Season 1, Episode 2: Bruce Mattos – Candidate Experience

Bruce Mattos dives into the candidate journey, highlighting key touchpoints that shape perceptions and influence decisions. He offers actionable insights for creating a seamless and engaging experience from application to offer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

where we explore the latest trends, insights, and strategies in the ever-changing world of healthcare hiring. I'm your host, Angela Pointer, and in each episode we dive deep into the challenges and opportunities facing recruiters, hiring managers, and healthcare professionals alike. Whether you're looking to attract top talent, navigate industry challenges, or build a stronger workforce, you're in the right place. I'm so excited today to have our guest Bruce Mattis. He's the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, Georgia. And we'll dive into the topic today of candidate experience. So Bruce, before we get started on our topic, tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Thank you, Angela. Excited to be here. I love to have conversations about recruitment. I've been in the talent acquisition space for 30 years with a specific emphasis on leading talent acquisition teams in the healthcare space for about 20 years. And I've got a passion for connecting great people to amazing careers. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So I did a little bit of uh cyber stalking or LinkedIn stocking and I did I see correctly that you also served in the military. Is that correct? Or you can correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yes ma'am United States Army.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Awesome. Thank you so much for your service. So let's dive in to a very exciting topic um candidate experience. I think all of us on this call maybe have been um candidate at some point ourselves but now let's think about in the world of what we do what does candidate experience look like and particularly in the healthcare sector. What's your thought on that Bruce?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Experience today in the healthcare space it's evolving. Right now I think we're leaving many candidates behind and talent acquisition and recruitment teams might be understaffed because we have talent that is seeking jobs and want immediate gratification. And so on the nursing front a nurse is only on the market for to them they're off the market because they've applied to maybe three, four jobs, maybe more and if it's in a competitive market like Atlanta where you have you know 20 hospitals in a metropolitan area someone else is going to call that person. And then when we look at the more entry level positions uh many people are trying to feed their families in this uncertain economy. And so I think candidate experience it continues to evolve but we're leaving too many people behind. We're not able to keep up with the candidates. So I feel we have a lot of work to do on the candidate experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

That makes sense totally can relate to that. So both of us have been doing this for a little while. I think we both teams we started when we were two and five right so how would you say candidate expectations have changed in healthcare over the last few years?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

I I think that when we look at a candidate candidates it used in healthcare it used to be a journey we used to take a nurse through three four in-person interviews meeting with different teams and different folks and by the time that that interview for just a simple staff nurse position that nurse probably spent eight to nine hours of effort to to go through the process. Today you know you you do a quick a quick pre-screen with the candidate to verify shift salary area and a little bit about mission and mission and vision with the organization and then we're putting them either on a video interview with a small panel or we're bringing them in for an in-person if if they're local enough and we're doing that one interview. Some organizations may have a back end but I think the change now it's we want to get the person in the seat as soon as possible. So we're hurrying up the process which I think is a catch 22 because we may miss out on key components but I I think candidate experience and candidate expectations candidates they want to be contacted immediately. They wanted to be treated with dignity and respect and they want to learn as much as they can about your culture from that interview because they're going to do their own research.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

That is true. And there was something you said that really kind of sparked that something in the next question I wanted to ask you talking about you know how people feel in the process. So what role does empathy play when engaging with healthcare candidates many of whom especially now in this day and time are experiencing burnout. So talk a little bit about empathy in the process.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

