Increase funnel, attract qualified labor market, and streamline the recruitment process. Corey Fein, Senior Market Specialist at Hireology, shares insights and tips for operators to improve the application process and hiring strategies. 

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This episode was recorded at the NIC Fall Conference

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Produced by Solinity Marketing

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Listen to more episodes here

Intro

Welcome to season seven of Bridge The Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. Powered by sponsors Accushield, Aline, NIC MAP Vision, Procare HR, Sage, Hamilton CapTel, Service Master, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinity. Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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33:13 - 00:44

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast, the senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas here at the Fall NIC Conference in Washington, DC on a great day with a great guest. We want to welcome Corey Fein with hireology. Welcome to the show.

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00:44 - 00:47

Corey Fein

Thanks, Lucas. Thanks, Josh. So glad to be here.

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00:47 - 01:12

Lucas McCurdy

Well, glad that you're here because staff retention/recruiting is a small topic in senior housing, right? Just a little bit. It comes up occasionally, right? No. Like every day. This is a big, big topic. And Corey, you've been at this awhile. And so we're going to be picking your brain on the topics of retention and recruiting. Josh, as an operator, is this a big topic for you right now?

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01:12 - 01:55

Josh Crisp

Absolutely. And I would say here at NIC, if we went around to most of the operators, if it's not the number one, it's a one, a, that keeps them up at night, things that they're figuring out even for developers. you know, I can't tell you how much now, as a developer, not just a manager. We used to only look at it. Hey, what's the age income qualified barriers in this market? And it was very site driven, demographic driven on the ResNet front, but now, equally if not more important is how are we going to staff this if we enter this market? So what's our plan to attract talent? And what great guests that we've got on the day. Corey, thanks for coming in and talking to us about that.

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01:55 - 01:57

Corey Fein

It's an absolute pleasure and I'm looking forward to diving right in.

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01:57 - 02:39

Josh Crisp

So let's just start at a very high level. You know, you have the opportunity to have a very wide lens, not only on just attracting talent across a lot of different verticals, but specifically how that applies to the challenges we have with the teams that senior housing operators are hiring. So, you know, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? How are you helping? What should we be thinking about, talking about when we talk about being the employer of choice in a market, being able to attract with all the noise that is out there and how, you know, people are spending tons of dollars to try to attract talent. But what are you seeing that's working?

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02:39 - 03:44

Corey Fein

It's a great question. I think first off, operators that understand they have 100% complete control over who they put on their payroll start to win. And what I mean by that is you have control over your employment brand, how you go to market and share the type of individual you want to attract. And being super intentional with your employment brand really helps to first identify the right people that will self opt in to your facilities.

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Once you do that, you really need to then manage your recruiting process in the same way you manage your sales process. How many phone screens do I need to run on a weekly basis to move someone into an in-person interview? How many background checks do I need to run to land that hire? And when you think of it like a, recruitment funnel for residents, those are when you start to see operators that win and that are at the forefront of being able to say no to individuals, as opposed to being desperate and needing to just hire whoever walks through the door because they have open bodies that they need to sell.

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03:44 - 04:25

Josh Crisp

Yeah, well, I think but the underlying issue is a really shift in focus and understanding. Even the consumer behaviors. I mean, so as an industry, you know, over the last ten, 15 years, we've gone from predominantly a product where we were selling very much to the end user that consumer that was going to be living in your community. You know, then we figured out, oh, wow, it's the gatekeepers. And how do we get our messaging to those people? How do we sell to those people? Are we putting as an industry that much thought and intentionality into our virtual front doors for attracting our talent? So I would love to know your answer to that. What are you seeing that's working?

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04:26 - 05:56

Corey Fein

It's really unique, I think. You know, if you think of the evolution of recruiting and what people think recruiting is, most operators think, well, I post to Indeed I have a recruiting process. At the end of the day, posting to Indeed is table stakes. You just have to have your job listed there. Ten years ago it was Monster. We all remember those gorillas running around on the Super Bowl. and then everyone went to Monster looking for a job. So how could you think creatively and think outside the box? What do you have control over? Go shop your own job. Go try and apply for a job on your own website. How hard or how simple is it? 

