This report offers information on next practice recruitment strategies in light of the recent surge in jobs that do not require advanced degrees and in nontraditional candidates.
Value-based, patient-centric care models are changing the profiles of ideal candidates in many healthcare roles.
For business roles, healthcare recruiters are increasingly looking to engage candidates with expertise in data analytics, population and public health, mergers and acquisitions, and business diversification.
On the clinical side, healthcare organizations need leaders who understand the operational side of healthcare and can build strong relationships with all healthcare stakeholders, patients, providers, business partners and administrative leadership.
Telemedicine is one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry and also requires new capabilities. Healthcare recruiters must find candidates with strong communication skills, and expertise in integrating multiple data streams as they evaluate patients. Candidates also need to be comfortable using video, email, and
mobile app technologies as the primary method for patient communication.
There has been a significant surge in jobs that do not require advanced degrees—from cloud and system administrators to cyber and information security professionals to various medical diagnostic equipment operators.
While the traditional degree path still holds sway for most high skill professions, more employers are looking to alternative credentialing systems to address the skills gap.
A recent survey by Learning House and Future Workplace found that 90 percent of HR executives are open to accepting nontraditional candidates who don’t hold a four-year college degree.
Nine in ten employers in the survey report being ready to accept candidates without four-year college degrees to fill positions in an increasingly tight labor market.
Companies are open to hiring candidates with a recognized certification (66 percent), a certificate (66 percent), an online degree from massive open online courses (47 percent) or a digital badge (24 percent) in lieu of a bachelor’s
degree.
According to a national Manpower Talent Shortage Survey, 36 percent of companies are more flexible about the education or experience they require for roles, and 33 percent are looking at different demographics, age ranges or
geographies, or tapping boomerang retirees, returning parents and part-timers to address talent shortages.
Experts predict that within a decade, 123 million high-skills, high-paying jobs will exist, but at current high school and college graduation rates, only 50 million Americans will be qualified for them.
• Cultivating and nurturing talent from a young age is critical to building a diverse workforce:
• Many organizations sponsor K-12 initiatives in underserved communities, and work directly with local school districts or through other organizations to prepare elementary, middle and high school students to enter and succeed in the work force and/or college.
• Some programs allow students to earn college credits or gain an industry certification while still in high school, or connect students to apprenticeships, mentoring and other work-and-learn experiences.
• Many K-12 partnerships are focused on developing outreach and initiatives to better prepare students for STEM-related careers and postsecondary study.
• Preparing college students for the world of work requires the cultivation of relationships with higher education partners to align curriculum and course design with the skills and competencies needed in today’s workforce.
• According to research by Harvard Business Review, 56 percent of industry and academic leaders agree collaboration is necessary during higher education curriculum development.
• In that same study, 71 percent of corporate recruiters indicated that finding applicants with sufficient practical experience is their greatest challenge when recruiting from higher education.
• Collaboration with colleges and other community partners to develop and provide pre-employment work experience is an effective method of developing workplace and industry skills and building relationships with future job candidates.
• Work-based learning experiences help students develop real-time knowledge and skills, but also provide access to much needed networking exposure to build social capital. These opportunities are particularly important for students of color and first-generation college students who often lack social networks.
• The NACE 2019 Internship Survey reports the offer rate for interns is 70 percent, the acceptance rate is nearly 80 percent, and the conversion rate is 56 percent. The one-year retention rate for intern hires is 71 percent.
American Assembly for Men in Nursing. The American Assembly for Men in Nursing is a professional organization for nurses that works to improve gender inclusion in nursing profession.
American Indian Graduate Center. AIGC is the premier national resource in funding and empowering the next generation of Native leaders across all sectors. The organization partners with corporations to provide scholarships and pre-employment experience.
Association of American Indian Physicians. AAIP’s membership is made up of American Indian and Alaska Native physicians who are licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. A major goal of AAIP is to motivate American Indian and Alaskan Native students to remain in the academic pipeline and to pursue a career in the health professions and/or biomedical research.
