The Competition for Talent is Fierce: Act Fast or Lose Out on Good Talent

By Brenna Brown, Senior Director, Permanent Staff Recruitment. 

Health systems and hospitals are aggressively building up their nursing workforce. According to Liquid Compass, hospitals across the country have posted 212,805 direct hire registered nurse openings, 116% higher now than before the pandemic.

Within the past year, the Aya Healthcare Permanent Staff Recruitment division has been engaged with nearly 103 health systems on their direct staff hiring initiatives. We have found that when healthcare systems average between 26-32 days from application to offer extension, they will fill jobs at a much slower pace than clients with shorter averages between 4-11 days.

In this competitive marketplace for healthcare talent, Aya provides the following recommendations to assist internal talent acquisition teams and hiring managers to improve their processes and hiring cycles:

• Meaningful feedback – Hiring managers must provide specific feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate. This guidance helps the recruitment and talent acquisition team to effectively source high-quality candidates that are a good fit, while also letting candidates know where they stand and how they can improve.
• Quick turnaround times – When processes take long, such as delays in reviewing and scheduling, candidates can lose interest and begin to seek out different opportunities. An external talent acquisition assessment reviewing the interview processes and analyzing how quickly candidates move through from screened to offered will help identify and eliminate any internal barriers.
• Internal commitment – Hiring managers, especially nursing managers, are extremely busy; but they must prioritize the process. Hiring managers should commit to meeting internal service level agreements with talent acquisition teams to provide feedback and flexibility to conduct interviews in a timely manner.

Communication and collaboration are key. A health system’s talent acquisition team and hiring managers need to move swiftly and maintain a short timeframe from application to offer. However, not all talent acquisition teams function as smoothly and hiring managers are not always as engaged.

Hiring processes stall when candidates are left hanging and awaiting any feedback or action. Talent acquisition must maintain a frequent communication cadence with candidates to keep them engaged and active in the pipeline. As the lag time increases between the interview and offer stage, the probability that candidates will begin to look elsewhere increases.

Health systems are in the midst of one of the most challenging workforce shortage periods in history. Internal talent acquisition teams struggle to keep up and hiring managers are at the bedside, but both parties must make an intentional focus on recruitment and act with urgency. The competition for talent is fierce. When internal talent acquisition teams and hiring managers don’t act fast, they run the risk of missing out on good talent.

About the Author: Brenna Brown is the Senior Director of Permanent Staff Recruitment at Aya Healthcare, where she leads a recruitment team with placing healthcare professionals from all over the U.S. into their dream positions. With 14 years of leadership and recruitment experience, Brenna is an expert at consultative staffing and delivery.