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How would you sit through a ten minute application process yourself to apply for a job? How do you take advantage of foot traffic walking through the door? Why can't someone's niece or nephew or granddaughter grandchild be an employee at one of our facilities? Especially if an elder has a great living experience with us? Why can't we take advantage of that in other areas?

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So we have hundreds of individuals walking through our front doors visiting our residents. How do we promote at the front desk? How do we maybe create a career center in our facilities that make it really easy and simple for people to understand we’re a people first organization and no matter where we are we're broadcasting, that in the same way we're looking for new residents and and always evolving our, our attracting process of residents.

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05:56 - 06:34

Josh Crisp

You just gave a lot of things that we could spend a lot of time talking about. But I want to go back to what I would kind of qualify as, process because you said something you're like, would you would you sit through and do a ten minute process? Well, me, I'm thinking ten minutes. That's nothing. But maybe that is something. Maybe that's something. So what should the measure be like? What are our downfalls as operators? And maybe we're thinking about how things used to be and we're not even thinking. Was the ten minute process too long? Like because I hear that and I'm like, well, that doesn't seem very long, but is that a long process? Is that something we should be really trying to shorten?

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06:34 - 08:08

Corey Fein

We published an applicant study, in the summer where we surveyed individuals that have applied across our 3000 plus customers. And we actually surveyed the applicants and applied to understand what they care the most about when looking for a job? 30% of individuals will never fill out an application if it requires them to create a username and password. Said differently, you know, and I keep drawing conclusions to prospective residents. If you ask a prospective resident to create a username and password before they go on a tour, how many tours do you think you’ll get? We see a 30% drop off there. We also see for every added field on an application, it increases drop off by about 3%. 

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So what individuals want today is the least path of resistance to say I'm interested in talking to you more. And you have to understand that the labor market is shifted right? Applicants tend to have the power now. They have their choice of job and, with access to information, they can learn more about your facilities before doing an interview or before talking with you. So how do you promote what life is like? What else are you offering outside the duties and responsibilities of a job that are important to today's labor market? For instance, what benefits do you offer? How do you talk about time off? How do you talk about health, dental, vision, plans, and things that are ancillary to the actual day to day responsibilities, but that today's applicant really cares when seeking for a new role.

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08:08 - 08:39

Josh Crisp

If I'm understanding correctly, you know what we may often do as an industry is we try to collect too much and create too many obstacles right up front. But we need to broaden that, to essentially engage them to the next level of compensation, almost sort of a trickle funnel effect. So what does that process look like? At what point do we need to start vetting other things and then vetting other things? What does that process look like?

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08:51 - 09:30

Corey Fein

We always believe it should be the least path of resistance up front. Make it very easy and simple. I want to apply. I want to share my general contact information. If that looks good, then I'm willing to give more.

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Top of the funnel. Make it very easy and simple. There's a lot of tools out there that allow for automation of once someone applies to then reengage them, whether that's through SMS, whether that's through email, and leveraging technology out there to help you manage the process. Typically we see right after you then look at someone's resume and you have an initial phone screen or conversation with them. Maybe you then once gathered the necessary qualifying documentation, understands certifications. They have understood mission critical activities. Right. Is someone willing to take a drug test prior to employment, or, are they willing to take a background check?

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Those things are mission critical. But after I've spoken to you, there's ways to automate that gathering. whether that's through a survey or whether that's through a questionnaire that's delivered from an operator to enhance your ability to just increase that funnel and attract as many people as you want. And that's how you start to feel that the labor market isn't compressing you, and you don't feel that there is a lack of top talent out there and can attract people in the right fashion.

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09:59 - 10:36

Josh Crisp

So, Lucas, this is a little bit different approach. You know, I think there's a lot of operators in our industry that have adapted really well that do adapt really well. But obviously, since everybody's talking about this, we've got a lot of work to do. And what I would just say is almost like market capture, you know, it's capturing the group that needs to be working in senior living.

