How can senior living providers attract qualified job seekers to fill open roles? The most effective resource to engage with prospective employees is your website. Your website has the power to differentiate your community from competitors, convey your brand story, spotlight your culture and philosophy, and highlight fulfilling career opportunities in a way unlike any other channel.
If potential new hires find your website and job postings confusing or difficult to navigate, the likelihood of an individual reaching out or converting is slim at best. Prospective employees will assume your website is a direct reflection of your organization. Meaning, if your digital presence is sloppy and unorganized, candidates may ascribe these perceptions to your community’s physical location and will assume your workplace suffers from the same red flags of disorganization and chaotic management.
In 2020, your digital presence must mirror that of your physical locations. The same care and consistent attention to detail that are taken to maintain your physical grounds must be applied to your website. This is especially true during COVID-19, where employment is handled almost exclusively online and competition for qualified candidates is greater than ever.
An updated, optimized and dedicated careers page on your website helps your community capitalize on search demand and keeps your community on prospective employee’s radars during their job hunt.
Continue reading to learn tips to improve the effectiveness, reach, and experience of your careers page to fulfill your staffing requirements. And, to learn about turnkey staffing and recruitment solutions.
Due to the Coronavirus, many people that have been laid off or furloughed are now eagerly seeking employment opportunities. In addition, McKnight’s addressed the senior living staffing crisis, citing a 44% year-over-year turnover rate. These in-market, qualified job seekers and other motivated candidates will begin their employment search online.
If your senior living community isn’t discovered at the time of search, it’s missing a massive opportunity to engage with these candidates. To ensure that your community’s careers page appears in the search results of qualified job seekers, let’s start with the content on these page(s). There are likely places where copy can be replaced with relevant keywords. Optimizing for these keywords will increase the chances that your job openings appear on search engine results pages (SERPS).
Essential keywords to incorporate on a careers page are “Jobs” and “Careers”, but your team should dig deeper to unearth more relevant keywords. One tool that can help your community is Google Trends. Simply type in different phrases and keyword combinations into Google Trends to see general search demand for keywords. This additional effort will help your careers page rank on search engines, which improves the effectiveness of your senior living recruitment efforts.
After your careers page is optimized for relevant keywords specific to the roles your community is hiring for, consider going one step further by embedding a video. According to WordStream, one-third of online activity is spent watching video. Additionally, 59% of executives agree that if both video and text are available for the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
Videos are an effective way to establish an emotional connection between your brand and motivated job seekers. By having both video and text complimenting one another, your community is giving interested applicants multiple ways to engage with your careers page. Consider adding the following elements to your videos:
Embedding a senior living recruitment video to your careers page is not an expensive, promotional move made for the sake of vanity. Like optimizing your careers page copy for relevant keywords, videos improve your SEO efforts and can also rank on search engines separate from your careers page. According to Brightcove, video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs).
A recruitment video embedded on your careers page leads to more page views, extends the reach of your message, enhances the candidate experience and helps attract even more applicants for open positions.
To supplement a community’s careers page to help providers capture the influx of job seekers, Linkmedia 360 created a turnkey online recruitment strategy consisting of paid search and social media advertising. Fill out the form below to improve your senior living staffing and recruitment efforts for any of your locations!
This new program utilizes the following channels to maximize the visibility and impact of senior living recruitment and staffing strategies:
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to ensure your senior living recruitment requirements are met. However, by applying the tips above, your community will have increased visibility to make this goal attainable. We’re also here to help. Contact our team with any questions your staff has in terms of improving its staffing strategy. Whether it’s through our new program or a customized strategy, we’re here to help you hire the best candidates in a timely manner.