Four Easy Steps to Fast-Track Home Care Hiring

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The job outlook for home health and personal care aides is on the rise. Employment for this title is expected to increase by 41% from 2016 to 2026. That’s an astonishing number. (The average growth rate for all occupations is just 7%.) This career, which requires little work experience or education, is attractive to all sorts of applicants.

Home care hiring companies have their hands full as they try to select the best from a tsunami of resumes. Without offering psychological profiles to each candidate, how can these companies fast-track home care hiring so they’re looking at suitable candidates without wasting time?

Create Application Levels

While it’s tempting to think that only the most committed will stick around to fill out your lengthy application, the opposite is true. The most qualified applicants know they’re valuable, and they aren’t going to waste time trying to prove themselves via a web portal or online application form. Take a ‘more resumes are better’ approach when it comes to applications by keeping it short and sweet. Don’t worry – your applicant tracking software can be set up to automatically find the best of the bunch.

Level 1: Set Expectations

Home care hiring is especially difficult because this career has a low barrier to entry. A college degree or previous work experience aren’t essentials to get into this field. Since it pays fairly well, home care hiring firms receive applications from people who don’t have the right temperament for this demanding career.

Is your applicant looking for an easy job with a good paycheck, or is he or she truly interested in this field? Set expectations by letting the applicant know that several hours of training may be required before he or she sets foot in a client’s house. Those who aren’t willing to put in the effort won’t bother completing the home care hiring application.

Level 2: Automatically Filter Out the Unqualified

Set up filters to identify and eliminate resumes with red flags, or those who don’t meet your basic requirements. An automatic rejection email tells those applicants you aren’t interested. Then, send anyone who makes it through the filter to the next ‘level’ of application: a pre-screening questionnaire. Let your applicants know that they’ve made it through the first pass so they are incentivized to continue the application process.

Level 3: Personality Profiles

Remember that psychological profile we mentioned? While you aren’t administering Rorschach’s to everyone, you can quickly eliminate those who may not have the right temperament for home care. Set up a questionnaire as part of your application process. Ask multiple choice questions that don’t clearly have a right or wrong answer. For example, describe a scenario in which a client exhibits the symptoms of a stroke. Does your applicant know that he or she needs to obtain professional medical help, or does he or she try to solve the problem alone? Offer choices that have many acceptable options so your questionnaire isn’t easy to fool.

You can use your applicant tracking system to give each answer its own score. Then, sort your candidates by the number of points they’ve scored. You can add in ‘knockout’ questions, which, when moved to a disqualifying stage, will automatically send the rejection letter. Sort the remaining candidates by their scores and move on to the next step. Sort the remaining candidates by their scores and move on to the next step.

Level 4: Ask for References

Everything until now has been easily automated. This is the first time you take an active roll in the home care hiring process. You have a list of qualified, motivated, knowledgeable applicants. Automatically send those candidates a request for references, and take over the show from there.

Talk to the references before you interview the candidate, since some people interview well but perform poorly. The references will give you a good indication of the applicant’s skills, weaknesses, and work ethic. After speaking with references, use your applicant tracking system to set up an interview with the candidate and complete the home care hiring process. It’s that easy!

 

Simplify HR management today.

Simplify HR management today.

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