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There's so much of the workforce out there that don't know about senior living. How different would it be if the great work that you see in these communities with all these operators, if the labor force understood what the opportunity was, you know, it's just amazing.

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10:36 - 11:40

Lucas McCurdy

You and I've talked over the years, that your competition is the Chick-Fil-A down the street. And, what's the value proposition that senior living has over delivering chicken sandwiches out of a glass window, which I'm not, you know, diminishing that either. I  love Chick-Fil-A and have a great experience every time I go through the drive thru. But that's the reality is that the, the, the labor force that you may be trying to attract is, you have strict. Yeah, big competition out there. And so that value proposition, that story. What story are we presenting as an industry to say, you know, you're welcome here, and we have a career for you here. There's a track for you to move up and forward here in this industry. And, you're developing a legacy here of caring for older adults, that's a little bit different than maybe fast food. you know, thoughts?

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11:40 - 12:29

Corey Fein

We hear all the time. One of the most common things I hear operators say is no one wants to stay there. Just want to go get a quarter more an hour down the street. And I think you hit that right on how we help them understand the opportunities that we have to offer?

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Are we in expansion mode? Are we buying more facilities? Okay. When we purchase more facilities, guess what? We need another administrator. We need another center operator. Now, those people that have been with us, they understand potential opportunities in the industry and can grow with them. And that's how you create culture, and that's how you create great stories to share with other people that are unique to you as a brand and an organization that no one else could copy. I think that's a really critical and great aspect of optimizing the way in which you talk about your roles.

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12:35:17 - 13:51

Josh Crisp

I kind of want to start rounding out this conversation because we can't take as much time as we'd like to because of your schedule here at NIC. And how rapid the pace goes here. But, you know, I'm really interested because you guys have an amazing tool, right? that, complements and can help guide all of these things for all these operators that are here.

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I'm wondering, like, I feel like, for example, I'm a user of your product, and I don't think even we were really well equipped and even ready to utilize all the resources that you can provide, all those tools. So from a planning perspective, from a strategic perspective, the employer out there that's like I believe everything that Corey says he's nailing it.

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But you know, we've got fast growing acquisitions, developments in multiple states with different regulatory environments and all the things that we have to worry about as operators. What do I strategically need to put in place to ensure that a tool that I can use will be effective? What do you see the most successful implementations being when you start looking at how do I get, recruiting software, applicant tracking software and all these key buzzwords to funnel these hires in what, what successful steps we need to be taking?

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13:51 - 15:02

Corey Fein

It starts at the leadership level. You need to make a conscious decision that you're going to become a people first organization. And once you do that, and you realize that the interview or even take it a step further, further, the application process, the interview process is not a way for us to gather information, to make it easy to put someone into payroll. It needs to be guided by what the applicant wants. And what they want is fast turnaround times. They want to get information that's readily available and should be easy to gather from an applicant perspective and internalize that with my what my beliefs are? And then finally, if you create that understanding at the leadership level that we are going to be people first, then you need to talk about how hiring is done with your center operators. And that should be top of mind on phone calls on meetings that you have at your facilities, and helping understand your operators. That I care about who we're putting on our payroll, as should you, and run it like the core operating and business process that it is, because it's vital to everyone's success.

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15:02 - 15:18

Josh Crisp

Lucas, you and I have, joked, but also very serious. We're probably the luckiest two dudes in the industry because we get masterclasses from guys like Corey, multiple times a day, and it's just always great. I appreciate you sharing time with us today.

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15:20 - 15:51

Lucas McCurdy

Well, this topic is something that comes up quite a bit, and I know our audience is going to lean into it. We'll connect with Corey and his company there in the show notes. Scroll down on your podcast player. Click those links. If you want to learn more, go to btgvoice.com. Connect with us there. Download this content and so much more. There's a little search feature on BTG. You can type in any keyword and every show that has that in it. You can pick from a gigantic library there for you. Thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge the Gap.

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15:51 - 16:02

Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at btgvoice.com.

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