Talent acquisition is a leading pain point for healthcare organizations, with more than 80% of healthcare executives telling PwC that recruitment and retention challenges are a “moderate” or “serious” risk.
How did recruiting become a problem within the healthcare industry? The answer is multifaceted. The pandemic caused great disruption to healthcare providers’ operations, including an initial drop in employment. Certain job types, such as those at elder care facilities and skilled nursing care facilities, have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. There’s also the looming shortage of healthcare personnel as workers retire and an aging population demands more care.
Another less discussed element to the healthcare talent problem: To fill healthcare roles, recruiters must make informed decisions about fields they’re not always well-versed in. They’re obligated to speak the language of top-tier medical professionals and identify candidates with the right training, skills and licenses — even if they lack a medical background.
Why Healthcare Recruiters are Adopting AI
Thankfully, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP) and other automation tech is allowing recruiters to hire healthcare talent at a faster speed, reducing the time-to-fill continuously.
Healthcare recruiters are using AI to strengthen talent pipelines, verify candidate credentials and predict candidate fit. See how automated technologies are changing their workflows and elevating their results.
AI Strengthens Talent Pipelines
As a digital assistant for recruiters, AI recruitment agents are making targeted sourcing better. This technology can identify and track specialized talent, scour digital sources and handle initial outreach to candidates.
With the right training, an AI system identifies and prioritizes applicants with highly specific credentials and experience. For example, instead of filling the pipeline with all nurses, AI can prioritize candidates with experience in emergency room settings.
Meanwhile, NLP can analyze and understand candidates’ research experience, extracting information from papers, grants and other projects to assess the relevance of a candidate’s research — and it’s fit with the open role.
While AI applications help healthcare organizations meet immediate hiring needs, they also strengthen long-term pipelines. AI simplifies longitudinal candidate tracking, enabling easier candidate relationship management over time. AI- powered systems can even engage with past applicants and former employees to inform them of new opportunities and organizational developments.
AI Verifies Candidate Credentials
Many healthcare talent pools are limited by a lack of people with the necessary experience, skills and licensing. Consider the nursing shortage that has plagued many healthcare providers in recent years.
Recruiters must start by finding candidates with an active license to practice nursing in the state. But that’s often only the first step. Many states and healthcare organizations require nurses to hold numerous certifications, including basic life support and advanced cardiac life support. Nurses in specialized roles usually need additional certifications.
AI can speed up the time needed to check a candidate’s license, certifications and registrations, allowing recruiters to handle a higher volume of candidates while only advancing truly qualified candidates to the next hiring stage.
The search for medical professionals with the right credentials can be time-consuming. But it can’t be ignored. Recruiters equipped with the right tools are seeing shorter time-to-fill rates and better hiring outcomes. With their newfound bandwidth, recruiters can focus on building stronger relationships with candidates, exploring new talent pools and improving employer branding.
AI Improves Candidate Fit and Inclusive Hiring
AI-powered technology helps healthcare recruiters throughout the entire hiring process. For example, AI helps identify candidate fit while mitigating bias.
AI can analyze employee feedback and other data to identify the elements of an organization’s workplace culture. For example, employees may report that their work environment is highly collaborative, positive and supportive. AI can cross-reference those traits with what it knows about candidates. The result? A candidate pool with the skills, attitude and mindset that align with the organization’s needs.
As important as candidate fit is, healthcare recruiters must ensure they aren’t adding bias to their recruiting process. Recruiters can turn to AI to analyze job descriptions, company policies and other human-influenced decisions that could suggest bias. For example, a review of data might highlight a recruiter who tends to advance physicians who hail from East Coast medical schools. It might identify communications that show recruiters defaulting to pediatric nurses as young women or orthopedic surgeons as men.
AI focuses recruitment on predefined, relevant criteria — not personal characteristics. It ensures that healthcare candidates are evaluated fairly, creating a better, more diverse candidate pool.
As healthcare organizations continue to improve recruiting efficiency and effectiveness, they can confidently turn to AI to alleviate administrative burdens, find qualified candidates quickly and make unbiased, data-driven hiring decisions.
To learn more about how Bear Claw ATS + CRM is changing talent acquisition visit our healthcare recruiting page.
For more advice and on AI and recruiting, visit our blog.
FAQ:
Why is talent acquisition a challenge for healthcare organizations? Talent acquisition in healthcare is challenging due to several factors. Certain job types in elder care and skilled nursing care facilities have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, there is a looming shortage of healthcare personnel as the existing workforce retires, and the demand for care from an aging population increases.
How is AI helping healthcare recruiters? AI is assisting healthcare recruiters by strengthening talent pipelines. AI technology can identify, track, and engage specialized talent, improving the speed and accuracy of the recruitment process. It helps verify candidate credentials and predict candidate fit, ensuring only qualified candidates advance.
How does AI improve the accuracy of candidate credentials? AI speeds up the verification process by quickly checking candidates’ licenses, certifications, and registrations. This allows recruiters to handle a higher volume of candidates while advancing only those with the necessary qualifications to the next stage, improving accuracy and reducing time-to-fill rates.
Does AI play a role in creating a diverse and unbiased candidate pool? AI helps create a diverse and unbiased candidate pool by focusing on predefined, relevant criteria. It can analyze employee feedback to understand the existing workplace culture and then assess candidates based on their alignment with that culture. AI also mitigates potential human bias by analyzing job descriptions, company policies, and recruiter decisions, ensuring healthcare candidates are evaluated fairly.