Best Practices in Healthcare Recruitment Marketing: Filling Those Open Healthcare Positions

UPDATED APRIL 2026

Healthcare recruitment marketing requires a different approach than general talent acquisition because the industry faces persistent workforce shortages, intense competition from non-healthcare employers, and candidates who increasingly prioritize flexibility, well-being, and culture over compensation alone. With the national unemployment rate at 4.3% and healthcare consistently adding jobs even in soft labor markets, the competition for qualified candidates remains fierce. A strong employer brand, updated technology, competitive compensation, and a marketing-driven approach to talent attraction are the most effective tools for filling open positions.

If you’ve been in healthcare recruitment for any length of time, you remember when the hardest part of hiring was choosing between qualified applicants. Back then, HR departments invested heavily in applicant tracking systems designed to screen people out. Job descriptions focused on what the hospital needed, not what it was offering. Applications ran 10+ pages. And it worked, because there were more candidates than positions.

That world is gone. Healthcare was responsible for much of the job growth in March 2026, with the sector adding 76,000 jobs even as other industries stalled. The U.S. is projected to face a registered nurse shortage rate of about 8% in 2026, with the gap among licensed practical nurses running closer to 20% The BLS projects roughly 190,000 openings for registered nurses each year through 2032, and the pipeline of new graduates can’t keep up.

Here, we’ll prescribe some practical advice about some of the most difficult marketing that healthcare groups have to do: recruitment marketing. We’ll cover how to smooth the path to filling open healthcare positions using best practices that work in today’s labor market.

You’re Not Just Competing With Other Hospitals

Here’s the part that catches a lot of healthcare organizations off guard: your biggest competition for lower-skilled positions isn’t always the hospital down the road. It’s Target, Amazon, Starbucks, and Chick-fil-A. The explosive increase in the need for lower skilled healthcare workers (caregivers, CNA’s, etc.) in the industry combined with the squeeze of poor reimbursement rates from Medicare and insurance giants, means that the competition to fill these hourly positions has gotten tougher.

The national average CNA salary is about $41,270 per year, or roughly $19.84 per hour. Entry-level CNAs in many markets start closer to $14-16 per hour. That’s competitive with retail and food service, but those jobs don’t come with the physical demands, emotional toll, or exposure to workplace violence that healthcare positions do. When a warehouse job at Amazon pays $18-20/hour with predictable shifts and no patient care responsibilities, you have to give candidates a reason to choose you.

So, how on Earth do you convince someone to work in a challenging position like CNA for 20% less money than they can make selling gum and gas behind a counter at a convenience store?

That reason has to go beyond money. It has to be about who you are as an employer.

4 Best Practices in Healthcare Recruitment Marketing

The good news is that many of the organizations stealing your candidates (places like Walgreens, Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, Starbucks) have shown us what works. Their recruitment marketing playbooks are sophisticated, and the same principles apply to healthcare. Here’s how to put them to work.

1. Build (or rebuild) your employer brand

If you’re in a seller’s market for talent, and you are, start thinking about careers the way you’d think about marketing a product. When you’re selling something, you can either be a brand-name product or a generic. Career sites and job postings from ten years ago were pretty generic. But you can build an employer brand that helps sell the best candidates on your opportunities.

Your employer brand is your value proposition for candidates. It answers their question: “Why is working for you better than working for someone else?” And the answer can’t just be “we’re a great place to work.” It has to be specific, honest, and backed up by the experience your current employees would describe.

Start with your employee satisfaction data. If you’re conducting ESAT surveys (and you should be), mine them for what keeps people around and what drives them away. What do your employees value most? Is it scheduling flexibility? Professional development? The team culture on a specific unit? These insights are gold for your recruitment messaging.

Post-pandemic, the priorities have shifted. Candidates are asking about staffing ratios, mental health support, scheduling flexibility, and whether the organization takes burnout seriously. If your employer brand doesn’t address these concerns, candidates will assume the worst.

2. Get your messaging right

Once you know your unique selling points, figure out how to communicate them. Your messaging should be simple, memorable, and honest. If you oversell the role, you’ll see 90-day turnover climb as new hires feel like they were sold a bill of goods.

A few things to keep in mind:

Tailor your messaging by audience

A new-grad RN cares about mentorship and growth opportunities. A CNA cares about schedule stability and starting pay. An experienced nurse practitioner cares about autonomy and patient load. One-size-fits-all job postings don’t work when your candidates have options.

Show, don’t just tell

Employee testimonials, day-in-the-life videos, and behind-the-scenes social content are far more convincing than a paragraph about your “supportive culture.” Let your people tell your story. The organizations doing this well (Cleveland Clinic, NewYork-Presbyterian, and others) are seeing measurably higher application rates.

Social media is a recruitment channel now

Marketing plays a key role in employer branding, with internal storytelling driving applications for some health systems. Your marketing team and HR need to be working together on this. Short-form video, employee spotlights, and authentic content about what it’s like to work at your organization can reach passive candidates who aren’t browsing job boards.

3. Fix the candidate experience

The habits and best practices of the 2000s no longer work. If your application process still feels like a digital obstacle course, you’re losing candidates before they ever talk to a human.

