Several years ago, Leading Home Care conducted a major industry survey of the 7500 + readers of the bi-weekly newsletter, Private Duty Today.  Over 550 home care owners, CEOs, and administrators participated in the survey.  The results showed very clearly what works and what doesn’t in terms of recruiting caregivers. 

Here are the Top Ten Techniques for finding high quality applicants for your caregiver position.

1.  Recruiting at four year schools of nursing
2.  Faith based recruiting
3.  Employee referral programs
4.  Hiring a professonal recruiter
5.  Setting up a Home Health Aide or CNA training program
6.  Using a medical staffing agency
7.  Recruiting at Home Health Aide or CN schools
8.  Recruiting at four year colleges
9.  Networking in the community
10.  Client and family recruiting

Since we conducted this survey, we have updated the results to include web based recruiting programs such as Craig’s List, Monster.com, and Career Builder.  Also, we have found that your own web site is a very important recruiting tool.

Laqnguage is the Key

One of the things we learned from this industry survey as that many techniques will work for you, but the language you use in your ad or job promotion is the key.  Using words that paint a positive picture of what it will be like to work for you  and your company has a very powerful influence on the quality of applicants you attract.

In future issues of Caregiver Quality, we will give you more details on the results of this study, and how you can use these methods to find and keep the very best caregivers.

Home care companies that hire only the very best caregivers win in the marketplace.

This article is excerpted from the book, Get the Best: Nine Steps to Hiring Quality Caregivers and Improving Your Bottom Line in Private Duty Home Care, by Leigh Davis and Stephen Tweed.  You can download this eBook from Private Duty Today.com.