A beautiful thing happens when you allow potential recruits to self-qualify in or out. They may decide your brand and company are perfect, and they may decide you’re not. The same goes at the individual recruiter level: Atlas MedStaff — which staffs travel nurses, techs, and therapists across the country — empowers its team to decline someone or transfer them to another person if they are simply not a good fit.
Branding. We encourage our recruiters to create their own brand within the Atlas brand, drawing on their own unique backgrounds. Some were professional hockey players who share about injuries they’ve had; another is a personal trainer who does workout and goal-setting videos; and others have done podcasts answering nurses’ questions.
And our brand and marketing team helps tell those stories. We tell our nurses’ stories and adventures, too — and every one of them is a chance for another traveler to identify with a piece of content. To see a little bit of themselves in someone else’s life and be able to say, “I could do this, too.”
This helps to set us apart, but also allows our nurses to self-qualify in with recruiters they identify with.
Embrace loss. Most of our contracts work on a three-month cycle. So even when we lose a potential recruit to another agency or recruiter, we stay in touch with them, maybe to wish them well, offer guidance, say happy birthday or congratulate them on a new certification.
Often, when it’s time for them to consider their next contract, they’ve heard more from us than their actual recruiter, and return for their next contract.
Lean on Me. Anyone who has worked in recruiting, no matter the industry, knows that you often wear many hats. With Covid-19, and the harsh realities that some of our traveler experience on a shift working the ER or ICU, our team increasingly acts as a shoulder to lean on, a friend to talk to, or even a therapist to vent to.
This requires a constant juggling of priorities and time management by the recruiter, and, more than anything, simply a desire and willingness to be there. Be available. Be that shoulder to cry on. Make the time.
Screening for Fit. More than anything, when we hire a new recruiter — or anyone — we are screening for a certain type of person, with specific qualities. We want to know they will be a culture fit and handle those relationships the way we would want. That’s much more important to us than whether someone has extensive
sales history.
In fact, some of our best recruiters have had zero sales experience before coming to us. But they are the right fit for us.
Dedication. It takes time, dedication and a willingness to build those real relationships so that every potential prospect knows when they are ready, they have someone they can reach out to. And your team has done the work to build that relationship so they feel comfortable reaching out when the time is right.
We do this through the content we create, by hosting in-person events around the country (in “The Before Times”), by building our individual contributor’s personal brands, and through pure delight.
We celebrate birthdays and life events, first days, orientation days and last days, first contracts and the next contract. We budget for special events, random gifts and special outings for our travelers — skydiving, horseback riding through the Grand Canyon, tours through historic New Orleans — from our budget, not the client’s contract.
When you make culture and fit a priority, dedicating the resources to attract the persona you want with the content they are searching for, empower your team to take care of them, and then work to delight them — that’s a powerful combination.
And when in doubt, just send them a text message saying you’re thinking about them and you wanted to see how their day was going.
Just doing that last thing will make you stand out from your competition.
Because it means they are working with a person, not a company.
