Using a Nurse Recruiter for Your Facility: Pros and Cons

Finding qualified staff members to fill roles within a company can be difficult in any industry. Recruiting skilled professionals can become a pressing concern for healthcare organizations in particular, considering the highly-specialized roles that must remain filled to ensure patient safety. Many facilities face staffing challenges that have prompted them to seek support in the hiring process.

One such staffing support is a nurse recruiter, who works to connect nursing professionals to facilities such as clinics, hospitals, and nursing homes. Nurse recruiters can be employed by the healthcare organizations themselves or by outside agencies. While the specific qualifications vary depending on the employer, many of these recruiters have prior experience in nursing.

Are you wondering whether a recruiter would be helpful for your facility? In this article, we’ll explore the benefits and drawbacks of working with a nursing recruiter as part of your hiring process.

In other words, working with a nursing recruiter can lead to greater ease in the hiring process, but it also requires a high level of trust. It’s important that you partner with an experienced recruiter to ensure that you’re being matched with candidates that will be the right fit for your organization.

Pro: Positions Can Be Filled Quickly

You may find that your facility has an urgent staffing need, whether on a short-term or long-term basis. A recruiter will proactively seek potential candidates to fill those positions. Because experienced recruiters have a firm grasp of trends in the nursing industry and effective recruitment strategies, they’re better able to find candidates more quickly than a facility could on its own. Working with a nursing recruiter can be a great resource for your facility if you find that you have a number of open positions that need to be filled as soon as possible.

Con: Miscommunication Is Possible

On the other hand, miscommunication can arise between recruiters and healthcare organizations, resulting in a less-than-optimal experience for both parties. This can occur when the details of a job requirement aren’t clearly understood, prompting recruiters to suggest candidates who don’t really fit. Also, since a nursing recruiter isn’t typically located at your specific facility, some organizations find that communicating back and forth over digital channels can be frustrating.

An organization’s experience with a recruiter will greatly depend on the communication channels in place between the two parties. If your facility decides to partner with a recruiter, be sure to ask questions about how they plan to facilitate effective communication.

Pro: Hiring Is Less Time Consuming

When working with a recruiter, you’ll find that several steps in the hiring process will be taken care of for you. The recruiter will post job listings, sort through applications, check references, and take care of preliminary interviews before passing along the applicant’s information to you. Additionally, a nurse recruiter can negotiate the terms and compensation package with the candidate of your choice, limiting the time and responsibilities required of your organization before hiring.

Con: Less Control in Candidate Choice

One side effect of working with a recruiter is the inability to comb through each of the applications for the job posting. There is potential that the recruiter, based on their professional judgment, may eliminate a candidate that you would otherwise be interested in. Some residences and facilities prefer to have full control over the hiring process so they can ensure the ability to review each application thoroughly.

If you’re wondering how to find a nurse recruiter, it’s important to choose one you can trust to make preliminary hiring choices. Without this, you may be less confident in the hiring choices you ultimately make.

Pro: Easier to Find Specialized Candidates

Your facility may be in need of a candidate in highly-specialized skills areas, such as critical care (CCU) or neuro, surgical, trauma (NeST). Nursing recruiters can help meet those specific needs because they have extensive connections within the nursing community and search in a broad geographic area. This enables them to find candidates — including international candidates — who are willing to travel, but who would’ve been less likely to find and apply to a job posted exclusively by your organization. Many organizations find that they would not be able to fill these positions without outside support.

Con: Effectiveness Can Differ

Nursing recruiters can vary greatly depending on their time in the industry, professional values, and organizational systems. While some recruiters will work diligently to conduct a thorough analysis of each candidate before sending a quality list to an organization, others focus on quantity, seeking to find as many candidates as possible. Different healthcare organizations may prefer one style or another, but it’s important to know which you are getting.

Your experience with a nurse recruiter can vary dramatically depending on which you choose, so be sure to perform thorough research on the company you’ll partner with. You’ll want to look for a company with extensive industry experience, clear communication channels in place, and alignment with your organization’s values.

Looking For Someone to Help With Your Staffing Needs?

While you might not choose to work with a nurse recruiter, you may still need staffing support. A partnership with IntelyCare can help you fill specialized positions within your facility. Learn more about how we can connect you with the nursing professionals your facility needs.