Ep:13 92% of Caregivers Say One Thing Convinces Them to Apply For the Job, According to the CEO of Hireology

Miriam Allred (00:08):

Hey, this is Miriam Allred and you’re listening to Vision | The Care Leaders’ Podcast by Activated Insights. My guest today is Adam Robinson, Co-Founder and CEO of Hireology. Adam is a recruiting industry expert, and his mission is to help business owners make better hiring decisions using predictive data and innovative technology. How’s everything going today, Adam?

Adam Robinson (00:33):

Great. Thanks for having me glad to be here.

Miriam Allred (00:35):

Well, let’s kind of just dive in. We’ve got a lot to talk about today. So for those of you who don’t know Hireology works, not just in the home care space, but in multiple different industries. So I want to open up Adam and start talking about what are the trends you’re seeing across the board, not just in home care, as far as recruitment goes.

Adam Robinson (00:54):

Well, you know, for first and foremost, this industry has pervasive talent challenges and it has everything to do with the, with the growth of the industry and the expansion of opportunity that agencies are seeing, which of course is a good thing. So part of it is because the number of jobs in the industry are growing. And so the talent pool we need to continue to staff this business is, is growing, but also because of the supply constraints on the, on the talent side you know, these are tough to fill roles. The, the, the pay can be challenging. The work is challenging and we are competing with many other industries for the same labor pool. And so the, the biggest trend I see right now are, is that agencies who can really tell their story from an employment branding standpoint, you know, first off why this industry, what makes it so special you know, what are the opportunities and why should you consider a career in this industry? And then second, why my agency, what are we doing here? That’s different, right? You can have your choice of agencies and you may work for a couple of them to make your hours. But you know, here is, here are the reasons why our agency, or this opportunity is one you should really put at the top of your list. It’s, it’s as much about selling opportunity, establishing trust, and building a differentiated product and the employment market as anything else. And agencies that are focused on those things are seeing big returns on their investment of time.

Miriam Allred (02:36):

And as far as you know, we’re seeing layoffs in, in other industries, how can home care capitalize on reaching out to those employees that are working in other industries that are looking for work? You know, what can maybe home care agencies do specifically?

Adam Robinson (02:52):

Yeah, it’s, it’s really the, the question you’ve asked is, is what I’m talking with agencies about all the time. I mean, COVID has impacted the U S workforce and families in so many ways one bright spot, if you want to call it, that, that has emerged relative to the opportunity for hiring for agencies is that other industries that are service oriented that are accustomed to hard work and long hours have been severely impacted. And so tourism, hospitality hotels, restaurants service based businesses were unemployment, was highly concentrated in the downturn. All, I have really high quality talent available for agencies to go after right now. And so you know, the first thing that that an agency can do is prepare to tell their story and explain to these individuals why moving into our industry is, is a good move for them. But there is an opportunity right now to reach out into these other markets and take a look at a talent pool that we have previously struggled to have access to.

Miriam Allred (04:10):

Definitely, and it’s easier said than done, but like you’ve mentioned, you know, there there’s talent out there. We’ve just got to capitalize on it. And like you said, tell the story of the agency to convince or persuade people to, you know, experience this industry for what it is. So, so let’s dive a little bit deeper. You know, how can home care agencies better connect with these applicants? We’ve talked about kind of the culture and telling the story, but more specifically, what can agencies do to connect with these applicants?

Adam Robinson (04:44):

The, the first thing that that agencies can do is to, to meet these applicants or potential job seekers where, where they are, and that means talking to them through the channels that are most meaningful. We, we put a survey out in the talent market asking about approach and attitudes toward hiring. And what we found was that in 50% of all the healthcare hires we surveyed they said that they use their smartphone as the exclusive device they use during their job search. So you know, the, the lesson there is, you know, as an agency is to get out your phone and try to apply to a job at your own agency. And, and just note the experience in many agencies, most slash all agencies have a website, many have a link to apply for roles there. But most agencies don’t secret shop themselves and, you know, look at the experience from the applicant’s point of view.

