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A candidate persona is a detailed characterization of your ideal job candidate. It’s like a character sketch that outlines the key traits, motivations, and skills of the hero in your recruitment narrative.
Candidate personas can be extremely helpful tools in helping your organization visualize and market to your ideal hiring audience. In healthcare, candidate personas will vary greatly depending on the role you’re looking to fill. For example, the things doctors tend to value in an employer are not the same as nurses, nor will local talent respond to the same messaging as that tailored to a broader audience looking to relocate.
Here are 4 must-ask questions to consider when developing candidate personas to inform your organization’s recruitment messaging and targeting.
1. What Motivates My Ideal Candidate?
One of the first and most important questions you need to ask yourself when developing a candidate persona is what drives them to seek or apply for a new position. Beyond universal motivators such as higher pay or career advancement, there are a few key areas in which the unique aspects of the role you’re hiring for can significantly inform your answer:
Benefits: Doctors tend to look for things like malpractice insurance, student loan reimbursement, retirement plans, leadership, and subspecialty development opportunities. Specialists may be attracted to fellowship and mentorship opportunities and the chance to be involved in clinical research initiatives. Nurses may be looking for flexible scheduling, health benefits 401Ks, or PTO to name a few.
Workplace Culture, Mission and Values: Doctors may seek things like clinical autonomy, cross specialty collaboration, reliable nursing, and support staff, or physician lead governance and decision making. Nurses may be looking for a supportive work environment, professional development and recognition, patient centered care ethics, or community involvement opportunities. Those in tech heavy roles such as Radiology Technologists or Lab Techs may be seeking things like interdisciplinary collaboration, data-driven decision making, or a significant commitment to resource investment and development. Support staff, such as Medical Assistants often seek things like a mission or purpose driven environment, professional development opportunities, clear silo-free communication and transparency, respect and inclusivity.
Additional key motivators include: Network size and reach, organizational reputation and notoriety — especially within specific medical specialties — diverse case mix, and infrastructural and technological investment.
2. Where Does My Ideal Candidate Spend Their Time?
In today’s world, digital advertising is king. Knowing the internet habits of your ideal candidate can help you to position your marketing where and when they are most likely to see and engage with your content. For example, you may want to target nurses in community health forums or social media groups. Doctors may tend to frequent medical journals or professional medical association sites.
In terms of traditional marketing, young professionals often attend in person hiring events, and well timed and crafted direct mail such as letters or postcards may be just what the doctor ordered (pun intended) to maximize your visibility with older, more seasoned professionals.
It’s important that you do your research on candidate behavior and utilize things like predictive analytics to help inform your ideal candidate persona. Rave Health pairs an extensive database of over 8.2 million providers, nurses & other healthcare professionals with powerful segmentation tools and 20+ years of data expertise to help you identify and target your ideal candidate where they are most likely to be found.
3. What Challenges and Pain Points Does My Ideal Candidate Face?
As with any form of marketing, healthcare recruitment works best when we identify a problem or need of the individuals we’re targeting and present them with a solution or fulfillment of said need. Some examples include:
- Nurses facing burnout from long hours and difficult shift transitions
- Doctors looking for in-house career advancement or specialty development opportunities
- Rad techs, CRNAS, or lab techs seeking interdisciplinary communication and collaboration
- Young professionals looking to relocate to their ideal community or geographic location
Just as every story is more compelling when the hero faces and overcomes obstacles and challenges, so too must your messaging be crafted in such a way that joining your organization becomes your ideal candidate’s path to success and fulfillment.
4. What Are the Career Goals and Aspirations of My Ideal Candidate?
Every candidate and every organization have their own unique metrics for success. The key to using these metrics to help craft your ideal candidate persona is to identify where the two align. So firstly, you must first ask yourself — What does my organization have to offer in terms of career fulfillment and professional advancement?
Once you’ve determined what your organization brings to the table, you can then see how your offerings align with common goals and aspirations for the role. Here are some examples:
- Comprehensive Professional Development Programs: such as continuing education courses, simulation training, conferences, and workshops tailored to the latest medical advancements fulfill the desire for continuous learning and clinical excellence.
- Flexible Work Arrangements: such as adjustable shift scheduling, part-time opportunities, and telemedicine options fulfill the need for work-life balance and reduced burnout among healthcare professionals.
- Employee Wellness Programs: such as stress management initiatives, mental health resources, on-site fitness facilities, and resilience training fulfill the need to maintain physical and mental well-being in a high-pressure healthcare environment.
- Clear Pathways for Career Progression: such as mentorship programs, leadership training, defined advancement criteria, and opportunities for specialization fulfill the aspiration for long-term career growth and leadership development.
- A Collaborative and Performance-Driven Workplace Culture: prioritizing things such as structured team-building activities, regular cross-departmental meetings, mentorship opportunities, and performance-based recognition fulfill the need for teamwork, support, and recognition of individual excellence.
In summary, well-crafted, detailed candidate personas are invaluable tools for tailoring your recruitment messaging to the unique needs and aspirations of healthcare professionals and targeting your ideal candidates where and when they are most likely to engage. By addressing key questions about what motivates your ideal candidate, where they spend their time, the challenges they face, and their career goals, you can quickly develop a robust roster of personas to inform all your recruitment marketing efforts.
How Rave Health Can Help
With Rave Health’s extensive provider database, 20+ years of data expertise, and powerful segmentation tools, you can take this process even further — refining your candidate personas and targeting your audience with pinpoint accuracy. Whether you’re filling clinical, technical, or support roles, Rave Health is your partner in creating recruitment campaigns that not only attract top talent but also build lasting, impactful connections.
