The First Step to Improving your Recruitment Strategy

The very first thing to do when refreshing your approach to recruitment is to understand what is already working well for you now – in other words, where your best frontline care employees have come from. Let’s say you have 30 care staff. Could you say what the original source was for every one of them? What triggered them to apply?

Now, let’s say you can identify the sources of your best staff. Are you maximising whatever that method is?

Sounds obvious, but in many cases employers don’t track the performance of each recruitment channel. Life’s just too busy.

Equally, what channels are you using that actually don’t deliver? Obviously you wouldn’t keep paying for, say, a local newspaper display advert long after your responses dropped to zero. It’s more about what happens after the responses have been processed.

Let’s take another example to illustrate this. You may be getting lots of candidates from the local Job Centre or a particular Internet job board, but how many make it through your screening process? And stick out the training? And are they still there in six months’ time?

What can seem an effective source of candidates needs to be measured on the number of starters who pass probation as a minimum NOT on the number of CVs emailed to your inbox.

Location, location, location

It’s also important to know how your location can affect the types of prospective care staff you will attract.
Typically urban environments have a younger, transient workforce and a more varied ethnic demographic profile than more rural areas. The biggest pool for potential staff for urban-based care organisations is therefore likely to be younger and from varied backgrounds and cultures.

Now review your job ad wording, job titles, benefits, advertising channels and any imagery you use on your recruitment website pages. Does this even reach and then appeal to that audience, or put them off? Why not ask your existing staff and candidates at interview for their opinion?

Alternatively, let’s consider you are now running a care home with a leafy semi-rural or rural catchment. The largest group of potential care staff here are most likely to be more settled – parents with children or older, perhaps recent retirees looking for something worthwhile to do.

It could be that this population are more likely to be returning to work after a break to look after children, or have had a previous career outside of care. In that case what is going to attract them to your organisation are messages like “no experience required, full training given” and “flexible hours”. Stressing the socially good nature of the work could have more resonance too such as “make a difference to the life of someone in your community”.

So consider both your past recruitment experience and your location as a first step to improving your future recruitment strategy. You may be surprised how much help that can be.