Posted by Brian Berg Google+
It’s easy to make assumptions about the job of a hospital human resource department. One imagines like any business, there’s a long list of candidates who’ve submitted their resume and are available for employment should a job opening become available. The fact is that good health care professionals don’t stay unemployed for long as there are many openings available both in and out of market. The only way to know if the candidate is “good” or “not so good” is to interview them. So the key is to have a steady stream of qualified health care professions flowing into your hospital HR Department. Direct mail is an excellent way to do just this. By mailing to licensed health care professionals, you can effectively increase the flow of potential candidates for interview. So why does direct mail work so well? Direct mail works well in recruiting for hospital health care professionals for several reasons. For one, consider advertising in your local newspaper or job placement office.
The only people reading the want ads are those who are miserable in their current employment, suspect that their current job is in jeopardy, or are currently unemployed. In either case, the quality of this potential recruit is questionable. Are they a difficult employee, are they insubordinate, or were they fired from their previous employment for insubordination? Certainly there are licensed health care professionals who are qualified and have the skills you’re looking for that respond to “want ads”, but the ideal candidates are those that are currently employed and may not be so eager to change employers. In the case of using direct mail, mailing to licensed health care professionals at their home address with the right message is your best option for finding new qualified candidates. Though there are mailing lists of reaching them at their work address, for obvious reasons, it’s better to reach them at home. The message you may want to express to these prospects may vary but the theme is that you will want to talk not to those who are desperately seeking a new employer, but those who don’t necessarily need to change but may want to consider it if the conditions were right.
If you consider all the best employee’s who’ve come and gone through your hospital, it’s perfectly natural for those people to change jobs throughout their career. It’s better to focus on the potential for job change without desperation in mind. It’s also smart to consider pulsing this audience multiple times throughout the year as people will remember your hospital as a “brand” if positioned correctly. Develop a theme that distinguishes your hospital and employment opportunities from the other choices in the community, i.e., employee benefits, work environment, new cutting edge facility, challenging opportunities, location, etc... Identifying your target audience of health care professionals is done by utilizing a quality mailing list provider. Health care professionals can be filtered by the license they hold with the state. So if your recruitment piece is geared to nurses at home address, you can further filter by the type of nurse, i.e., Nursing Assistant, Licensed Practical Nurse, Registered Nurse, or other specialty considerations.