How to Overhaul Your Candidate Screening Process

There was a time, that SkillGigs found itself at a pivotal moment. We were trying to find that one final missing ingredient to our secret sauce to support travel nursing placements. Though we had experienced some gradual success during our history to date, it was time to elevate our game!

Finally, we had the right sales team, and an impressive list of active national vendors but our candidate pool was less than stellar, to say the least. We began to brainstorm and bounce around different possible solutions. Finally, it hit us! If we want to be the best, we must first attract the best and add them to our talent nurse talent pool family. You are only as strong as your weakest link so it was time to strengthen our chain! Our Candidate Screening Process needed overhauling, so we sat down with our CEO, and together we devised a plan.

Identify the problem or weakness in our current process

We took a good look at our current Candidate screening process. We focused on what was working and what areas had little to no effect on our overall sales success.

1. Initial Recruiting Call

First, we agreed that relationship building should remain our initial building block, so we made some slight changes to this process. During all initial candidate screening calls, Recruiters would focus on the needs of the candidate – the reason for traveling (discovering their pains), offer career advice (diagnose), and devise a career plan/strategy for the candidate, based on their top five must-haves and a clear understanding of the candidate requirements (prescription). Throughout this process, Recruiters were directed to provide encouragement, and warmth and remain inviting and passionate about the candidate’s needs.

2. Candidate Seriousness

Another area we focused on was candidate seriousness. In the staffing world, time is money so each minute of a recruiter’s time should be properly managed and organized with a primary focus on serious candidates only.

After each initial recruiting call, candidates were asked to visit our website and complete an online application or respond to an introduction email, attaching an updated resume for review. If the candidate did as instructed, he/she was advanced to a priority processing phase, where they received added attention and quick processing. No time was wasted on chasing candidates with numerous phone calls or emails. All candidates were categorized according to their seriousness and recruited accordingly.

Those candidates who were slow to act were placed on a secondary bench and all “starters” we placed on the playing field.

3. Closing the Deal

The last component that needed tweaking was flawed in our deal-closing process. The major breakdown in our deals always went back to weak Candidate/Recruiter relationships along with miscommunication in regard to job requirement expectations versus facility needs.

Now, with a strong relationship established with serious candidates and requirement details clearly understood by both the Recruiter and the candidate, job matching has become a breeze! By the end of 2017, we increased our total number of medical professionals on contract by 50%!!

Our secret sauce is now perfected and we are closing business with confidence!

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