Adam Robinson (05:49):

And so if, if you are trying to apply for a job at you’re an agency or group with a phone, and that the experience isn’t ideal, that’s the first place I would start because half of the market uses their phone exclusively when conducting a job search. A second email is still the number one way, applicants communicate with hiring managers during the hiring process. But half of these survey respondents who are hired in a, in home care role was were texting with the hiring manager at some point in the process. And so what that means is text has become a really critical channel to communicate with applicants in the process. And what we find is interview no show rates or, you know, day one, no show rates drop off considerably about 20, 25%, if a text is used as the means for scheduling and reminders versus email.

Adam Robinson (06:58):

And so that just speaks to the need to work with technology that allows you to do that in a way that is both effective and FCC compliant because of course, agency have to comply with can spam laws and guidelines around text-based communication with consumers. And so if, if you’re using your personal phone number to do that, that can be problematic if you’re using a platform that allows you to do that with phone numbers linked to the business, that’s better. You know, that’s a, that’s a big one. The others you know, interesting to to note in the, in the survey was that 72% of the respondents in our study told us that their most recent healthcare job search took less than two weeks to complete. And, but at 44% said, the process moved much faster than they expected.

Adam Robinson (07:55):

And so I know this is something that most agency managers or leaders know already, but it’s often the, the first agency to respond to the applicant wins that higher speed to response is really critical. And so, you know, 72% found a new job within two weeks. What’s interesting is close to 90% of that pool. That was hired was hired by the firm that responded to them within 48 hours. So it is all about speed to response when we’re going after this talent pool. And we all know how many agencies are trying to hire from this talent pool right now,

Miriam Allred (08:38):

Man. I love everything that you’ve said. I love where you started with having or recommending the agencies test their own application experience. You know, I think even just getting on the mobile version of your applications, because that’s, you know, where caregivers are really coming from and just experiencing that firsthand to know, you know, what they’re going through. That’s so powerful and so important. So let’s kind of shift gears. I want to talk about multichannel recruiting. What have you seen, you know, maybe you asked this in that same survey, but what are the top producing job posting sites right now? You know, what should agencies, where should they be focusing their attention?

Adam Robinson (09:21):

Yeah, I mean, still the, the leading third party site for traffic remains indeed and I, you know, all agencies no, and probably have a love, hate relationship with that channel. Still a majority of healthcare applicant traffic based on our data comes from indeed in this, in this industry. However, there are alternative sources that have invested heavily in our industry and we were seeing traffic rising from these new channels. And the biggest one I see is Facebook. Facebook launched the Facebook for jobs platform as part of the company pages functionality that they have in Facebook. Many agencies invest time and resources into building out their presence on Facebook either through paying for ads, setting up a company page, linking it to other social media. What I can tell you is that the percentage of applicants coming from Facebook for jobs where hierology has an integration is growing faster than any other channel today and the fastest we’ve seen any new channel grow in years.

Adam Robinson (10:35):

And it makes sense Facebook’s the largest social network on the planet. They’ve got hundreds of millions of users here in the United States. People live large portion of their social life on Facebook and other link platforms. And so putting job opportunities out there through your Facebook company page through the Facebook jobs platform is highly effective full stop. So in the most recent quarter, 14% of candidates used Facebook to find work that’s up substantially. As a, as a comparison, only 11% of healthcare applicants reported having used LinkedIn as a channel. And, and beyond those, you have a long tail in a really fragmented market. You know, the one thing to note interesting is when we pulled applicants 0% of applicants like literally zero found jobs through local classified ads. So in some industries, offline recruitment marketing is effective in our industry in home care, it is just not effective. It is at least at the macro level that what applicants tell us is it’s wasted money

Miriam Allred (11:56):

Yeah. Thanks for breaking that down and appreciate the stats on both Facebook and LinkedIn. That’s really fascinating. Can we dive a little deeper, any tips or recommendations on both indeed and LinkedIn, you know, anything further that you can tell us that agencies should really hone in on, on both of those?

