HealthComm LLC

Now, more than ever, we need to be aware of the old saying that you just can’t be too careful.

A recent article in the business section of the Washington Post tells the story of two well-qualified job seekers who were finalists for the same position. One eventually lost out because of questionable photos the employer found posted on Facebook. And here’s the kicker: the pictures were found not on the account of the job seeker himself but rather on that of a friend of his who had not enabled his privacy settings.

Was this legal? The information was publicly accessible, so, yes, it’s perfectly legal. In fact, the article recalls a December 2009 survey that showed that 75 percent of recruiters say their bosses now require them to conduct online researches of job applicants, in part because they are quicker and easier, not to mention more revealing, than talking to an applicant’s references.

Even if you enable all the right privacy settings, even if you eventually delete your Facebook account, even if you yourself never had an account to begin with, the pronouncements and photographs posted on Facebook — not to mention your blog posts, Twitter tweets, YouTube videos, even emails — are still stored somewhere, as are the things your “friends” have posted that might include you or make reference to you, such as a tagged photo.

You might forget. Your friends might. But the Web never forgets. These days, you can really never be too careful.

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Of course not, you say.

Then why are you doing it?

Sure, there was a time that all you had to do was post a couple Want Ads in the Sunday paper, and by the middle of the week, you had a stack of resumes that could fill a the shelves meant for medical records. But those times are gone and for a couple of reasons. One, many fewer people are actually reading a newspaper, much less seeking job openings there. Seriously: who do you know who got their current job by responding to a Want Ad? The fact is that the power of newspaper advertising just isn’t what it used to be. Ditto for billboards, radio ads, and other traditional media.

Two, current demand for healthcare workers, particularly those in the more specialized positions, so far exceeds supply that even if people were responding to traditional recruitment methods, there wouldn’t be enough of them to fill the need. And the outlook for future supply vs. demand only gets increasingly worrisome as time goes by.

The bottom line is that you’re looking for something that’s both harder to reach and harder to find than ever before.

If you’re thinking that you’re already way ahead of me here because you’ve been posting your openings on one of the major Internet job boards, you need to know that that wide net you’re casting isn’t necessarily catching the big fish. Or even lots of little fish. Postings and banners on an Internet job site can cost you thousands of dollars a month, and that’s a lot of cash by anyone’s standards. But because few applicants seek jobs farther than fifty miles from their current residence, what you’re really paying for is the glamour of being able to say you post your positions nationally. It’s not a big deal. Really. But it is big money.

What is a big deal is being able to say that you spent less and got more. Want to know how? Here are five relatively simple, cost-effective steps you can start taking right away.

1. Ask a silly question. Go ahead. Ask your applicants how they heard about you and your job openings (and ask your recent hires, too, if you’re not already collecting that data). They really have no reason to lie to you about this one. Then ask them why they applied to join your organization. Now, granted, they may have some vested interested in dancing around the truth here, especially if they want to impress you as much as you want to impress them. Still, they’ll provide you with some interesting information for a marginal cost of almost zero. Now here comes the critical part, the part that far too many organizations skip: Listen to them. Their responses will shine powerful spotlights in the right direction, that is, the direction in which you should be focusing your recruitment dollars.

2. Tell me something good. While many, indeed most, of the traditional methods of recruitment advertising have lost their effectiveness, the original method is still number one: word of mouth. If your organization is a great place to work, your employees will do the advertising for you. Remember, though, that word of mouth is a double-edged sword. If your organization is a lousy place to work, well, that word will spread, too. (For the record, if your organization is a lousy place to work, you have bigger problems than we can solve in the scope of this posting.) While a poor organization may be able to hang onto its veteran employees simply because they’re too vested in the system to turn back now, they sure as heck won’t be attracting any new dynamos to the team. And that, lest we forget, is what recruitment is all about. Launch a “Refer a Friend” campaign to encourage your current employees to talk up your organization. Offer them both recognition and reward for successfully pointing a new employee your way. It’s not hard: a note of thanks from one of your bigwigs, a congratulatory message in the employee newsletter, and cold, hard cash are the three legs of the compensation footstool, and believe me, that’s a mighty nice place to rest your tootsies at the end of a long day.

3. Make a good first impression. Most employees deal directly with HR on a very limited basis, but prospective employees deal with HR almost exclusively. The importance of a professional, courteous, and helpful atmosphere there cannot be overstated.

4. Show me whatcha got. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, Web sites are the best way to spread your message to the rest of the world. The resources you put into an attractive, quality Web site will be well-spent. Although few job-seekers are looking to move very far from home, some indeed are, and the primary job hunting method for that select group of folks is a good, old-fashioned Internet search. A quick, “Your town, Your State, Hospitals” typed into any of the popular search engines, any time of day or night, and seven seconds later, Susie Job Applicant is going to be face-to-screen with your organization. Here’s your chance. Make the most of it. First of all, make sure all the buttons on your site actually work; you’d be surprised how many don’t. Then make sure it’s compliant with HTML, CSS and 508 standards. (If you’re not sure what that means, your Web developer and designer should know; if they don’t, replace them.) Be clear about the positions you have to offer and the requirements for each. Moreover, make sure your Web site conveys some sense of your organizational climate and culture; it’s like word-of-mouth for the out-of-town set. And best of all, you get to choose the words this time.

5. Brush ‘em, floss ‘em, keep ‘em forever. Okay, so that’s actually advice from my dentist, but the concept is the same: Take care of what you have, and, chances are, you’ll get to keep it. Acknowledge your team’s good work, and involve them in continually upgrading the quality of your work environment. Keep ‘ em well polished, so to speak, by providing quality training and staff development on a regular basis. Remember: Positive attitudes beget positive attitudes, and trained staff beget trained staff. And that’s a lot to smile about.

Posted in HealthComm, Recruitment| No Comments