We forget that we have a human being on the other side this isn't inventory. The old days of recruitment was about inventory and making those calls today we're dealing with we're still dealing with people but these are folks that have real life issues happening in their world and I think they have options uh in many cases and so you have to lead off with a good morning or good afternoon in your text in your email in your phone call you don't need to leave a long-winded message or send them uh a three paragraph email you need to be clear concise but welcoming and and you show empathy and respect and understanding for people's time when you do that. I sometimes listen to you know junior recruiters leaving a message for a candidate or I have occasionally have had folks recently reach out to me and it's a 90 second voicemail and you're like no that that's not showing empathy or respect. And I think the other piece of empathy that comes into play is when you really take the time to listen to what a candidate is looking for. You've got to seek to understand what it is they want. If they if they tell you they want emergency room and then you come back to them said well that thank you for sharing that uh I'd like to I'd like to consider you for an ICU position you just missed that candidate's passion. You've just missed everything that they've said so you're not showing empathy through active listening. So I I think we we have to use uh some of those critical skills and you lead with empathy by by being kind and hearing.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah that is really true.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So we've been talking a bit about the experience and you kind of touched on it a little bit but can you walk us through in an ideal world what would that candidate journey look like yeah and I I I I want I want to preface it let's start with the nurse's journey as compared to maybe an administrative or non-clinician so a nurse's journey if they're working a seven to seven they're working a minimum of three shifts a week you call and leave a message their journey they're not going to call you back the next day because they might be working they're not going to email you back the next day. So I think that journey it needs to come from a couple places. So you call you email you text if the candidate has opened themselves up with that you have a respectful message or messaging in each of those venues and say I'd love to learn more about you when do you when is a great time for you to connect and by the way our recruiters need to be more flexible with their time schedule because we might have to call that nurse at 630 to accommodate that schedule if you want to move quickly. And so being flexible and meeting that person on their free time that shows that you are care and you're vested and interested in them. So that candidate journey it starts in a position of where that nurse is then getting them the information on the organization finding out what they really want do they want day night evening uh are they what are they looking to grow to as a next step? What type of unit you know are they coming from a 10-bed EC looking to go to a 30 bed EC are they coming from a small rural critical access hospital looking to go to a trauma so get that understanding quickly from the that nurse's point of view and kind of delve into that and then you position your organization's mission vision and values and you kind of try try to tie that together. The other thing is is when you're offering that nurse an interview time when is the best time for you to interview and would that be in person or would it be a video? So meeting that nurse on their grounds and I I think those first two steps on that candidate journey you've listened to them you've adjusted you've been flexible and then by the way you need to close them on salary at the at the pre-screen you need to close them again on salary at the interview and that way when you come to them with an offer and hopefully you're doing that offer within five to 10 days that candidate there's no surprises you listen to them and you've taken them through a process. Now we all can meet that expectation with nurses because we have more jobs posted than there are nurses in the United States looking for jobs. We can meet that personalized and customized candidate journey for a nurse when we talk non-clinical you know where you've got 50 medical assistant candidates that's a different type of engagement but I'll I'll stop there with that nurse but we really have to customize and tailor our process to meeting them on their grounds and making them feel that you care about their journey.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

I like that that's very good meeting them where they are you mentioned the time from the they apply to the offer ultimately five to 10 days so that brings me into something about measuring so you know we always say you can't you can't manage but you don't measure. So how are healthcare organizations such as your organization measuring candidate experience today? Are there any specific metrics or feedback loops that you use?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah I mean you've got so many great systems out there with Workday, UKG, Oracle, Bullhorn I I think the most common that we've heard for years is the date that you open the job to the date that you fill the job that doesn't measure your efficiency and productivity of your recruitment team. What you can measure and what you should be measuring is from the time that a person applies to the time that an offer is made. And that is something that we look at because our recruitment team our interview process that shows how effective and efficient if we're if we're having managers ghost us on feedback or we don't have access to managers calendars or we're not setting aside interview blocks, how are you going to get that five to 10 day timeframe? And by the way, the five to 10 day timeframe and talking and getting statistics from the American Nurses Association nurses, if you don't call them, email them, text them within one to three days of their application, they've moved on unless you're a rural facility and your might be the only option or it's a new grad. But an experienced nurse you got to connect with them in one to three days have that interview within one to three days from that and then have an offer that same day after the or the day after the interview and then that meets you within a kind of a five to 10 day timeframe because nurses are not around much longer. And if you talk to you know your common spirits your Sutter Health your Kaisers any number of healthcare organizations across the United States they'll tell you that nurses aren't on the table that that much longer. So meeting that thinking about that five to 10 day timeframe that's important. There are a couple of other measurements that I'd like to share you should be tracking from the time the offer is accepted to the time that the candidate starts because that measures how efficient your onboarding process is. And then how well your marketing of your jobs and your employment brand is is from the time that you open the job to the time you start getting applications. But that's post and pray we should be doing campaigns and doing outreach but for the most part five to 10 days you know you should be looking at an apply to offer metric and tracking I think that the days of open to someone in the seat, you know, with a time to fill that that illustrious metric is uh is gone because it really doesn't give you much on productivity if it gives you a skewed number that's very true.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