Adam Robinson (12:18):

Well, the biggest thing to remember as an employer is that jobs are products and like any other digital product, they have to be retailed online in a way that that meets the consumer where they are. And so, you know, if you think of your job as a digital product, that has to be marketed in retail, like any other digital product that makes you think very differently about your approach. And so, again, from the applicant’s point of view, what, what applicants told us in the survey was there were some factors that were very important. They list these as very important in convincing them to apply. So this is the process of getting someone to, you know, after sifting through mountains of opportunity to, to click on your particular opportunity and apply 92% reported the most important thing and convincing them to apply was a clear and concise job description.

Adam Robinson (13:20):

And so what that means is what I’ve seen as the best practices, if you’re simply cutting and pasting job descriptions from other agencies, job postings, because you’re not sure how to write one, or you don’t want to take the time to do it. What you’re doing is is, is providing an uncompelling non-differentiated product that’s out in the market. So writing your own clear and concise job description is really critical. 83% of applicants in the survey told us that it was important to see a detailed list of the experience required to be successful. This is particularly important if we’re trying to attract applicants from other industries, because I don’t think unless you’ve been in the role, I don’t think you truly understand what it takes to do, to, to be a caregiver every day. And so not assuming people know what it means to be a caregiver, but actually in the job description list, the experience required to be successful so that they can put themselves in, in, in in the shoes they’ll be filling.

Adam Robinson (14:31):

And, and also has the benefit of, of giving them the opportunity to opt out of applying. If they feel like they don’t meet that experience, or if that job is not for them, which of course saves you the agency owner time and their grading process, 50% reported that having an understanding of career advancement opportunities was critical. 80% said that details about compensation was, was very important in 50% reported. And this is up substantially in the last 12 months, 50% reported that talking about diversity and inclusion related topics or initiatives you may have was important in, in there applying to the role. And so all of that goes to say the, the, the copy matters, right? What you are writing ad copy it’s it’s you of course, have to check the legal boxes on description of the role and the experience required to be qualified.

Adam Robinson (15:34):

But at the end of the day, you’re writing an ad and, and you have to, to take, take that approach with it, right? It’s it’s not good enough to just copy a generic job posting and throw it up there. Number one Google, which is the, I mean, at the end of the day, the largest job search engine in the world most job searches start on Google these days. Google will see it’s the same as 500 other ones and rank it far lower. And so it hurts you to not put the time in to do this right now that applies to indeed Facebook, LinkedIn, any of these platforms. It really has unique copy in your own voice that that is differentiated and touches on the points that I mentioned.

Miriam Allred (16:19):

Yeah. Wow. And it seems so simple and straightforward the way that you’re laying it out. But I think this is so important for agency owners to be hearing right now. I can’t even, you know, stresses enough. There’s, you know, the number of people that are probably still copying and pasting or pulling from, you know, pulling the copy from other places. I just love what you’ve said, that it, it won’t differentiate them. You know, it’s only hurting them to kind of streamline and use a pretty cut and dry job ad. But like you’ve said, it’s, it’s a product, you know, what’s going to make you stand out and what’s gonna make you stand out to these applicants. So thank you so much for sharing all of those stats too. I just think that’s so, you know, the way you’ve outlined it is so simple and straight forward, but really something that our industry needs to hear. So appreciate that. Let’s talk about, what’s kind of up and coming, as far as, you know, technology trends or recruitment trends, you guys are on the forefront of, you know, recruitment as a whole. So what do you see coming down the pipe, especially as we move through the pandemic or as things, you know, we’re looking at?

