Who would like to recruit more caregivers? 

Everyone I meet in home care tells me the same thing “I could take on a lot more business if I had more caregivers. Where are the caregivers?” In her guest blog, Jen Waldron shares new ways to attract qualified caregivers. Here’s what she has to say.

Increase your caregiver recruitment with family caregivers. Learn how to find them and qualify them for professional caregiving in this unique article from Jen Wauldron of Augusta Care.

She also offers you, my readers, a special free video tutorials on how to set up your Facebook business page to recruit caregivers.  Can I have a thank you?

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This is Jen. I talk to a lot of home care operators and a lot of caregivers on a regular basis and I’m starting to hear successful agency owners say, “I finally hit my caregiver recruiting goal for the first time in over a year.”  At Augusta Care, we’re receiving hundreds of applications from amazing caregivers who are ready to work.  It’s encouraging to hear that many caregivers still want to serve older adults. I also hear from agency owners who have not seen this enthusiasm in their market yet. 

If you are still struggling to recruit enough caregivers, read up! This post includes techniques to help you attract qualified caregivers in areas neglected by homecare recruiters.

Create The Right Ad To Recruit Caregivers

Time and again, we read job postings with dull, short and generic job descriptions. There is limited information about the agency and the type of clients served. Those job ads look like they come from the same agency posting on different job sites over and over again. It’s hard to know what agency is actually advertising.

The typical job ad for a caregiver is often indistinguishable from the next. This leads to caregiver applicants ‘spam-apply’ on job sites like Indeed. We’ve found that caregivers apply for 10 identical jobs in their area. When they get a call from the agency, they ask “which company is this again?” Dull, generic job postings encourage caregivers to spam-apply because they all look the same.

At Augusta Care, Sam Sanchez has been running digital marketing campaigns for home care for years. Sam has contributed to the recruitment of thousands of great caregivers. Over the years, he has tested different types of caregiver job ads. The job ads that are most successful have the following characteristics:

  • Lead with a question to help candidates self-select for the job. Try a question like “Do you want to use your compassion and empathy to start a new career in healthcare?”
  • Highlight the benefits of working for your agency front and center.  This requires knowing how your agency stands out from your competitors. Put those in a bold font and stand out on the page.
  • Explain the extent of your service area.  Make sure the description of your service area is easily read and understood. Too many postings mention just one town or county which is just too narrow.

Leverage Social Media with Targeted Ads For Caregiver Recruitment

Home care owners have told me that Facebook doesn’t work for caregiver recruitment despite their best efforts. I also hear from others that they have not considered social media because they don’t think their caregivers use it.

I highlight Facebook because this platform is used by around 2.9 BILLION people and roughly 61% of their users are between the ages of 18 – 44. There is a large potential of caregiver talent on this platform.  It just takes a little know-how to access it.  

Facebook has a wide range of tools to collect data through the Facebook business page (audience, geo-localization). The challenge is to read the data correctly and understand how Facebook’s algorithm works so that you know when to boost posts. At Augusta, our clients see an increase of up to 35% application-to-hire rates thanks to our Facebook ad expertise.

If you’re just starting out with Facebook, we offer free video tutorials on how to set up your Facebook business page to recruit caregivers.  

How To Qualify Informal Caregivers

Although it’s hard to recruit caregivers, it’s not all doom and gloom. There is still hope. Today in the US, there are 53 million family caregivers doing unpaid caregiving. 

Family caregiving or informal caregiving is defined as caring for “adult family members and friends with chronic illnesses or conditions that prevent them from handling daily activities such as bathing, managing medications or preparing meals on their own,” according to the Family Caregiver Alliance. 

While a family caregiver may not have formal training, they demonstrated something that cannot be trained: the strength of character for caregiving. Instead of ruling out a family caregiver from your hiring process, consider asking these interview questions instead: 

  • How long did you care for your relative?
  • What type of care did you provide? 
  • How did you learn how to do it?
  • Tell me about a time when your relative went through something difficult, how did you support them? 
  • Tell me about a time when you learned something new?

Recruiting and training family caregivers offers a new talent pool for home care. Tapping into it could be a game changer for home care agencies willing to put in the effort.

To learn how Augusta Care can help your caregiver recruitment, visit their website.