most of the talent you’re after already have jobs. Therefore, they don’t have a ton of time throughout the day to browse jobs – or apply for roles. Yet many companies still have tedious, lengthy application processes, with several pages worth of questions and information gathering before a candidate can complete the application. Or they don’t have an applicant tracking system (ATS) that integrates with the job site that they’ve posted jobs on – which creates more steps for candidates. Both of these factors can cause high candidate drop off – especially among in-demand talent.
Instead of making candidates submit all of their information up front, consider offering a simple, quick and mobile-friendly apply process and procuring additional personal information during the later stages of the hiring process.
Solutions to Improve the Candidate Experience
The bottom line is, you need to make the application process easy for health care workers if you want them to apply. That starts with using a partner, such as CareerBuilder, who offers a quick apply option on their mobile app that enables candidates to apply quickly using a resume saved to their CareerBuilder account.
Providing a better candidate experience also includes streamlining your apply path. CareerBuilder offers free integration services to ensure that you receive all of the intended applications to your job postings via your ATS. This streamlines the entire application process and creates a better experience for the candidate. It also enables recruiters to automate manual tasks and reduce candidate drop-off. Your health care candidates will benefit from a faster, cleaner application process, while you gain access to the data necessary to make better recruitment decisions. It’s a win-win.