Adam Robinson (17:26):

Yeah, the, the, the thing that at Hireology we’ve been focused on is helping agencies integrate the systems they use to manage the people side of their business. And so, you know, if you go to two years ago, let’s say three years ago, even the, in general, the channel or platform you used for recruiting was not connected to the rostering or scheduling or billing system that you used for your customers. And so what we were seeing is lots, lots of agencies, most re-keying data from their hiring process into the rostering system. And you know, that if you’ve got scale that takes a lot of human power to do that. And so we in we have worked with some of the leading rostering systems in the industry to kind of seamlessly shuttled data from a hiring process into the rostering system, just to eliminate all that manual entry.

Adam Robinson (18:29):

I see that it’s not just, Hireologylots of slash most platforms are figuring out how to do that and are putting that forward. So the good news for agency owners is the vendor ecosystem recognizes that when, when we save you time in administrative process, you like that, that’s, that’s a good thing. And so the, the, the vendors in the community are working far more closely together now than they were a couple of years ago. And if you think about it, the reason for doing that is that only for administrative time savings, but it’s also really key if you’re trying to put your job seekers slash new employee at the center of the model. So we, we don’t want, you know, if it’s as competitive as this industry is, you know, and when I can go down the street and get a $15 an hour job working in an Amazon distribution center just about anywhere you know, if I feel like you’ve rolled the red carpet out for me in the hiring and onboarding process, I’m much more likely to stay in fact close to 70% of, or let’s say this this way, comp companies who have a dedicated onboarding process and program where their systems are integrated.

Adam Robinson (19:50):

70% of their new hires are likely to stay for three years or longer, right. At least on the roster. And that that’s huge. And so, and, but it makes sense when, when I feel like you really want me to work for you, and I feel respected in the process and your hiring process is a reflection of the quality of management. And, and while you really treat me right, and I didn’t have to jump through all these hoops to get my payroll and benefits set up and all these other things that happen, we’ve got systems all over the place, but my first day is great. It’s the best agency I’ve ever worked for. Of course, I’m much more likely to stay, but, but that takes real intention there. And when you put people at the center of your business model, and, and it, everything comes from a place of asking, what can I do to be the best employer in my market? What can I do to have the best hiring and onboarding experience in my market? Because I want to build a strong employment brand. When you start asking those questions, it leads you to do these kinds of things like connect systems invest in employment branding, and do the things that we know lead to improve retention and performance.

Miriam Allred (21:06):

Absolutely. Now I want to give you a minute to talk about Hireology, you know, we’ve got listeners on that most likely are using ATS software, others that may not. So tell us about Hireology.

Adam Robinson (21:17):

Sure. So there are three things that you get with Hireology that we think differentiates us in the space, and also it goes a long way toward helping your agency succeed on the hiring side of the business. Number one, we automate the mundane parts of the hiring process. So your team can spend time more strategically and that’s, you know, whether it’s automatically posting to job board feeds to our integration with Facebook, for jobs to drive applicant, traffic, and activity to qualifying the applicants immediately with prescreen surveys Hireology’s ATS is designed to drive ROI through time savings while also getting the right person in the seats. That’s that’s number one, number two, who we have integrated all of the things that you need to run a really effective selection process integrated background checks, integrated automated reference checks and skills testing makes the hiring process flow together.

Adam Robinson (22:20):

And so it’s not a series of disconnected vendors that you need to wrangle and manage separately. Everything’s all in one place. And then finally you see the results of your efforts with our insights platform. And so those are analytics that are always on, and particularly for the multi agency operators listening, you know, when you’re trying to manage your hiring process across multiple locations could be multiple States. And being able to see an integrated view of that when each agency may be a separate legal entity is really critical. And because of our focus on on, on in this industry, we know how important that is. And so you get that with Hireology as well. You know, for, for the home care space, the other critical piece, I mentioned it before is onboarding or even pre-boarding right. So from our applicant survey, what we find is that 75% of recent hires made, have identified that they were able to complete the onboarding or pre boarding program digitally and that’s really critical. And so, you know, when you’re able to do that when you’re able to give that level of service to stop the paper, chase, to perhaps stop filing everything in that giant Steelcase file cabinet and have everything on demand digitally when you need it, that’s, that’s helpful. But again, putting your new hire at the center of your model, it’s a lot easier to be able to submit things digitally through a mobile device than it is to, you know, go print copies and bring them into you. And so

