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When You Think You’ve Tried It All… Find the Best Candidates with Aged Care Recruitment Agencies

Finding the right candidates for any job can be a challenge, but when it comes to aged care, the stakes are higher. These roles often require highly skilled and compassionate leaders. People who can lead operations and teams to provide high-quality care to some of the most vulnerable members of our community – with a highly customer-centric approach. When you’re struggling to find the best candidates for your aged care positions, it can be tempting to give up or settle for ‘less-than-ideal’ candidates. But before you throw in the towel, consider working with aged care recruitment agencies to help you find the perfect fit. PJ Recruitment: Executive Recruitment | Aged Care Recruitment

Selling a Car that’s a Bomb (Jobs that Might be Considered Duds)

We’ve all been there – you’re trying to sell a car that’s a bomb, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to find a buyer. You may feel like you’ve tried everything, from posting ads online to lowering the price, but nothing seems to work. The same is true for aged care jobs you’re trying to fill. You stick up an ad on Seek, Indeed, Jora, Ethical Jobs, etc, and those job postings just don’t seem to attract the right candidates, or any at all! No matter how many job ads you post, you just can’t seem to find ‘the one’.

This is where aged care recruitment agencies come in. They have access to a wider pool of candidates (their database, networks, and consultants who are in the know), including those who may not be actively searching for a job but would be open to the right opportunity. When you engage an executive search aged care recruitment agency, you should expect they have the skill and experience to influence, sway and coerce even the ‘unmovables’ in the candidate market to take your job vacancy especially when the job may not be perfect in their eyes. That’s what we’re champions at! I’ve personally kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland, and therefore rate myself as highly skilled and I do believe my team has a gift that is a genuine relatability to engage people we approach about a job, easily, genuinely, and with honesty. We get great uptake in our approach to ‘cold’ candidates (those not actively looking). In fact, 75% of the jobs we filled last year were with candidates we headhunted. So, engaging aged care recruitment agencies is worth the money!

Recruitment agencies can help you cast a wider net and find the perfect candidate, even when you think you’ve tried everything.

Getting Candidates Across the Finish Line

Hiring is a time-consuming process, and it can be frustrating when you get close to making an offer, only to have the candidate back out at the last minute. This can be especially frustrating in aged care, where positions may have been vacant for a long time. You’ve identified the perfect fit, they are the one, you need to move quickly now to ensure they accept the job offer. Also, to ensure continuity of leadership, care, culture and also avoid team dynamic being compromised. Often you need to backfill a vacancy with someone working elsewhere permanently in another job within your organisation. They won’t want to be there as an ‘interim’ forever. So it’s even more important to ensure you get someone across the line, especially when they are ‘the one’, quickly.

A recent survey https://rb.gy/r1tgjx conducted across 13 countries and 16 different industries showed seven out of 10 candidates considered dropping out of their last recruitment process. More than 25% did! Three key reasons for this that were cited are:

  • The process was taking too long 39%
  • The hiring process was too complicated 37%
  • There were too many touch points in the process 27%

Aged care recruitment agencies can help you get candidates across the finish line by providing additional support and guidance throughout the hiring process. They can help you identify any potential red flags early on and provide guidance on how to address them. We push through recruitment processes to ensure ‘fill time/time to fill’ is palatable to candidates also (given the study above reports the biggest issue for candidates is time to fill). Our time to fill on average, for 2022 is 7 weeks, from start to finish.

Engaging aged care recruitment agencies can help you avoid any last-minute surprises and ensure that you get the right candidate in the role as quickly as possible.

Cultural Fit Beyond Resumes

Resumes can provide a lot of valuable information about a candidate’s skills and experience, but they don’t tell the whole story. A candidate may look great on paper but may not be a good cultural fit for your organisation. When it’s a bad fit, it’s a bad fit! This can lead to tension and conflict, which can be particularly damaging in the high-stress environment of aged care.

Aged care recruitment agencies can help you assess a candidate’s cultural fit beyond their resume. They can provide behavioral assessments and other tools to help you better understand a candidate’s personality, likely ‘on the job’ behaviour, work style, and values. This can help you identify candidates who are not only skilled but also a good fit for your organisation’s culture.

Shortage of Talent

Finally, and this is glaringly obvious, the aged care industry is facing a shortage of talent, which can make it even more difficult to find the right candidates. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of aged care workers, but it has also exposed some of the challenges facing the industry, including low wages, higher turnover rates and a real ‘war on talent’ – across all levels, including carers, nursing jobs, middle management and C-Suite level jobs. Many aged care providers have compliance challenges and/or accreditation looming. This can often deter candidates and their interest may disappear unless things are explained comprehensively, by the aged care recruitment agency you have engaged, or the hiring manager/internal TA team.

Aged care recruitment agencies can help you navigate this shortage of talent by providing access to a wider pool of candidates. They can help you identify candidates who may not have considered a career in aged care but who have the skills and compassion necessary to succeed in the field. Aged care recruitment agencies also have a ‘nack’ in getting the best candidates across the finish line in the recruitment process too – well the good aged care recruitment agencies do anyway!

Conclusion

When you’re struggling to find the right candidates for your aged care positions, it can be easy to feel like you’ve tried everything. But don’t give up just yet. Aged care recruitment agencies can provide a valuable resource in your search for the perfect candidate.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take when you engage aged care recruitment agencies to fill the job?

Sometimes we get lucky, and fill a job in less than a fortnight (if the successful candidate is available to start immediately). On average, P.J. Recruitment and Executive Search 2022 data shows it takes on average seven weeks to fill a job. This depends on a number of factors including: employer brand reputation, salary on offer, time to fill, geographic location of the job, speed at which our clients/aged care providers can move through the recruitment process with us, timing the job is in the market (i.e. Dec and Jan are no good in recruitment historically) etc.

What are the benefits of using aged care recruitment agencies to fill your job?

  • Executive Search capability – access to a network of potential candidates who may not be actively searching for job openings
  • Time-saving as the agency handles the initial stages of the hiring process, such as advertising the job , screening, interviewing and doing executive search
  • Reduced risk of making a bad hire as aged care recruitment agencies typically have experience in identifying the right fit for a role AND a Guarantee Period is offered
  • Confidentiality in the hiring process, especially for roles where the organization may not want to advertise the opening publicly
  • Cost-benefit to the organisation – the aged care provider does not have to provide resources on advertising the job, conducting initial interviews and pre employment checks. The cost-benefit of appointing the right person versus an unsuccessful hire outweighs the recruitment fee. In addition there is the benefit to culture, team performance, staff retention, cost of re-hire and the list goes on!
  • The cost of a wrong hire has been quoted in the Australian as being as much as 2.5 x the wrong hire’s salary. Robert Half in 2021 research found it could cost an employer on average between 15%-21% of that employee’s salary, depending on seniority.
  • Increased likelihood of finding the right candidate for the role, leading to better retention rates and productivity in the long run.

How much does it cost to engage an aged care recruitment agency?

It depends on the job being filled. Most aged care recruitment agencies charge for a permanent position anywhere between 15% – 25% total remuneration package, we’re somewhere in between!

Call one of our Recruitment Specialists today on (02) 9144 4544 if you’re thinking about engaging an aged care recruitment agency to fill your job! Or email your enquiry to discover@pjrecruitment.au