Association of Native American Medical Students. The Association of Native American Medical Students (ANAMS) is a student organization representing Native American graduate health professions students throughout the US and Canada.
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality is an international organization of approximately 1,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally healthcare professionals and students.
Society for the Advancement of Chicanos & Native Americans in Science. Dedicated to fostering the success of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans, from college students to professionals, in attaining advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in STEM.
Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools. HSHPS has successfully trained over 900 health professionals by collaborating with its members, national partners like the National Hispanic Medical Association and Latino Medical Student Association and federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Veterans Affairs in various programs like Professional Development Workshop, Student Mentorship Program for Hispanic Health Research (sMPH2r), Hispanic Health Services Research Scholar, and Graduate Fellowship Training Program (GFTP).
Latino Medical Student Association. Founded to represent, support, educate, and unify US Latino(a) medical students. Network of Latino(a) medical students is composed of five regions spanning the United States: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, & West region. MinorityNurse.com. Job post opportunity for employers seeking to find diverse nursing talent. National Hispanic Medical Association. Represents 50,000 licensed Hispanic physicians in the US.
The Sullivan Alliance. Alliance seeks to strengthen the capacity and quality of the nation’s health workforce by increasing the numbers of ethnic and racial minorities within the health professions.
With a community of over 1 million and 11,000+ active members, MomMD is the largest and best site devoted to connecting women in medicine. The goal is to encourage and support women physicians, residents, medical students, premeds, and nurses in their careers. The organization’s website offers employers opportunities to post jobs.
Diversity.com Premier job posting sites for black and minority candidates.
Professional Diversity Network provides a professional network for diverse talent and access to awesome media and minority job boards through PDN’s partner network.
PowerToFly. Best for finding women, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people for remote tech position. Provides employers access to over 1 million diverse candidates.
Campus Pride. Job board for the college-age members of the LGBTQ community. The online destination serves as a bridge to LGBTQ and an ally to college youth on 1200+ campuses across the US.
70 Million Jobs. Job board specifically for candidates who have a criminal record.
Leadership Alliance. A national consortium of more than 30 leading research and teaching colleges, and universities with the shared goal to develop underrepresented students into outstanding leaders and role models in academia, business and the public sector. The consortium has provided research and networking experiences to over 4,000 young scholars.
Disability:IN’s Mentorship Exchange program connects high potential students and graduates with private sector corporate mentors. NextGen Leaders are college students and recent graduates with disabilities who have demonstrated talent and leadership in the STEM, finance and business fields. NextGen Leaders are matched with a corporate executive mentor. Through their partnership with Disability:IN, employers can grow their talent pipelines by sourcing candidates directly for internship, part-time, and full-time opportunities.
The Ventures Scholars Program brings together undergraduate and graduate schools, professional schools, professional associations, and employers to offer outreach, information and opportunities to high achieving underrepresented and first-generation college-going students.
Inroads is a multicultural nonprofit specializing in leadership development and career opportunities for unserved youth. Inroads helps Fortune 500 companies grow pipelines of future executives by identifying high potential high school and college students, and providing them internships and mentoring experiences. An impressive 74% of Inroads interns received offers from the company they interned with; 81% of them accepted positions. Corporate partners of Inroads consistently report better retention rates of employees that entered the company as Inroads interns.
Posse Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that identifies, recruits, and trains student leaders from high schools to form multicultural teams called “Posses” of 10 Posse Scholars. These teams are then prepared, through an intensive eight-month Pre-Collegiate Training Program, for enrollment at top-tier universities nationwide to pursue their academics, help promote cross-cultural communication and become leaders on college campuses. Each Posse Scholar is awarded a full-tuition scholarship.
Door of Clubs connects diverse students with career opportunities with top companies. The organization has 3,000 clubs representing more than 50,000 students from 350 schools on its platform. Hundreds of companies—from startups to Fortune 100 companies—use the subscription service to connect with diverse student clubs and their members. Employers are able to pinpoint their student search opportunities and share opportunities—jobs, events, webinars, hackathons, etc.—directly with student club members. Corporate partners also help Door of Clubs build a pool of funding they are able to allocate to student clubs, with $250,000 (and growing) in sponsorships provided to clubs thus far.
