Many recruiters will remember 2021 as the year of the Great Resignation. While resignations have since slowed in many industries, healthcare resignations remain elevated. In May 2024, nearly 550,000 healthcare workers quit, well above the roughly 400,000 workers who quit each month in 2020.
With so many workers deserting their positions, recruiters are scrambling to replace them with qualified candidates. To mitigate this risk, recruiters need to embrace new approaches, including sourcing automation tools.
The dearth of qualified candidates isn’t just today’s problem. It’s a crisis that threatens the industry’s future. According to recent research from McKinsey, healthcare organizations will face significant talent gaps in the coming years. The firm projects that by 2031, more than 830,000 skilled nursing positions will go unfilled.
How sourcing automation helps healthcare face its talent crisis
The outlook for talent acquisition in healthcare might feel bleak, but there’s reason for hope. With automated sourcing tools, recruiters are locating hard-to-find candidates with ease, vetting and nurturing candidates, and ensuring that talent acquisition teams are targeting the best applicants with the best messaging.
The recruiters using sourcing automation tools aren’t just keeping pace with the newest technology — they’re giving themselves a leg up in a shrinking talent marketplace.
Candidate matching tools improve quality of hire
Sourcing automation tools can take several forms, including talent-matching algorithms that pair job seekers with open roles. By assessing candidates on their skills, experience, education and cultural fit, these algorithms scout job seekers who are qualified and promising.
Recruiters are also using agents — virtual assistants equipped with AI capabilities — to make targeted sourcing easier and more effective. Agents can scour large swaths of data quickly. Examples include: looking through job boards, social media and resume databases to find neonatal nurse practitioners, radiation oncologists and cardiothoracic surgeons, among other roles to identify and track for their specific hiring need.
When recruiters use candidate sourcing automation tools, they don’t just find more candidates. They find better candidates. By expanding their talent search, recruiters hone their applicant pool and increase candidate diversity at the same time.
Screening tools filter out unqualified candidates
Finding skilled labor is a difficult task in nearly every industry. Although in healthcare, the task is especially onerous. Healthcare hires must deliver the right education, experience, certification and licensing.
Recruiters can easily find qualified candidates when they use automated talent sourcing tools equipped with natural language processing (NLP) technology. These tools search applications for keywords that distinguish qualified and unqualified candidates. Keyword search possibilities include:
| “CCRN Adult”
If a hospital is looking for ICU nurses, it can instruct an NLP tool to flag resumes that include “CCRN Adult” — the most common certification nurses must earn to work with adult patients in the ICU. |
“Prophylaxis” or “Periodontal”
When hiring for a dental hygienist position, resume keywords like prophylaxis, periodontal and radiography reflect applicants’ clinical skills and a commitment to oral health. |
“Counseling” or “Empathy”
For a behavioral health specialist role, keywords like “counseling,” “empathy” and more demonstrate experience in providing emotional support and necessary soft skills. |
Sourcing automation tools like these save healthcare recruiters from time and effort wasted on candidates who aren’t qualified for the job. By using tools that filter candidates by their qualifications, recruiters preserve their energy for applicants who are ready to be hired.
Agents handle initial candidate outreach
The best automated sourcing tools do more than just identify qualified applicants. Best-in-class tools go a step further, assisting with the initial candidate outreach.
AI agents are particularly adept at performing these kinds of tasks. An agent can reach out to candidates it has identified and prompt them to apply for a role — and then send follow-up messages if job seekers don’t respond right away. Once a candidate responds with interest, the agent will automatically begin scheduling screening calls and interviews.
Agents like these are even more powerful when they’re a part of a multi-agent system — a type of technology that’s at the forefront of artificial intelligence. A system may feature three agents, for example, with each dedicated to its own function:
- Sourcing and matching candidates.
- Vetting candidates for qualifications.
- Cultivating candidate relationships.
When healthcare recruiters use systems like this one, they manage diverse tasks more effectively. Multi-agent systems mean faster time-to-fill, fewer vacant roles, and, most importantly, stronger candidate matches that lead to better performance.
Better recruiting isn’t just about numbers
When recruiters are equipped with sourcing automation tools, their metrics improve. They find talent faster. They improve the candidate experience. They fill positions with better applicants.
In healthcare, there’s more to these metrics than numbers. Patient care improves when recruiters find more high-quality candidates in less time. By adopting next-generation tools, recruiters are making the future of healthcare a little brighter.
To learn more about how Bear Claw ATS + CRM is changing talent acquisition, visit our healthcare recruiting page.
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