We could be here all day talking about our feelings about time to fill it's that love date love hate relationship with that metric.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

I'm curious though too specifically in regards to candidate experience are you doing anything like surveys or any other measure with candidates to hear about their experience in the process that's an interesting one uh you know many organizations out there are doing surveys we are are doing surveys with candidates as they hit us so once they've started with us we do one tell us about your onboarding tell us about your application process I I think the tough thing about surveying someone that's just applied I I think that you're going to get skewed results and you're doing depth by survey and especially if you've got someone that keeps applying to multiple positions. So you just need to be targeted and careful with your survey i i find that after a post interview uh you you're doing your you know you do a survey you can do a survey but guess what if you haven't made an offer you can upset somebody because you don't want to set you don't want to set unrealistic expectations so I think capturing people after you made the offer and and you come from a position of humility we are looking to improve our processes and we want to know how we took care of you we want to know how these steps were if you could uh the survey will take you about three to five minutes and I'll buy you a cup of coffee for completing it and be respective of their time and by the way when they complete that survey you need to act on it don't don't just say hey that's great. We also survey our hiring leaders here at Phoebe after we've completed uh their recruitment to ask them how we did as a team. So I think there's two different pieces that you you can look at and get those measuring points to go back to your and look at and evaluate your recruitment process and how you're treating people on candidate experience. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So we'll go into the next question which I think maybe our listeners would want to hear particularly healthcare recruitment leaders we know we always talk about transformation innovation etc so what innovations or trends in healthcare recruitment are you most excited about in terms of improving the candidate experience?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