Here’s what to look at:

Application length matters

Abandonment rates for online applicants increase roughly 50% per page. If you still have the 13-page online application, you are missing out on the best candidates. In healthcare, where many job seekers are applying on their phones between shifts, mobile optimization is a must.

Speed matters even more

How long does it take a great applicant to connect with a human? In this market, the longer that takes, the more likely you lose the candidate to someone who moved faster. Consider video interviews, live chat, text-based communication, and even well-designed chatbots to create touchpoints early in the process.

Your online reputation is part of the experience

Candidates will check your Glassdoor, Indeed, and Google reviews before they apply. If those reviews paint a picture of understaffing, poor management, or a toxic culture, your recruitment marketing won’t overcome it. Address the substance of negative reviews where you can, and actively encourage current employees to share honest feedback on these platforms.

AI can help, but it’s a tool, not a replacement. According to Mercer’s 2025 Talent Trends report, 61% of healthcare organizations plan to expand their use of AI in recruiting by 2026. AI-powered screening, candidate matching, and predictive analytics can reduce time-to-fill and improve quality of hire. But the goal is to use AI to get candidates to a human faster, not to replace the human connection entirely.

4. Know what your open positions actually cost you

If building a stronger employer brand and backing it up with better technology sounds like a budget-breaker, it might be time to put a number on what those open positions are costing you. This exercise is simpler than it sounds, and it can give HR the ammunition to make a case with the C-suite.

Start by focusing on a problem position. Let’s use CNAs as an example. Say you have 50 open, full-time CNA positions at any given time, at the current national average of roughly $19.84 per hour, and assuming a billing rate of around $35/hour with a 20% net margin, here’s the math:

• 50 open positions x 1,920 hours/year = 96,000 hours unbilled per year
• 96,000 x $35 = $3,360,000 in lost revenue per year
• For for-profit groups: $3,360,000 x 20% = $672,000 in lost profit per year

Now run this exercise for every open position: nurses, OT/PT, MRI/CT techs, coders, and so on. The total cost of unfilled positions to revenue (and lost profitability) can be staggering. We’ve seen healthcare organizations realize that the cost of open positions topped $30 million in lost revenue. Those figures make the investment in recruitment marketing look very reasonable by comparison.

What Else Healthcare Recruiters Should Know

A few additional shifts worth noting as you rethink your recruitment marketing approach:

• Pay transparency laws. Multiple states now require salary ranges in job postings. Even if your state doesn’t mandate it yet, candidates expect it. Posting a range signals honesty and saves everyone time.
• The travel nursing bubble has deflated. During the pandemic, travel nurses commanded extraordinary rates, and many permanent staff left for travel positions. That market has corrected. But the experience left a mark on permanent employees who watched travelers earn two or three times their salary for the same work. Addressing this history openly, and showing what you’ve done to improve compensation and working conditions for permanent staff, matters for retention and recruitment.
• Flexibility is the new benefit. Self-scheduling tools, gig-style shift pickup, four-day workweeks, and hybrid administrative roles are all growing in healthcare. Organizations that offer scheduling flexibility are winning candidates over those that don’t, even when the base pay is similar.
• DEI in recruitment is under scrutiny but still matters. Regardless of the political climate around DEI initiatives, candidates from all backgrounds still want to work for organizations that respect them and reflect the communities they serve. Focus on inclusive practices in hiring, not labels.

Ready to Fill Those Open Positions?

The cost and time needed to overhaul your recruitment approach will vary based on how many positions you’re filling, how competitive your market is, and how much of your infrastructure needs updating. But waiting isn’t a strategy. Every month you operate with unfilled positions, you’re leaving revenue on the table and putting additional strain on the staff you already have.

PriceWeber helps healthcare organizations build employer brands and recruitment marketing strategies that attract the right candidates in a competitive market. Click the button below for a free assessment.

Or, call us at 502-499-4209 to talk with one of our experts today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Healthcare is adding jobs even in a soft labor market, but the workforce shortage is projected to persist for years. The U.S. faces a registered nurse shortage rate of about 8% in 2026, and the gap among licensed practical nurses is closer to 20%.
• Your competition for lower-skilled positions isn’t just other hospitals. Retail and warehouse employers like Amazon, Target, and Starbucks offer comparable wages with fewer physical and emotional demands. Your employer brand has to give candidates a reason to choose healthcare.
• Employee satisfaction data is your best source for recruitment messaging. What keeps your current staff around (and what drives them away) should shape how you talk to candidates. Post-pandemic, flexibility, staffing ratios, and burnout support are top priorities.
• The candidate experience is make-or-break. Long applications, slow response times, and a poor mobile experience are costing you applicants. AI tools can speed up screening and matching, but the goal is to get candidates to a human faster, not replace the human connection.
• Every unfilled position has a dollar figure attached to it. Running a simple revenue-loss calculation for your open roles gives HR the data to make a strong budget case with the C-suite.
• Pay transparency, scheduling flexibility, and authentic employer branding on social media are no longer optional. Candidates expect all three, and the organizations offering them are winning the talent competition.