Q&A With Greta Sherman
Healthcare Technology: Monster.com
is fond of asking, “Are you in control of your hiring?” What does
that mean exactly?
Greta Sherman: When you’re looking at the healthcare space, it’s very important that you don’t simply react. You need to look at the history of your hiring needs, understand your hiring trends and then articulate what you need to plan for. It’s also very important that you hire the type of employee who functions in your environment. It’s much different working at a teaching and research facility like New York Presbyterian, Barnes Jewish in St. Louis or Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles than it is to work for an acute care, community-based facility. So once you identify the type of person who will work best for you, you can craft your message online, almost limitlessly, to pull in the right people. You want to have candidates in your database before you need them, in your pipeline and in your “control” –you shouldn’t simply react by putting your message out there and hoping the person you need is going to answer when you want them to.
HCT: Healthcare is struggling to fill job requisitions. What perpetuates this?
GS: It’s a multifaceted problem.We’re not educating anywhere near the number of healthcare professionals we need in the United States. In fact, we are educating just 50 percent of RNs that we need nationwide. Some states have done innovative things, like Texas, where they have simulation labs and forgivable loans. But it doesn’t stop with RNs.We have nowhere near the number of pharmacists we need; we don’t have enough respiratory professionals or imaging professionals, or any of the rehab professionals, like speech language pathologists, physical therapists or occupational therapists.
It’s not just that we’re not producing enough healthcare professionals; we’re actually running them out of these fields as quickly as they come in. Forty-one percent of RNs aged 30 and under have left the profession altogether. Currently only 8.9% of RNs are aged 30 and under. I spoke to a recent RN graduate who said she’d had her BSN for a year. She was working in a critical care step-down unit that should have been challenging to her, but she was already going back to get her M.B.A. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough; the practice environment was just too difficult.
RNs account for the largest number of healthcare providers, 24 to 26 percent, yet we are not educating them properly. They might graduate from a two-year, threeyear, four-year or even a five-year program, but they all sit for the same exam, they all receive the same licensure and the same pay. You shouldn’t have that many doors to the profession and expect someone graduating from a two-year program to have the skills of the graduate of the five-year school. There is not enough classroom space, not enough faculty, not enough clinical rotations and it is very expensive to educate healthcare providers. For those reasons, universities are not going out of their way to broaden their programs. Lack of professors is one of the industry’s most serious problems, and since an RN wth a two-year degree can earn more than a Ph.D. in the college classroom, teaching isn’t a very attractive option.
The general population is getting older, which exacerbates the problem – in the next 10 years, the population of those 65 and older will increase by 44 percent, while the population that typically cares for others will increase by just 8.1 percent. Aging baby boomers are demanding a higher level of care than generations before them. They request a colonoscopy as soon as they turn 50, prescription drugs by name and are more proactive in managing their health. There are simply not enough healthcare professionals to take care of those needs.
HCT: Healthcare entities once relied solely on print advertising,which is currently struggling. Is this decline permanent?
GS: I don’t think print advertising is coming back. It’s just not a good idea to spend more than 10 percent of your recruitment dollars there. Does anyone 30 or younger still go to a newspaper to research the movie listings? By the time I figure out from the local newspaper what’s playing at a local theater, my son has already gone downstairs, pulled up the movie listings, watched a few of the trailers and bought two tickets with my credit card – and I’m still looking for my reading glasses. Exclusive print advertising just doesn’t make any sense for healthcare recruitment advertising. If you look at print, it’s best to focus on specialty trade publications, places where people are going to find very specific information that they might not find through the Internet. Print continues to serve entry-level openings but that is about it.
HCT: Some statistics show that candidates hired from online recruitment efforts are less prone to turnover.Why might that be?
GS: In part it’s because they can go through the process faster. They feel better about having been chosen, quickly, from a seemingly large pool of candidates.When you look at Gen Xers, Gen Ys or even the baby boomers, everyone who applies for a job hopes to feel special. If they are manually completing forms and sending them via fax or mailing their resume, it just takes too much time. People are impatient and they become vulnerable when the hiring process takes too long. They figure if someone can’t get back with them in two days the job’s been awarded to someone else, and they move on, or the candidate has already decided they’d rather not work for a company that doesn’t want them fast enough.
Also, the candidate can do a much more in-depth discovery process. They can look at the pictures; they can read about the management; they can read the mission and vision statements and really get a feel for what it’s like to work there. So in general it’s just a better fit.
HCT: I’ve read that writing the actual job requisition is very important. Your advice?
GS: There are several things to keep in mind here. It is critical to know in advance of writing the job requisition what sort of person you are seeking, as you need to write it to lure someone with those specific attributes.
Sell the job – go beyond a generic description of duties; provide detailed information about the position’s responsibilities and requirements. Describe what makes this position unique by giving job seekers details of the successful candidate’s daily duties, learning and advancement opportunities, facilities and equipment, and with whom the candidate will work.
And don’t forget to promote your organization; stellar candidates know you need a good employer to advance your career – tell potential recruits why it is a great place to work. For example, nurses may be most interested in continuing education reimbursement. Others might consider flexible work schedules a major factor. Play up issues that can make a difference to top-notch candidates such as opportunity, challenge, work/life balance and respect.
There are so many things to consider when writing a job requisition, and recruiting online gives you the ability to communicate them clearly because you have a more expressive medium. You can link to your website, show video, host chats, etc. Take advantage of those opportunities and go after that person that you truly want, in very specific terms.
HCT: How can a healthcare organization best paint its own brand in the eyes of candidates in the online realm?
GS: You have to know who you are first. If you’re Jackson Memorial in Miami, you know that your acuity is very high because you’re an international referral center; Jackson receives the most challenged patients at their facility. You don’t want to paint an atmosphere that is pastel blue and pink and say, “Please come restart you career with us!” This wouldn’t be the right place for someone who has been out of the workforce for five years. You need someone who is prepared for that pounding, abso-lutely heart-wrenching, stressful day-to-day atmosphere. If you’re a community hospital somewhere near Manhattan, Kan., on the other hand, your message will be completely different. The idea isn’t to bring people in the front door just so they’ll leave by the back door. That does more harm than good. You want to recruit the right person who will fit in and flourish at your organization, a person you can train and in whom you can place your most intensive focus, who will become part of a great team. Hopefully they will provide the best care – and stay with you. Know who you need; know who you are; paint a clear picture; and control the process. And as they say in the South, “There’s a lid for every pot.”