The College Diversity Network is a premiere way for diverse job seekers from great schools to find opportunities at employers who value diversity. Jobs are promoted to students of participating schools and employers use the network to build a more diverse, professional workforce from the ground up.
College students interact each day with peers in similar majors and organizations; capitalize on student networks to connect to a wider talent pool, and communicate brand message to this group.
At the conclusion of each internship, ask interns to share names of friends who may be interested in a role with the organization. Add these students to your talent community, even if they are only freshmen, and nurture them until they are ready to explore opportunities with your company.
Cultivate students throughout the year. While spring and fall are peak recruiting times, stay top-of-mind with college students year round by communicating company information through email campaigns, social media, and hosting events.
Incorporate these initiatives in your employer branding strategy to cultivate a pool of talent that is already engaged with your brand and excited about a potential career with your organization.
Students are on computers and mobile phones, and the career site is often the first place they visit to research potential employers. Using your job board software, create a page focused on entry-level careers that offers a view inside your organization, and keep it up-to-date with information on company culture,
growth opportunities and recent photos.
If job descriptions are recycled year after year, revisit positions with a fresh set of eyes to clearly emphasize the responsibilities and benefits of every role and the diversity of the employees who hold them.
Monitoring and engaging on third-party review sites such as Glassdoor and Comparably, is an essential part of an employer branding strategy. Respond to reviews, both positive and negative, in a timely manner. Thank the reviewer for their feedback, offer steps to address concerns and focus on positive company-led initiatives. Responding to reviews allows you to control the narrative—even on sites you don’t own.
Prime Digital Academy’s immersive programs empower learners from diverse backgrounds and fast track their career path in months, not years. Working with local tech employers, programs equip emerging engineers and designers with the skills they need to make immediate contributions. Prime students learn modern technologies, practical methodologies and critical behavioral skills through curriculum and hands-on, real world projects. Over the past four years, the Academy trained more than 700 people who now work for 400 different companies.
MSP TechHire coalition creates creating opportunities for groups underrepresented in the tech economy. Since 2015, more than 1,600 people have graduated from tech trainings and more than 1,300 are working as tech professionals with with the Coalition’s 500 employer partners.
International Institute of Minnesota From language learning and job training to citizenship classes and the celebration of cultural traditions, the Institute offers New Americans a pathway for a strong start to a new life in our community. The Institute offers a College Readiness Academy, Medical Careers Pathway, and Hospitality Careers Pathway.
The Institute has an on-site nursing assistant program that trains more than 140 people each year—many of them East Africans, Southeast Asians and Latin Americans who worked as doctors, nurses and in other medical professions in their home countries. The Institute—which has more than 200 employer partners—has a more than 90 percent retention rate for its medical career pathway trainees.
Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program includes an international professional immersion experience, during which students deepen their engagement with Minnesota companies, including Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Accenture. The focus is on developing cross-cultural communication skills
and hands on work experience.
College of Science and Engineering Mentor Program matches students with industry professionals who provide mentoring and offer career information, insights, and strategies.
Indigenous Women & Women of Color in STEM Networking. Initiative provides opportunities for students to meet and network with indigenous women & women of color in a variety of STEM professions (Medtronics, Boston Scientific, and other industry leaders participate) to gain insight about professional career pathways.
• Ensure inclusive brand messaging and an inclusive employment brand/reputation. Align external messaging with internal culture.
• Understand and monitor the talent pool in the industry and each region. Require recruiting partners to provide data. Plan and manage for deficiencies.
• Require recruitment professionals and partners to produce diverse slates, and a rationale for lack of diversity. Tie to performance evaluations and fees.
• Build strong relationships with schools and student associations; leverage ERGs/BRGs in developing these partnerships.
• Monitor and use social media in all phases of recruitment from initial outreach to employee/candidate reviews and feedback.
