Staffing Robot - Web design and marketing services for companies in the staffing industry

New Sites Make Social Recruiting Even Easier

All good recruiters know that social media isn't really about connecting with friends and family. Instead, it's really about finding great candidates.

A recent survey from Jobvite revealed that over 90% of employers will use social media for recruiting in 2012. This kind of data suggests that traditional methods of sourcing candidates are no longer effective. This also mans that traditional tools for finding a job are also outdated. For example, the resume.

Even at our company, the first thing we do when screening a new hire is look at their social presence represented on professional sites like LinkedIn. In today’s economy, most companies can't afford to make a bad hire. You can gain so much more information from someones online profile than you can from a simple summary, tailored and reduced to a single piece of paper.

For a long time LinkedIn has been the go to site for reviewing professional information about potential candidates. Others like Branch Out are gaining traction and Facebook is even rumored to be getting into the job game. However, there's a new site that launched last week from a Portland Oregon company called Vizify that is sure to be a game changer.

Vizify is a stunningly visual way to view a complete overview of someones career, work history, education and overall social presence. (You can check out my personal Vizify profile here). You can see years of experience, topics they discuss on line, and interesting factoids about them. One of my favorite features is viewing their locations page - a interactive guide to where this person has lived. All of this information is laid out in a beautiful presentation that is easy to navigate and incredibly interesting to look at.

As more and more sites pop up that visually represent individuals in interesting and engaging ways, it's only a matter of time before resumes are no longer even requested. Sites like About.me and Flavors.me also offer visual representations and aggregates social profiles. However, we think Vizify far outpaces these services and it's only in beta.

What's your opinion recruiters? Are you still working off of resumes or are online sites taking over that function for you?

Also, what are some of your favorite sites for gathering professional information on candidates? Share them with us in the comments below.

Top 5 Ways Staffing Agencies Can Help Prepare Employees for Placement Exams

For many staffing agencies, the final hurdle that stands between a new hire and their placement is testing. The need for assessing a caregiver’s ability to provide competent, safe, and effective patient care is not the topic of this article. So, let’s jump over that topic and get right to the 5 easy things you can mention to your caregivers to set them up for a positive competency testing experience.

1) Recommend Reviewing all Provided Materials

Typically there will be prep materials offered prior to starting a competency exam. For some caregivers, it may have been quite some time since their last standardized test. So, the #1 recommendation we have for preparing for a competency test it to study the prep materials provided.

Prophecy’s Clinical Assessments either come accompanied with a study guide (for all education modules) or a content outline (for specialty specific competency tests). The study guides contain all of the information needed to successfully pass the assessments. Content outlines, on the other hand, may contain important formulas, conversions, or abbreviation legends to assist the caregiver in completing the assessments, however they do not provide guidance on actual answers. Since the specialty specific competency tests are evaluating the caregiver’s ability to provide the job knowledge, skills, and abilities required on the first day of the job, no prompting should be needed.

2) Remind Them to Read all Instructions

Time and time again reading instructions would actually help us complete daily tasks more efficiently - assembling new furniture, driving on vacation, cooking a new recipe, etc.

Although the instructions do not give a pass for the assessment as a whole, they will set up the expectations for the caregiver prior to launching the assessment. The instructions should detail if the exam is timed, the format of the testing process, how many questions to expect, a pass/fail score, allowed re-entry attempts, etc. All of this information helps ease the caregiver’s nerves as it answers questions that might lead to extra anxiety adversely impacting their potential success.

3) Create a testing environment

Whenever possible, we suggest clients create a proctored testing environment to minimize distractions for the caregivers. However, we know that this is not feasible for every organization – especially if you are working with travel nurses. The ability to test anywhere with Internet access is a definite bonus in certain instances.

If your caregivers will be testing in the comfort of their own home, remind them that they should minimize distractions and set aside ample time to complete the assessments.

4) Clearly communicate testing standard

Each organization should have established guidelines for testing. Share these standards in
advance!

1. Are caregivers offered the option of retesting?
2. If so, how quickly will they be able to retest?
3. Should a caregiver fail the maximum number of times, how long should they wait to reapply with your organization?

Prophecy’s recommendation on retesting is 48 hours between testing attempts. This gives time for remediation on the information answered incorrectly the first time around. Plus, it allows time for the caregiver to get over the initial shock of failing an assessment – something we have all dreaded since the first grade!

5) Ask for comfort level

Take a moment and ask each caregiver for any outstanding questions they want to run by you before testing. They may be trivial, or they may be doosies! But, at least you will give them the opportunity to be honest and open about their comfort level prior to starting their assessments.

Testing providers may have additional resources you can make available to caregivers wanting extra support. Prophecy offers training videos on the caregiver login screen and makes a step-by-step instructions PDF available for all clients.

