Recruiting employees is the major barrier to growth for many home care and home health employees. Some are even calling it a crisis. In a supply and demand world, when you have demand for care - you also need a great supply - of caregivers. The challenge is no secret, but the answer might just be.
Piling on the resumes.
While there is a shortage of caregivers, there is no shortage of advertising companies that would like to collect resumes for you. Their strategy is to use digital ads to create a pile of resumes, and a resulting big pile of work for the person who is trying to do the hiring. But have you noticed that the pile of resumes don't really line up with a readiness to go to work, or any kind of cultural fit for your company? And the even more challenging part is what the "resume pilers" charge to deliver the stack of unsifted job seekers: on a national average, the amount can top $400 per selected applicant.
Compensation Shopping
In a world where people allow their resumes to fly freely into any number of job opportunities, it can actually demean the job seeker and the company that wants to hire, while converting the job matching process into a compensation hunt. You flip through resumes trying to find some sign of a good fit, and the job seekers focus on job opportunities with the best wage. It reduces both your agency and the job seeker to a commodity - nothing more than something to be traded. And for good agencies, that is not how they hire or serve their customers.
It's hard to move from a job search that starts so impersonally to a hire that wins commitment to your mission and your team.
To truly vet a prospect, and win them to your vision, it takes a lot of work and time. That effort costs both you and the job seeker dearly. Is there a better way to connect with people that you might want to hire?
Inbound Marketing as an Employee Development Tool
Inbound marketing, the tool that has reshaped our media rich world into a content driven landscape, has something big to offer to the recruiting process. At its heart, inbound marketing is about offering value online to people who are already searching. Whether it's searching for a new handbag or a job, the first impressions that we create online are ones that last long into the relationship. People evaluate everything online before they make a phone call or fill out a form. When you apply inbound marketing to recruiting something happens that is almost magical; it connects you to people by building trust that goes far beyond just a resume or a phone interview. Inbound marketing allows your agency to speak the holistic needs of the prospect.
Don't Be Just Another Jobs List
If the most dominant item that a job seeker finds on your home care or home health website is a list of job openings, then your agency is no different than any of the other hundreds of job search sites. But the truth is that healthy and sustainable employment is a win-win experience. Employers not only have to meet the needs of their clients, but they also have to meet employee needs. And that is where inbound marketing starts- by understanding the broader needs of the prospective employee - connecting to people on issues such as work-life balance,, emotional vitality, and getting past feelings of burn-out.
In a highly competitive labor market, one important way that your agency can stand out is by using an inbound marketing approach to recruitment - speak to the bigger issues that your employees are facing and demonstrate that you not only care, but that you offer a truly supportive work environment.
The Inbound Stories of Your Mission
Of course, great caregivers aren't just there to have their own needs met - you want them to become deeply engaged in the mission of your agency. The best way to help that happen is to put your mission into a form that prospects can easily consume: inbound content in the form of stories. Telling the stories of the caregiving heroes of your agency is a great way to encourage those who are serving well, but also allows you to put your mission front and center in an experiential format. A story draws in the reader (and the prospect) into an experience in which they can see your mission being lived out.
If you are ready for change from the life of sifting resumes to one in which your job seekers are educated and motivated to join your team, then inbound marketing offers both the tool set and the communication strategy that will help you get it done.
Get more insights into Home Care Marketing with the the expert guide
First Four Steps in Inbound Marketing that Recruits Care-Givers:
- Define the characteristics of the employees you want to win and build out a marketing persona for them. This process will help you speak to their needs in a way that will connect more powerfully.
- Make a list of the intangible benefits your current employees would say your agency offers. This isn't hours and wages. It's things like: skill development, family environment, leadership who is deeply involved in employee success (you get the idea).
- Consider the options for inbound marketing systems that will not only improve your marketing, but give some real legs to your recruiting effort. Story Collaborative can provide a tour or test drive of some great options.
- The heart of an inbound program for recruitment is simply content. Articles, videos, and stories that will transform not only your social networking, but also the kind of employees that come your way. Make a short list of content that you may already have that could be repurposed to share online.
Microsite solutions for recruiting
Since the employees that you want to recruit are another important target audience (and persona), sometimes a microsite is a good solution. This allows you to quickly display the culture, the benefits and the great things about working for your company. Since it is a microsite, it also allows you to engage team members from HR or other departments in capturing and sharing the experience of working together. This takes your ability to recruit way beyond shipping people off page to an application page, or just displaying a list of open positions. Learn more about microsites.
