The recruitment industry in Europe is going through a healthy phase of growth and stability. Recruitment agencies specializing in a range of positions across the healthcare sector are reporting positive sentiments. Be it Qualified Nurses, Consultants and Physicians, Physical and Occupational Therapists, Medical Technologists, Health Care Assistants, or Senior Care Assistants, there are many positions opening up across UK and EU and this further bolsters the strong growth charted by the sector in recent times.
Hospitals and healthcare providers have augmented their staff strength by a further 374,000 new jobs in 2016 and healthcare unemployment stood at 2.6 percent, one of the lowest levels in almost a decade. Even in 2017 and 2018, the growth story continues. There are many factors for this sustained outlook. Some of the key reasons are the prevalent industry trends that are driving positive outcomes in this direction.
Below are some trends that will define the healthcare recruitment sector in the Western European nations:
Trend#1 – Increased growth of ‘Precision Recruiting’
Many healthcare organizations are incorporating AI and other technologies to tie up relevant job content to the right fit employees. As a result, they are extending their outreach beyond mass-targeted websites, email marketing, and employee videos.
These forward-looking organizations are now placing an increased premium on targeted recruitment content relevant to individual preferences and profiles. All communications are being customized at the recruitment level, factoring in aspects of the distinct talent profiles. They are increasingly using content that is relevant, trustworthy and tailored specific to each candidate.
Trend#2 – Use of Big Data in Hiring Decisions
Big Data has far-reaching impact not only on clinical care but also on aligning the right talent to the right job description. Many healthcare organizations, especially in the UK, have reported huge gains by introducing Big Data analytics into their recruitment function.
With the trend on personalized communication at the talent sourcing stage, broad range job alerts and job descriptions from templates are fast reaching redundancy. So a job search of senior care assistant in Manchester will need to factor in the cultural and lifestyle aspects of the job in addition to the technical aspects. It is big data which helps the organizations achieve this goal by looking at tons of structured and unstructured data.
Trend#3 – Strong Emphasis on Employer Branding
In an effort to be more effective at the intense healthcare staffing market, a lot of healthcare organizations have shifted their focus on bolstering their employer brand. The reason behind it is not very difficult to fathom. Studies have shown that companies that have a strong employer brand persona on visible digital channels attract 2x the number of applicants per job compared to other companies, as per LinkedIn.
While most of the branding efforts are directed towards improving internal branding, we feel that the focus should go wire. It should also include an outward branding effort that aims at turning employees into staunch brand advocates
Trend#4 – Talent Pipelining
In an industry where talent gets scarce as you scale up, the work becomes all the more difficult for healthcare recruitment specialists in the UK and EU. Many organizations are now moving on to a pipelining approach.
The underlying principle behind this approach is simple. You may come across a great profile but you may not have a vacancy open at the moment to absorb him/her. You can still add the profile to your recruitment database. Create a pipeline that can fill up a vacancy in quick time without impacting business operations or taking a hit to the top lines.
Trend#5 – Better nurturing systems
It may happen that you may have a strong lead to fill up a position, but that person may still be serving the notice period or may not be motivated enough to look for new opportunities. In a situation where good talent is not available right away, healthcare organizations’ recruiting teams will still maintain constant contact and communication with the candidate.
This type of talent nurturing will become more pronounced as the levels start increasing. With such a smooth process, organizations can establish an ongoing relationship with the candidates and drive conversion to successful hire when the right time comes up.
Trend#6 – The rise of predictive analytics in hiring
The entire hiring process is majorly impacted by predictive analytics. In many EU nations, healthcare organizations are taking a more holistic view into a candidate profile. Instead of simply acting on the basis of inward supply of data presented by the candidates themselves, they are now relying on Business Intelligence coupled with predictive analytics. As an outcome they can now better predict if the candidate is indeed a good fit for a particular job description.
In addition to the CV, other critical aspects like operations performance, attrition data, and healthcare employee lifecycle data, will help organizations to come up with prototypes to forecast the future performance of a candidate in a particular healthcare setting.
Recruitment agencies are increasingly streamlining their talent sourcing tactics and get the best sources that are capable of delivering maximum ROI to the function. This way they can evaluate various channels like job boards, third party recruiting companies, and in-house recruitment teams.
Trend#7 – Greater focus on specialized knowledge
The healthcare and clinical care delivery architecture is expanding fast with diseases emerging from multiple issues. This will need better alignment with the candidate job responsibilities.
Recruiters will want to see specializations and knowledge certifications in niche domains to prove their expertise over a specific range of treatment or caregiving assistance. Many organizations will make provisions for Continued Education so that the new employees can start delivering value to their roles in quick time.
To sign off
These trends show that all challenges that inhibit business growth are being ironed out gradually. These trends will also result in an improved showing on filling up the job vacancies and closing the gaps between highly skilled talent and highly relevant job descriptions here in Europe.
Acquire clean and up-to-date job listings data in a structured format via JobsPikr.
