Just because your hospital isn’t in a big city doesn’t mean you can’t win big at healthcare recruiting. You just need to be a little more creative.
Sure, it’s true that some physicians, nurses, etc. will forever be drawn to big-city placements. But that’s not the case all around. In fact, in the exhausting wake of COVID-19, a growing percentage of healthcare professionals have rethought their priorities.
For healthcare organizations in smaller cities, towns and rural areas, recruiting opportunities abound. The key is to present your hospital and location in the best positive light—and here’s three ways to do just that.
1. Provide Candidates with Curated Area Info
Don’t leave it up to your candidates to perform their own hit-and-miss research—put the information you want them to see directly in front of them.
Remember, you have plenty to offer that the big cities don’t. Like a lower cost of living, and an improved quality of life—which is top-of-mind for many weary healthcare workers right now.
Chances are, your candidates would love to know about your area’s:
- Housing and neighborhoods
- Schools and communities
- Climate and natural features
- Cultural attractions, shopping, dining etc.
- Job opportunities for spouses
- Outdoor recreation options
And of course, they want to know what it’s like to work for you—i.e., your hospital’s culture, benefits, people and role in the community.
Admittedly, gathering and presenting all this important data is quite a project. At UrbanBound, we do the legwork for our clients, then place this key info online on an attractive, custom-branded portal. When our clients make it available to candidates and relocating employees, good things happen more often.
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2. Make It Super-Easy for Candidates to Visit You
Healthcare professionals are busy people with plenty on their minds. If you’d like a prospective doctor or nurse to come in for an in-person interview, pave the way for them—and they won’t think twice.
Make it easy for them purchase airline tickets and book a room at a top hotel. Set up some great meals, tours, etc. Not only will this help sell them on the area, it will help sell them on you—because you’re showing that you value them.
On that subject: be sure to reimburse candidates quickly for their travel expenses. Some hospitals have such a convoluted reimbursement process, candidates wait four to six long weeks for payment—that’s not a good beginning.
For this reason, UrbanBound offers a special program that enhances the candidate’s experience, not only facilitating reservations but reimbursing candidates within just 5-7 days. Candidates submit their receipts online, and we take care of it. It’s easier for hospitals (no shuffling receipts between HR and Accounting), and it makes them look good.
3. Show Them You Care: Ease Their Relocation
Healthcare professionals are some of the most highly-trained, in-demand workers around. Yet, for reasons we don’t understand, the industry lags behind others when it comes to relocation benefits.
Many hospitals—even the big-city ones—give new hires a relocation allowance, but little else in the way of support. What a waste: instead of focusing their brilliant minds on patients or medical research, physicians are forced to focus on things like selling and buying a house, booking a move, and a million little details.
But by offering relocation benefits instead of just an allowance, hospitals can put an end to all that. Modern relocation benefits include:
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- · Helpful online tools for planning every step of a relocation
- · A pre-screened network of movers and realtors, and
- · Access to live, experienced relocation specialists who can handle all those details
At UrbanBound, this is exactly what we do—and we’re experts at serving the healthcare industry, too.
No matter where your hospital is located, you can compete with big-name, big-city hospitals. We can help. Find out how.
