The senior living industry is currently experiencing a recruitment crisis. The most in-demand positions include home health aides, nursing assistants, nurse practitioners, and medical/lab techs. Right now, the industry struggles from too few applicants and communities fighting each other for the most qualified candidates. Looking to the future, the baby boomer generation will begin transitioning into senior housing within the next decade, which raises serious concerns around staffing shortages.

Senior living communities must make changes in order to compete for the best talent and to alleviate the strain of staffing shortages. One idea to reach a new pool of candidates comes through Facebook and social media advertising. In order to compete during a recruitment crisis, senior living communities need to adopt new strategies that may look similar to lead generation tactics.

Senior Living Recruiting Crisis

According to a survey conducted by Lancaster Pollard, 82% of senior living executives cited a shortage of workers as a key concern in 2018. Moving into 2019, senior living projections see the recruiting crisis continuing. Currently, senior living communities report a growing shortage of skilled healthcare workers — especially those with senior living experience. Healthcare jobs will account for approximately 2.3 million new jobs through 2026 with about 1.6 million of those jobs coming from the employment of personal aides, home health aides, and nurses.

Impending Boom

Baby boomers make up the largest incoming generation of senior living residents to date. Demand for senior housing will rise in the next decade with baby boomers reaching their 80s. Currently, the oldest baby boomers are around age 72 and the typical age of an assisted living resident is 83-years-old. U.S. Census Bureau data shows this cohort of those 83 and older was around 8.5 million individuals in 2017. An additional 138,000 people aged into this group in 2018. Estimates expect this cohort to rise to 10.2 million by 2025.

By 2025, the U.S. may likely face a shortage of:

    • 446,000 Home Health Aides
    • 95,000 Nursing Assistants
    • 99,000 Medical/Lab Techs
  • 29,000 Nurse Practitioners

With the impending baby boom approaching, how can senior living communities recruit staff for so many new care positions?

It’s Time For Marketing and HR to Team Up

In today’s connected world, senior living communities can apply similar tactics to recruit new, qualified staff as they do to generate new leads. It’s time to change the way you recruit new employees by teaming your HR and marketing departments to generate the best possible pool of potential employees. The digital landscape offers companies the ideal conditions for finding new staff with 57% of all online traffic in the U.S. coming in on mobile devices and 3.5 million searches occurring daily. Applying a digital marketing approach to careers can draw in qualified job seekers through social media ad targeting.

Why Social Media Ads

Social media ads offer companies the benefit of targeting their audience by local proximity, job title, and field of study in order to find the most qualified candidates. Harness the power of social media ads to align your careers recruitment approach across the same channels as your lead generation. Advertising your career opportunities through social media helps you direct job seekers to your website to view open positions and convert them into potential employees. By developing your brand on social channels, monitoring and responding to reviews, and optimizing your careers page on your website you signal to job seekers that your brand is engaged.

Digital advertising helps convert career seekers at a very low cost per conversion. By specifically targeting potential senior living employees with the skills and background you need, you narrow down the pack to the most qualified individuals.

How to Target Potential Senior Living Employees

Target potential senior living employees by focusing on the job titles you’re looking to fill and relevant fields of study – Certified Nursing Assistant, Home Health Aide, for example. Facebook ads allow you to target specific areas, people within 50 miles of Bend, Oregon, for example. Targeting puts your ads in front of the people most qualified for the positions you have available.

Remember, you cannot use ads to discriminate. Avoid targeting and filtering ads based on age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and other protected classes. Focus your social media ad targeting on location and current position in order to get the best results.

Use G5 Digital Advertising to Recruit New Employees

Now that you know more about using digital advertising to recruit senior living employees, are you ready to give it a try for yourself? G5 can help. Our expert digital strategists work with you to deliver tailored social ads that appeal to your target audience.

Schedule a demo today.