Recruitment innovation in healthcare: how HMC speaks to 1,000+ extra candidates thanks to recruitment marketing automation
Care is attention
At HMC, they look through the eyes of the patient. Spread across the locations HMC Antoniushove, HMC Bronovo and HMC Westeinde, more than 4,500 employees and 500 volunteers are active in giving each patient the attention they need. To this end, they are constantly looking for care staff who feel at home in an environment where innovation, hospitality and cooperation are key.
That’s no easy task in today’s labour market. We discuss HMC’s recruitment challenges and successes with Esther van Bellen and Marieke Zwetsloot. They both work as Recruitment & Labour Market Communications Advisers and, together with two fellow advisers, are tackling the 100 vacancies that are almost always advertised online.
Marieke and Esther identify challenges that many healthcare organisations will recognise. "There are staff shortages in all kinds of sectors, but the problem is very big in healthcare and - despite all kinds of good initiatives - will remain so for the time being. Demand simply does not match supply. Too few people complete care courses, perhaps partly because of the image of working in care. The work pressure is high and if the shortage continues, it will be difficult to reverse," Marieke says.
Esther adds: "You also see changes in society. For instance, many young people no longer want to work full-time. To fill the gaps, we are forced to use many freelancers. We don't really want to be dependent on that, so our goal is to reduce the number of external staff and have more permanent employees. That was one of the considerations for using recruitment marketing automation in early 2024."
To the next level
Outbound recruitment channels - where the recruiter actively goes out to recruit candidates - are not always successful in healthcare. Marieke says: "We do do some sourcing, but it's still a bit sensitive. You don't want to draw staff away from surrounding hospitals." Esther adds: "In addition, our target group is not very active on Linkedin, so this is not the easiest route to take."
At the same time, there is a need to be more in touch with the target group. "We believe that, as consultants, we need to be close to our candidates. It's nice to speak to your target group and be able to guide someone well through the process. That is where a potential collaboration starts," Marieke says.
"We are much more in touch with potential candidates since we started working with MrWork. In 7 months, we have received more than 1,100 messages."
Marieke Zwetsloot, Consultant Recruitment & Labour Market Communication
That's why HMC previously focused on inbound recruitment, including with ongoing visibility campaigns. Esther says: "We had already had a pleasant cooperation with a recruitment marketing party for years and with it we continuously ran campaigns on our most scarce target groups: nurses, specialised nurses and acute care personnel. We just didn't have these campaigns in-house and were therefore not flexible. If we wanted something adjusted, we had to call our contact."
Marieke adds: "We were also using lead forms on Meta, but it turned out that many people did fill that out quite spontaneously. When we subsequently contacted them, the majority did not actually know (anymore) what they had left their details for. In addition, the number of leads we received this way was not very high," Marieke says.
In MrWork, HMC found a total solution where they are in charge of their own recruitment marketing, have more possibilities for lead generation, save time in follow-up with automations and still benefit from the knowledge and advice of experts. Esther is happy with this change: "We now have control over what is live in terms of campaigns and change the content every three months, without having to involve all kinds of parties. In addition, we get in touch with our target group so much easier. We are very approachable for candidates and the lines of communication with them are very short. We now have all the tools to make our target group aware of our vacancies, via the job alert and the socials. This quickly resulted in higher conversions, so we are very happy with our choice of MrWork. It's not just the software, but also the collaboration with MrWork's team. It feels like we've been working with MrWork for much longer!"
How lead generation works for HMC
"During the initial discussions we had with MrWork, one of the things we discussed was the low conversion rate on work-at-home sites. 97% of your website visitors leave the site again without making contact. That was a wake-up call for us," says Esther.
Marieke talks enthusiastically about the success of using lead generation: "We are definitely much more in touch with potential candidates since we started working with MrWork's software. In about 7 months, we have received more than 1,100 messages. Gigantic!"
HMC collects leads via a WhatsApp pop-up on the work-at site, lead forms on Meta and QR codes, for example at events. Esther explains the process that follows: "All leads arrive in one dashboard. As a result, apps are no longer overlooked and the contact is easily transferable to a colleague, for example if you go on holiday."
Thanks to smart tech, not only has conversion increased at HMC, the candidate experience has also improved. "You can now make a difference on an individual level. For example, I easily point candidates to another vacancy that better suits their needs than they themselves first envisioned, thus increasing their chances. If someone then ends up getting hired on that job, you are happy! Also, people who cannot find something on the site ask their question in a very accessible way and you can still show them that there are indeed opportunities for them at HMC. In addition, we have created templates for questions that recur more often, so that the candidate now has a quicker answer and we save time by not having to answer the same questions over and over again," says Esther.
The step that follows after bringing in leads is keeping this contact warm. "That is what we are working on now. We have recently set up talent pools to organise follow-up contact. For example, if we publish a vacancy of interest to the candidates in such a talent pool, we can easily inform them about it. We also created a talent pool of participants from our last open day and we want to send them another message in a while to keep the contact warm. These are all new steps for us and we are happy that MrWork is thinking along with us in this," says Esther.
Growing together is the best
Marieke and Esther envisage a long-term collaboration with MrWork. Not just because of the software an sich, but also because of the cooperation with the MrWork team. "At MrWork, they listen very well to our ideas. They really work on the points we raise. They think along with us and keep developing the platform. That gives me and all colleagues who have been in contact with MrWork a very pleasant feeling," says Marieke.
"I feel that MrWork as an organisation never sits still. A lot of knowledge is shared, for example in webinars, and the platform is always evolving with new functionalities or improvements. As a result, I feel that we continue to make continuous steps and have chosen to improve continuously with MrWork. And it makes it a lot of fun to work with this party!"
Esther van Bellen, Consultant Recruitment & Labour Market Communication
Marieke and Esther look confidently to the future: "There are still plenty of opportunities for us. We can expand our talent pools, sharpen our labour market communication strategy, optimise data measurement. It's great that we can count on MrWork's advice in this respect. But if we look at what we have already achieved in the short time with MrWork, we are very satisfied. It's nice to build on that now!"
