Recruiting and retention have been ongoing challenges for behavioral health and human services organizations. Many of these companies struggle to maintain adequate staffing levels with ongoing employee shortages, growing service demand, and rising turnover rates. As such, investing in a well-designed recruitment management system (RMS) can improve the hiring process. 

An RMS offers a wealth of helpful features to simplify job postings, improve candidate management, and ensure that organizations find the right hire for their open roles. Learn more about how the right talent management strategies and recruiting tools can help you recruit and retain employees even in the midst of continual challenges.

The Recruiting and Retention Challenge

Recruiting is consistently a top focus for behavioral health organizations. When surveyed for the 2023 Behavioral Health Industry Trends Report, 59% of behavioral health and human services professionals and leaders cited recruiting and retention as their top priority. However, respondents noted that they faced several recruiting challenges — including a lack of qualified applicants and an inability to offer competitive pay — that hindered their hiring efforts. 

The demand for behavioral health services is also increasing, often necessitating further hiring to meet the mounting demand. Mental Health America’s 2023 State of Mental Health in America Report noted that large portions of the population struggle to receive adequate mental health care due to provider shortages. According to the report, over 152 million Americans live in an area dealing with mental health workforce shortages. It was revealed that only 28% of patients in these areas that required mental health services were able to have their care needs met. This provider shortage means behavioral health companies must devote more resources to attracting and retaining qualified providers.

Another part of the staffing problem is that behavioral health organizations tend to have higher than average turnover rates. More than 90% of behavioral health organizations included in the 2023 Behavioral Health Industry Trends Report stated that they have a turnover rate of 20% or greater. Other studies estimate turnover rates of up to 70% within segments of the behavioral health field. Such issues demonstrate the importance of candidate sourcing as organizations must promptly fill roles to minimize any patient care interruptions.

Benefits of Using a Recruitment Management System

A recruitment management system can help organizations manage the recruiting process more efficiently. Here’s a closer look at the key features and benefits of an RMS.

Seamless Job Posting 

Employers can use a recruitment management system to save time while posting jobs and reach a wider audience of potential candidates. The recruitment team can build the job description, enter any additional job details in one centralized system, and then share the job to several job boards. 

For example, ContinuumCloud’s recruiting tools include one-click job posting, which allows companies to seamlessly share their open positions to popular job boards with just one click.

Applicant Tracking

A lot of important candidate information is collected throughout the application process, but it can be tricky to keep track of it all when candidates are coming in from a variety of sources. Applicant tracking tools compile resumes and job applications from different career sites, then display the candidate information in a user-friendly uniform format. Applicant tracking systems can be a standalone solution or integrated into an RMS or unified human capital management (HCM) platform. 

An RMS with applicant tracking allows recruiters and hiring managers to review applicants in one centralized, collaborative portal. Hiring team members can rate applications, leave notes, and track candidate progress through the recruiting funnel. 

Some platforms, such as ContinuumCloud’s HCM that includes an applicant tracking system, also support candidate assessments to help decision-makers get a clearer view of a candidate’s skill set and make more informed hiring decisions.

Organized Candidate Communications

Using an RMS to manage communications and coordinate interviews can help keep the process organized. Recruiters and hiring managers are busy people, so it’s easy for a candidate's response to get lost in an email inbox or LinkedIn messages. 

With an RMS, the hiring team doesn’t need to worry about communicating with candidates across different career sites or missing a reply. All communications can be managed in one central platform, and messages will be attached to the candidate’s profile in the system. Many recruiting management systems also have helpful message templates for quick interview scheduling or applicant rejections.

Better Hiring Workflows

Applicants often lose interest or accept other offers if an employer’s hiring process is too slow or time-consuming. A recruitment management system can streamline and automate recruiting workflows such as scheduling interviews or obtaining approval to make an offer to keep the process moving at a solid pace.

ContinuumCloud offers several customizable hiring workflows, including an approval-to-hire workflow. This workflow allows upper management to quickly approve the candidate and offer details within the system so that recruiters can make the offer promptly. There are also workflows for interview scheduling, creating job offers, getting approval to post a job opening, and onboarding a new employee.

Detailed Recruiting Analytics

The best recruitment systems include robust reporting tools that can provide meaningful insights and detailed, real-time talent acquisition metrics. Diving into recruiting and workforce analytics can be a great way for leaders to better understand their organization’s recruiting and retention problems. Metrics like the average time-to-hire can help HR teams identify inefficiencies in the recruitment process that may be causing them to miss out on top candidates. 

Recruiting analytics are also an excellent way to track the effectiveness of new and ongoing recruiting strategies. For example, this data can help you see where candidates are coming from to evaluate whether recruiting efforts focused on social media outreach or employee referral incentives are working.

A Better Candidate Experience

Delivering an exceptional candidate experience throughout the entire recruitment process is the key to engaging the best candidates. In fact, today’s employees are willing to turn down a role if the candidate experience is not up to par. 

A study from PwC found that 49% of job seekers in in-demand fields have rejected a job offer because of a poor experience during the hiring process. Behavioral health and human services roles are highly in-demand and often require specialized skill sets or credentials, so employers can’t afford to limit their talent pool by providing a slow or frustrating candidate experience.

RMS platforms allow employers to build informative job postings and a user-friendly application process. They can also address common candidate frustrations such as unresponsive employers, slow hiring processes, or interview scheduling mishaps by giving employers the tools that they need to properly manage candidate communications and move top candidates through the process. 

Even when you don’t select a candidate, features like automated rejection messages can help employers leave a positive impression on candidates so that they’ll be more likely to apply again in the future. 

Finding an Integrated Solution

While robust recruitment management software is great, an all-in-one HR solution with excellent recruiting features could be even better. 

Organizations that use a human capital management system with integrated recruitment management tools can provide a smoother onboarding experience by porting candidate data into the new hire’s employee profile upon hire. This removes the need for duplicate data entry, multiple logins, and time-consuming administrative processes, thus offering a smoother onboarding experience for new employees.

ContinuumCloud’s unified HCM platform offers a holistic solution with all the recruiting, retention, and human resources tools you need in one convenient platform. From the initial application through every stage of the employee lifecycle, an integrated HCM platform provides all the essential elements to process payments, develop talent, and keep employees engaged.

Upgrade Your Recruitment Management System With ContinuumCloud

As behavioral health and human services organizations continue to face difficulties in employee recruiting and retention, it’s more important than ever to invest in the right tech solutions to address these challenges. From tools like one-click job posting that make it easy to reach a wider applicant pool in minutes to seamless onboarding tools for new hires, ContinuumCloud’s recruitment management software can save time and help you find the right candidate.

ContinuumCloud specifically caters to the needs of behavioral health companies to streamline the recruiting process and attract top talent. Get in touch to learn more about how you can improve your recruitment management process.