Social Media Recruitment: How to Use Facebook to Hire More Caregivers

With staffing challenges occurring on a constant basis, social media can play an important role in talent acquisition. Here’s how you can start using Facebook to find and hire more caregivers.

It all began on February 4^th, 2004 in a dorm room at Harvard University when one enthusiastic student took it upon himself to create a platform for other Harvard students to better connect with each other. By the very next day, 1,000 + people were registered, and it only grew from there.

The vision that was implemented that day was nothing short of a huge milestone for the internet and has created a legacy that continues to affect over 2.8 billion people.

At this point, you’ve probably already been able to piece together what we’re talking about, but if not, the company that we’re referencing is Facebook. Well… in 2004 it was called “The Facebook,” but as you know, with demand and brand changes, companies (and even home care agencies) have to adapt accordingly.

With the impact that Facebook has had on the internet and the changes that have been made to the site over the past 17 years (wow, time flies) there is now more room for home care agencies to not only use it to promote their brand but also source new caregivers.

Since recruitment is one of the biggest challenges for home care providers, it’s important we’re taking advantage of all the tools at our fingertips.

In the 2020 Home Care Benchmarking Study, Facebook ranked among the top consumer marketing sources and accounted for the highest percentage of revenue at 28%  — and not only that, but it’s also proven to be successful in delivering recruitment results too. Here’s how you can start using its features to your benefit and find and hire more caregivers.

Join local caregiver networks, job-seeking groups, and other professional home care communities

In order to succeed in caregiver recruitment, you must be targeting people where they’re most active. In general, lots of people are active on Facebook – but, you can narrow that down even more by seeking out groups and communities that are relevant to your local home care scene.

According to Lesly Cardec, senior vice president of marketing and public relations at Sunrise, Florida-based Interim Healthcare, “Consumers are local. They want local marketing and local marketing is now becoming hyper-local marketing.”

To begin attracting caregivers locally on Facebook, here are a few steps we recommend taking:

Share jobs on your company page

One of the great things about having a business page for your home care agency is that you can now share job postings directly on Facebook and have people apply there. It saves them the extra step of having to go through a link to another page to submit a resume.

You can even manage applications and change status based on where they’re at in the process. Perhaps you’ve contacted them, scheduled an interview, conducted the interview, hired, or rejected them — you can track all of this within Facebook.

With Facebook jobs, you get the opportunity to include job details, a job description, and a location which makes it visible to more people in your area.

While not always necessary, you can also boost your posts or create a paid ad campaign to promote your openings.

Jessica Nobles, Founder of Home Care Ops shared some best practices with us on what this might look like. To begin, you should:

Bridge the communication gap

Facebook is one of many ways that you get to share a bit more about your company culture and highlight all of the benefits you provide. Perhaps you have a differentiator that makes your agency stand out among others. You’ll want to be sharing that repeatedly on the site. You can do this by sharing blog posts, going live and providing extra time for a Q&A, or simply sharing “behind-the-scenes” photos that show your caregivers and your appreciation for them.

Another great thing about using a Facebook business page is that you can properly brand yourself to target caregivers that will fit well with your agency. When you know who you are, what you do, and the type of person you’re looking for, you’ll easily attract those in the same boat.

The importance of using social media in HR

With staffing challenges occurring on a constant basis, social media can play an impactful role in talent acquisition. While traditional recruitment sources like career sites and job fairs might have their ups and downs, using social media can be a nice change of pace that gets your jobs in front of a different set of people.

If you’re still looking to expand your reach beyond Facebook, here are some other internet-based recruitment sources you can use to elevate your agency.

Related content: How to Use Social Media as a Caregiver Recruitment Tool

Facebook ranked among the top five recruitment sources for 2019, with social media as a whole accounting for nearly 7.2% of recruitment efforts. While there are certainly more popular options like Indeed and employee referrals, Facebook might just present the biggest opportunity for growth this year.