Bottom line - you are all on the same team! Although you want to steer clear of the liability exposure of unqualified applicants, in a perfect world you are hoping they all pass their assessments with flying colors. So, take a few extra minutes to mention these 5 tips and you may just see those passing rates on the rise!

About Prophecy Healthcare®
Originally founded in 2004 as NurseTesting.com, Prophecy Healthcare® got its start as the first online Pre-Employment Testing Company exclusive to the Healthcare Industry. Initially focusing solely on clinical assessments measuring clinical competencies, efforts to exceed industry expectations led to isolating critical competencies missed in traditional testing initiatives, such as stress tolerance, critical thinking, and teamwork skills. The Prophecy approach offers the ability to find candidates with the clinical hard skills, personality attributes, and desired soft skills to match each organization.
For more information about Prophecy, visit http://www.prophecyhealth.com or call 336.802.1070.

 

Temporary Physician Staffing Trends: Survey Data from Staff Care

This week, Staff Care - the locum tenes division of AMN Healthcare - released the results of a recent survey regarding temporary physician staffing trends.

The data is from from 2011 and has several interesting findings.

Locum tenens physicians remain a commonly used resource for most healthcare facility administrators. For the fifth year in a row, at least 75% of healthcare facility administrators indicated they had used locum tenens physicians to supplement their existing staffs sometime in the previous 12 months.

You can download the complete survey at the link below. Give it a read. It's well worth it. 

http://www.staffcare.com/uploadedFiles/staffcare2012surveyPDF.pdf

Thank You Nurses: A Nurses Week Tribute Video by Medical Solutions

It's a bit late, but we still wanted to share this video put out by Medical Solutions as a thank you to nurses for Nurses Week. Check it out!

Enter API Healthcare's 'Virtual Daisy' Nurses Week Contest

Check out API Healthcare's Virtual Daisy Contest for Nurses Week. API is asking you to select a daisy and tell your story about why you got into the nursing profession. Prizes for the contest include:

• Subscription To A Nursing Journal Of Your Choice (Up To $100).
• $200 Gift Card For Cherokee Scrubs.
• Free Registration To The API Healthcare Client Forum (July 17 – 19 2012, Milwaukee, WI).

Enter to win here: http://www.apihealthcare.com/daisy/contest/

Inforgraphic: Traveling Therapists Vs. Permanent Therapists

Here's a great infographic put out by Advanced Medical - a travel therapy company focused exclusively on travel therapy.

Hiring Demand for Physical Therapists on the Rise

Heads up recruiters! More great data from Wanted Analytics, this time showing a significant increase in demand for Physical Therapists.

With the increase in hiring demand, it is likely that Recruiters will find Physical Therapist openings hard-to-fill. Our Hiring Scale™ shows that one of the most difficult conditions will be in Washington, DC. It's probably not surprising since demand tripled in the past year, yet the available talent supply has not grown at the same pace. 

 

 

Medical Solutions'- 3rd annual Nurses Week Humerus T-Shirt Design Contest

Medical Solutions just launched their 3rd annual Nurses Week Humerus T-Shirt Design Contest!

Big prizes on the line including an iPad3, iPod Nano and $100 iTunes gift card, plus vouchers to Scrubadoo.com and Fibers.com. This is just the start to our Nurses Week celebration, which officially kicks off May 6th.

Here is a link for details. http://www.fibers.com/contests/nurses-week-2012.  

It Gives Me The Feeling Of Love

This is pretty cool. Give it a look.

AMN Study: Use of Social Media and Mobile by Healthcare Professionals

Last Week AMN Healthcare put out their 2nd annual study of the social media and mobile usage by healthcare professionals.

According to the results of the survey, when it comes to social media usage -

...physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and pharmacists are networking with colleagues, tracking down job leads and applying for new positions at a significantly higher rate year-over-year.

Key Social Media Survey Findings

• In 2011, 1 in 3 respondents cited use of social media when searching for a job, compared with 1 in 5 in 2010.
• Nearly half of all healthcare professionals surveyed said they use social media for professional networking.
• More healthcare professionals are using mobile job alerts year-over-year and success rates are up as well. Of those using job alerts, 10% received an interview, 14% received a job offer and 8% secured a job (compared to 1% securing a job from social media in 2010).
• Physicians continue to be the heaviest users of mobile devices among their medical colleagues for professional reasons; 41% of physicians cited use of mobile devices or tablets for healthcare-related content or jobs in 2011.
• Facebook was once again chosen by 3 out of 4 healthcare professionals surveyed as their most favored site for career-seeking opportunities.

You can download the complete survey on mobile and social media usage by healthcare professionals from AMN here.