Have you ever placed a classified ad for a physical therapist and had no response? That’s because 98 percent of licensed physical therapists are currently employed! Your ad is competing for the attention of the 2 percent of physical therapists who are looking for work. What can you do to make sure your job posting connects with this small pool of job candidates?
Write an effective job description
By writing carefully crafted job descriptions, you can help improve the response you receive for open physical therapy positions. Consider the following:
- Treat your classified ad like a marketing tool. Write your job ads to catch the attention and interest of physical therapy professionals. In other words, make them interesting. If you’ve been pulling boring, nondescript ads from dusty HR archives, consider rewriting them. The beginning of your ads should include all the points that will be exciting to the reader: the population they’ll be helping, opportunities for mentorship or continuing education stipends, bonus or loan forgiveness options, and any other points of interest. Keep all the technical parts (i.e., job requirements, contact information, and other standard job ad items) for the end.
- Be specific. It’s important to address job candidates as healthcare professionals who know what they’re looking for in a career. In your classified ads, use the language of their profession, and share a salary range. Some recruiting studies suggest that job postings that disclose salary ranges receive up to 30% more applicants.
- Include bolded keyword headings. This will have two advantages. First, when you’re advertising online, keywords will help your classified ad appear in more search results due to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Second, when candidates are quickly scanning your ad, the important points will pop out at them.
- “Sell” your company. Include a summary of your company’s mission, vision, and values. Clearly state what makes it great to work for your facility in one or two sentences. In other words – here is a chance to give your “elevator speech” to a captive audience. Don’t waste it!
Now that you’ve gone through all this effort to write a great job posting, you are only half done. The rest of the work comes in promoting your ad in as many places as possible. Here are just a few suggestions:
Start Networking
A well-written job posting makes it easy to network with family and friends. The best candidates come from word of mouth; so although your aunt may not personally know any physical therapists, keep her on your list. Let everyone know that you are looking for a new team member. Social media can extend the reach of your network.
- Share your job posting through emails to your staff, family and friends.
- Post your ad on your company blog and website.
- Share your ad on company Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn sites.
- Ask your staff to network by sharing your ad on their personal social sites.
Invest in Advertising
- Post your classified ad online. Nowadays, most people start their job search online. Posting your ad on a job board will cost you some money, but it may be the best way to reach physical therapists that are searching for a new job.
- Pay extra to “sponsor” or promote your job postings. You can choose to “sponsor” your ads on job aggregator sites such as Career Builder, Indeed, or Simply Hired. When you do this, you pay a fee to the job search site, and in exchange, your job posting appears at the top of lists when job seekers perform searches. This can help your ad gain more exposure with candidates.
- Purchase a mailing list of physical therapists and mail your job posting to their home. Again, this is an expensive and time consuming option, but it does connect with your targeted audience.
- Publish your ad in a Physical Therapy specific magazine or journal. Both online and print publications offer advertising packages.
Consider Hiring an Expert
Calling a Therapy Staffing Agency may feel like a last resort for many cash-strapped hiring managers. However, the money spent on advertising a job posting might better be invested in getting help from a therapy recruitment expert right from the start. Therapy Recruiters work to maintain relationships with a database of physical therapists, which they reach out to on a facility’s behalf. This form of passive recruiting connects facilities with the 98% of therapists who are not currently looking for work, and who would never respond to a classified ad. The cost savings of filling a vacant position a timely manner often pays for the recruitment fee.
If you’re currently in search of new staff, give myPTsolutions a try!
myPTsolutions works with clients to place physical and occupational therapists, PT and OT assistants, and speech language pathologists in both direct hire and travel jobs nationwide. To learn more, contact us today.