You know you know thank you for that this question uh we used to call it the silver bullet in finding the purple unicorn you know we we talked about how we find those hard to fills and there's a silver bullet for recruiting nurses or eliminating uh contract labor. Well the innovations that are out there and you know a lot of people are resistant and a lot of people say they don't have the AI AI is a game changer uh especially on the front end of your application process if you have uh an avatar that can answer questions uh through your your your career website interface that can take people and answer questions about benefits that can answer questions about shifts, uh culture, your community, you know, using that type to assist the other thing I think that AI is helpful for if you program it appropriately to remove bias is it can help you screen candidates, especially for your more entry level you know, does the person have the right certification or licensure does the person have the right education and experience leveraging your applicant tracking system with AI would be certainly helpful. There's some fantastic tools that are out there. I just caution people do your due diligence uh because some of them are very expensive and some of them have limitations but that's one of the trends that I'm so excited about because fine the time it takes for us to wade through like our interview process for new grads well we'll we're gonna hire about 40 to 50 new grad nurses in June and we're gonna get probably 200 applications and to go through 200 applications leverage AI to help leverage your applicant tracking system if you have smart questions on the free screen but we don't want to kill people up front when they're applying you want as minimal clicks as possible because you most people are applying from their phone now what 80% of applications are done from a mobile device. So you want to leverage the AI you want to leverage AI and other technologies to to help you identify candidates that meet what you're looking for. So I think AI and maybe it's overused but AI is evolving and it's getting better at what it does. The the companies that were introducing avatars two three years ago now they're even those avatars are setting up interviews. And I say avatar but that technology is helping your recruiters so we can be more personal. That's what I'm excited about. We're never going to lose the human touch from a recruitment perspective and you still have to call somebody and and talk with them because they may not learn about mission and values and culture from a bot. So that's what I'm excited about. We hopefully others are um not be afraid not be afraid embrace the change. Embrace it absolutely that is exciting so um you kind of touched on this a little bit but we can maybe bring it home so if you could wave Bruce's magic wand and redesign one part of the healthcare hiring process from scratch what would that be and why you know I I I I think if I'm gonna go on the way back machine when I started recruitment you know people came in and applied to your hospital they met you in the lobby there wasn't an applicant tracking system they hand delivered their resume on a piece of paper and I I I want to think how can we take that personalized piece? I mean we can do it through video but bringing back the personalization of the application and the initial touch process you know people today uh want the quick and the easy but they also want to be treated with dignity and respect. So how can you take speed? How can you personalize the process for people? And so if I could change that I would immerse immerse that so I can get you into a virtual introduction very quickly so you don't have to drive to my facility but leverage that technology so you're introducing yourself and then I can share that virtual introduction. And by the way the technology is out there and it's it's not ridiculously expensive but personalize your application process so people can really share why they're interested in coming to work for you. It's tough for your entry level positions because that's just volume. But if you want to hire a great nurse then you've got to meet them on their grounds. And so the other thing that I would redesign it it kind of comes from a military phrase it's it's I want to leave no candidate behind. And I want to think about how we do that within our process is make sure you touch with people quickly make sure you get them even if it's an automated email we're we care we're reviewing you we're thinking so I think those are if I could go from scratch I would bring back that personalized touch at the application phase and maybe you're you're doing a virtual resume you're doing a video resume uh introducing yourself and so now I can see you. And we can use technology to take out bias so I can hear your voice and maybe not see the picture of you so uh you know we we we can avoid gender and and other components that that may have our internal biases but we've got to personalize it. That's my change.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that Bruce and before we wrap up I know I've been asking you questions what would you like to leave our um listeners with today if they could take one nugget from this conversation on candidate experience what would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Don't have just one automated message when you reject candidates. Rejection is a very personalized thing. And for each of us that have applied to jobs over the last 20 years and for your new incoming person like my daughter who just graduated from college, the rejections come pretty heavily and we know that it may take 50 to 100 applications before you even get your first call back. I think we as an organization on our side need to personalize or customize our rejection notices. So if you don't meet the minimum qualifications tell someone that if you have a heavy volume of applicants and unfortunately you weren't selected please keep trying come to one of our hiring events. For your entry level positions do hiring events and and many organizations do that right. And whether it's for your EVS, your food services your basic unit secretaries your patient access your CMAs that's how you get to know people and you personalize it outside of the hundred applications is host an interviewing event, bring your leaders but my message is personalize your process a little bit show a little empathy because it takes courage for someone to apply to a job and we shouldn't be leaving them behind. We should give them maybe a tailored approach to that rejection because you're discouraging somebody and you may be taking away their hope and dream. I talked with a young person the other day I just want to come to work for you how can I get unfolded and we got to think about that because we've got to build our pipeline we've got to build our future and if we're not treating people with dignity and respect and if we're leaving candidates behind a pipeline drives up and you'll hear about it on Glassdoor people are now quick in this day and age to yelp about a horrible experience that they had. So let's be better let's be better on the candidate experience front I like that I'm taking away let's be better and I'll

SPEAKER_01 22:00

The hashtag no candidate left behind. Thank you so much, Bruce. So that wraps up this episode of the Hiring Scope Podcast from the National Association for Healthcare Recruitment. Thank you for joining me, Angela Pointer, as we tackle the evolving landscape of healthcare hiring. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. You can also check us out at knackernahcr.com for more content. Until the next time, keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in healthcare improvement.