• Audit job description language for bias versus neutral language. Evaluate and refine interview toolkits to provide candidate evaluation guidelines and clearly defined criteria.
• Train recruiters and hiring managers for unconscious bias.
• Ensure diverse interview teams.
• Measure hiring ratios, candidate ratios, and process adherence and audit outcomesfor gender, racial or age patterns and disparities.
When the candidate pool is narrowed to those who are most qualified to perform the duties outlined in the job description, bias, regardless of intent, can often play a role in hiring processes.
There are a few things to consider and be aware of through the resume review and interview process that can help neutralize the impact of an individual’s internal biases.
Briefing session – For resume reviewers and interview panels, spend time to explain your goals for the position and how that ties to the equity work and goals of your organization as part of the criteria for consideration.
Resume reviewers and interview panel composition – Aim to have diversity on your panel and have a balanced representation of people of color and women at each
interview stage. Seek out hiring panel participants from the communities that you partner with or that will be involved in the work the position is performing.
Bias training – Require all hiring panel members to participate in bias training. This can be as simple as having them review content to make them aware of what bias is and the strategies for addressing bias in an interview process.
A job description outlines the responsibilities of the position and desired skills, experience, and abilities to complete a job effectively, but it also communicates the values of your organization.
Evaluate how positions being recruited for can advance the equity goals of an organization and how such expectations can be integrated into the job description.
Because many health care occupations require individuals to work with racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities, consider adding language like the following:
• Experience working directly with people from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds
• Ability to speak a second language or ability to speak __ language (if the position will be working with a particular community)
• Ability to flex communication style to multiple cultural environments
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and ability to present to diverse audiences, specifically racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse communities.
Note: These qualifications are clearer if the cultural elements that are relevant are named. However, they must be written in a manner that does not appear to be a forced disclosure of a protected class.
ERGs help build the pipeline of talent. ERGs promote their organizations at leadership development programs and conferences, and serve as employer ambassadors connecting with communities, associations, medical schools, diverse student organizations, multicultural centers, and alumni networks.
ERG members also serve as mentors, role models and career counselors for high school and postsecondary students interested in a career in health care.
ERGs help develop culturally competent and relevant communications and content. ERGs ensure materials are available in multiple languages and tailored to the specific cultural characteristics and preferences of different patient populations.
Including photographs and testimonials from diverse employees in hospital marketing materials showcases to jobseekers and candidates that the organization is committed to a diverse workforce and inclusive culture.
Enlist employee resource groups to act as company ambassadors. These groups reach out to prospective talent by attending external job fairs, conferences, and community events.
Building pipeline relationships is often facilitated by members of employee-resource groups, supported by their relationships to their communities.
CSR initiatives can provide a cornerstone to attracting and retaining top talent. It is important to make CSR information visible and accessible to help candidates understand where—and why—the company is having an impact.
Feature CSR in recruitment marketing materials and let candidates know not only what they can get by taking the job, but also how they will participate in a culture of giving back.
Storytelling is an essential tool for authentically communicating CSR initiatives and success. Collaborate with brand managers and D&I professionals to create CSR content that highlights the company’s philanthropic values, inclusive culture, and workforce diversity.
Employees lend authenticity and credibility to the CSR narrative. Encourage employees and ERGs to share their experiences and speak directly to customers and candidates through social media and other community-based forums.
Providing CSR exposure through internships and other on-the job experiences can help students from diverse backgrounds become familiar with corporate culture, develop important relationships, and hone their skills and abilities. Additionally, candidates who are passionate about CSR programs during these experiences are likely to become CSR advocates and change agents in the future.
Utilize data to monitor and inform diversity recruiting efforts.
Develop the recruiting process by assessing the current diversity headcount and set intentional targets for improving underrepresented groups within the organization.
Key areas to measure include the number of diverse candidates at each phase of the recruiting process, retention rates of diverse employees within the organization, and the percentage of diverse employees at different levels of the organization.
Leverage these data points with prospective candidates to demonstrate that the organization’s culture supports the retention and advancement of diverse talent.
