how to hire in the healthcare industry.

Thanks to salary calculators and employer review sites, today's healthcare industry professionals know their value more than ever before. Auditing your compensation and benefits package to ensure they're competitive for your industry and operational markets will go a long way toward landing — and retaining — your top candidates. Especially in the healthcare arena, where salaries can vary widely (think pharmacy technician as opposed to a registered nurse) and change often, you need to guarantee you're offering the most accurate amount. Here are some steps you can do to make your salary and benefits competitive:

1. audit your compensation levels
You don't want to lose candidates to competitors who bring more money to the table, so audit your compensation program to make sure you're competitive. Kick off the process by asking questions like:

• Are our employees' salaries commensurate with the workload required of them?

• Do the current salary levels motivate our employees to succeed?

• Does the current program reflect changes in responsibilities as employees advance through the company?

2. make employees' lives flexible
Yes, practitioners like physicians and nurses need to be on-site with their patients, but there are lots of opportunities for clinical and nonclinical healthcare workers to reap the benefits of telecommuting, remote work and flexible schedules. The key here is to know what works best for each role and then standardize the benefits.

3. help employees with education costs
With student debt relief top of mind for many in the healthcare industry, offering tuition reimbursement or other educational contributions will certainly grab top candidates' attention. Think beyond base salary to ease your employees’ financial lives and keep them on board.

If your recruiting strategy is dependent on interested people coming to you, then you're severely limiting your talent pool. Today's job market calls for seeking out passive candidates — people who are too busy with their current jobs to actively look for new opportunities, or don't even realize how many openings are out there for them. Here are some steps you can do to source passive candidates:

1. prioritize internal recruiting
Take the time to formalize an internal recruiting program to create a talent pipeline that ultimately builds happier, more engaged employees. Once your workers know that there's a clear path forward for them — for example, a pharm tech can advance to a pharmacist role — be prepared to watch retention rates increase.

2. partner with a staffing firm
With busy schedules and heavy workloads, healthcare employees are likely to be passive candidates. And staffing partners have access to these people who aren't crawling the job boards but who may be interested in your open position. Plus, they can add value to your overall hiring game by offering their expertise in matching companies with the best-fit candidates.

3. revisit runner-up candidates
You can often be blessed with more than one superstar candidate for a role. So keep communication open with candidates who already made it to the final round of your recruitment process. They'll be excited to know that you care enough to reengage them, and you'll have a preapproved applicant pool ready to tap at any time.

In today’s market, a whopping 91 percent of job seekers are going to research your company before applying to a position, so making sure your healthcare organization has a positive employer brand online is key to attracting the best talent. In fact, many healthcare leaders cite employer brand and workplace culture as the top factors in their recruitment strategy. Here are some steps you can do to build your employer brand:

1. build a robust social media presence
Many job seekers follow companies on social media with the intention of applying to their open jobs, so use these channels to engage them by sharing insights into your culture and showcasing your employees. And go the extra mile by publishing employee- and customer-generated content that speaks to your company's mission, values and services.

2. tell your stories
Publishing digital content like a blog or a video series gives your audience an inside look at what makes your healthcare organization the ideal place to work. Share interviews with your staff that convey their excitement to be a part of your team, and keep readers in the fold when it comes to learning about your innovations and breakthroughs.

3. engage with feedback on employer review sites
We all dread the idea of negative feedback, but there's a lot you can do to drive positive employer branding on these review sites. Use these pages to market your company's values and culture, and take the time to thoughtfully reply to both positive and negative reviews. Healthcare may be a big industry, but it's also a well-connected network, and you don't want inaccurate opinions of your organization speaking for you.

We all know how crazy healthcare workers' schedules can be, so having to play phone tag to schedule an interview or work around the candidates' schedules are not going to keep top talent around for long. Thankfully new recruiting technology is giving healthcare organizations access to powerful tools that simplify the recruitment process and decrease the time it takes to fill the opening. Here are some steps you can do to optimize your recruitment process:

1. automate time-consuming manual processes
Leveraging digital tools like AI-enabled virtual assistants means automating tasks like scheduling interviews and sending confirmation emails — giving your HR department more time to source passive talent, develop your employer brand and foster relationships with current candidates.

2. add flexibility to the interview process
Passive candidates and students finishing up medical school have difficult schedules to say the least, so getting them interviewed faster — especially those early-round video interviews — means accommodating their schedules. So use on-demand platforms that allow applicants to record their answers to interview questions ahead of time.

3. make the screening process painless
The regulatory process for screening healthcare candidates can be a headache. To minimize applicant drop-off due to these cumbersome processes, make sure you have a robust application and screening portal in place that offers candidates a great user experience.