Miriam Allred (24:00):

One question I want to ask is this is probably be more of a question for maybe your customer success team, but what is one feature or tool inside of an ATS that you often times see agency owners overlooking? You know, what’s one tool that they’re may be forgetting about or not using as frequently that would really help, you know, drive,

Adam Robinson (24:18):

Push them forward far and away. It’s, it’s the ability to automate the initial screening and scheduling. So, you know, 80% of the time spent in the recruiting process is just opening resumes, reading them, responding through email or text, waiting for an answer back, scheduling an interview dealing with no shows, all of that. It’s just so time and labor intensive and nobody really likes doing it. That’s the thing. And so to the extent you can leverage your ATS to automate that initial outreach response and scheduling the extent that happens. It, it, it gives you time back, it makes for a more delightful applicant experience and everybody’s better off it does require some time and thought to change those processes as an agency. And so it’s getting outside your comfort zone a little bit and understanding that by by doing it a little bit differently, the payback is there. And so, you know, that’s one thing, regardless of what ATS as you use, I would, I would encourage you to take a look at automating as much of that first step of the funnel process. As you could,

Miriam Allred (25:33):

Last question, I’m going to kind of put you on the spot here, but any stats you can give us that are home care specific about agencies using an ATS versus those that aren’t?

Adam Robinson (25:44):

Well, I’ll tell you you know, this, we find is interesting and, you know, our data shows that nearly one in 10 healthcare applicants specifically home care applicants is, is what we call a lost applicant, meaning they are never reviewed by a hiring manager or responded to and so in a market where we’re desperate for talent, the fact that 10% of everyone applying for the jobs in our industry are never even looked at. It’s kind of crazy to me, right? We should, we should be looking at everyone who applies, and I know the reasons why this is happening. It’s we are busy running an agency is, is time intensive. There’s a lot going on. And so that, that is of course true. But every applicant is someone who’s taken the time to look at your position and raise their hand and say, I’m interested in working here.

Adam Robinson (26:42):

And we all also know what it feels like to apply for a job and never hear back. And it just doesn’t feel great. And so you know, as an industry, we can increase the amount of applicants that we have in the funnel by 10%, just by paying attention to who’s applying and getting back to them in a timely manner. So the question listeners should, should ask themselves now is, do you have your managers reply to all new applicants within 24 hours of their submittal? Are you making sure every single applicant is getting a look and a response positively or not within 24 hours of, of their application, if, if not you know, not only are you losing out cause we saw an earlier data. I mentioned how fast people move off the market, you know, so you’re going to fall behind in recruitment, but, but it also damages your employment brand because caregivers talk and you don’t want to erode your brand in the market in a market where every applicant matters.

Miriam Allred (27:47):

Wow. Well, Adam, I can’t thank you enough. I’m here sitting here taking notes and I know our listeners will be too. A lot of interesting information, but also actionable information today. So thank you so much, honestly, for taking the time. We know you guys are just as busy as the rest of us. So I know your time is precious as well. Just to wrap up what is the best way for people to get in touch with your team at Hireology?

Adam Robinson (28:11):

Yeah, the, the best way is to go to our website, www.hireology.com. If you’re interested in learning more, you can let us know there by requesting a demo or talking to someone in a sales team. Of course, if you’ve had someone from our company emailing and calling, you feel free to give them a return call or email. But we’d be, we’d be happy to talk to you. So thank you

Miriam Allred (28:38):

For listening to this episode of vision with Adam Robinson. Don’t forget to visit our website homecarepulse.com/podcast to get the related resources that go along with this episode. We’ll see you next time!