All the applicants are going to work for Amazon, Walmart, and Uber. How do I compete?

Recent shifts in the labor market have affected home care businesses in a lot of ways. One of the biggest challenges? Increased competition for talent. Home care businesses are no longer competing with others in the home care industry for talent – they are competing with employers of all industries.

Here’s how you can compete with these companies to make the right hires for your home care agency.

Lead with compensation and benefits

For many candidates, jobs with giant companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Uber seem like a sure thing when it comes to competitive compensation and steady work.

Job seekers have too many options these days to apply to jobs where compensation and benefits are uncertain. What can you offer them that gig economy jobs or warehouse jobs can't? Stability? Career growth? Benefits/perks?

In addition to having competitive wages and benefits, you need to make sure that you are leading with them in your job descriptions. Include compensation (or a realistic compensation range) in your job listing and highlight the benefits you offer.

Not only does this allow job seekers to determine if your job is the right fit before applying, it shows applicants that you are a transparent and honest company. This will get more candidates to say yes to your offers later on in the hiring process.

This job description is a great example of how putting the benefits early on in your job description can help you stand out from the competition.

Build your employer brand

When competing with huge names for top talent, employer brand matters more than ever. Your employer brand is your business’ reputation as a place to work as seen from job seekers’ perspective, and it can give you the added edge amongst candidates with many choices.

A strong careers page is the hub of a great employer brand. A careers page helps your company stand out from the competition and CareerPlug research shows that a candidate that applies from a company’s career page is four times more likely to be hired than a candidate from a job board. It’s a win-win!

The best careers pages show job seekers what it’s like to work at your company and let your company culture shine. Assisting Hands Home Care does this well with a careers page that highlights what they have to offer and includes a touching video shout-out to their caregivers. Employee testimonials and photos are also great additions. You can create a strong careers page with these elements and more using an applicant tracking system like CareerPlug.

You can also use employer review sites like Glassdoor and JobSage to actively manage your employer brand. Research shows that more than half of job seekers abandon their pursuit of a company after reading negative reviews. Since applicants and employees are using these sites to share their experience with your company, it helps to focus on providing a great candidate experience to all applicants and taking steps to be a great place to work.

Reach out to candidates faster

Most candidates you are pursuing will most likely be fielding other offers. If you wait too long to respond after an application comes in or to get an interview scheduled, you could be missing out on quality talent.

According to CareerPlug data, the average time it takes for employers across all industries to contact candidates is 7.3 days. For home care agencies to be competitive, they should aim to reach out to candidates within 7 days or sooner.

In order to contact candidates more quickly, it helps to have a hiring process that runs like a well-oiled machine. Include pre-screen questions in your application to weed out unqualified candidates and automate tedious hiring tasks like interview scheduling. Use text recruiting to save time and make communication more convenient for busy candidates.

With competition so high, one thing is certain: The early bird with the right offer gets the worm. Focus on speed in your hiring process, but make sure that you are also standing out to candidates with great incentives and highlighting that you are a great place to work.

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