When vacancies remain open, agency usage increases or rosters become difficult to fill, the obvious conclusion is often: we have a recruitment problem.
And sometimes, that’s exactly right.
There may genuinely be too few suitable candidates in the market. A location may be difficult to recruit to. A particular clinical or leadership skill set may be in high demand. Or an organisation may simply need greater recruitment capacity to reach and engage suitable candidates.
But sometimes recruitment is only where the problem becomes visible.
The actual issue may have started much earlier or may occur much later in the employee journey.
If candidates aren’t applying, that’s one problem. If they’re applying but withdrawing, that’s another. If they’re accepting offers but leaving within six months, that’s something else entirely.
Understanding where the workforce challenge actually sits is an important first step towards solving it.
Start with the whole workforce journey
Rather than looking at recruitment as an isolated activity, consider the complete journey: attraction → application → selection → offer → onboarding → retention.
Each stage can tell you something different about your workforce.
And importantly, each problem requires a different response.
Increasing advertising may help an attraction problem. It won’t necessarily solve an offer acceptance problem.
Additional sourcing may help you reach more RNs. It won’t fix a roster that candidates consistently decline.
A recruitment campaign may fill several vacancies. It won’t prevent those employees leaving again if the underlying retention issue remains.
Before deciding on the solution, diagnose the problem.
Challenge 1: We’re not getting enough applications
This is where organisations most clearly have an attraction challenge. Vacancies are being advertised, but there simply aren’t enough suitable people entering the recruitment process.
Start by looking at the opportunity from the candidate’s perspective.
- Is the job advertisement compelling?
- Is the salary or hourly rate competitive?
- Is the roster clear?
- Does the advertisement explain what makes the opportunity different?
- Are you advertising where your target candidates are actually looking?
- Are you relying entirely on active job seekers?
For some difficult-to-fill positions, advertising alone may not be enough.
Experienced Registered Nurses, Clinical Managers, Facility Managers and other senior professionals aren’t always actively searching job boards. Reaching those candidates may require proactive sourcing, existing networks and direct engagement.
What to look at: application numbers, application quality, advertising performance, candidate source, market salary, roster requirements, location, and your employer value proposition.
If suitable people simply aren’t entering the process, attraction and sourcing may be where you need to focus.
Challenge 2: We’re getting lots of applications, but few suitable candidates
More applications don’t necessarily mean better recruitment outcomes.
An advertisement might generate 150 applications, but if only three candidates meet the essential requirements, the recruitment team still has a problem.
In fact, high application volumes can create additional work by requiring recruiters or hiring managers to screen large numbers of unsuitable applicants.
This can indicate a targeting problem. Look at the advertisement itself.
- Does the job title accurately reflect the position?
- Are essential requirements obvious?
- Is the level of experience required clear?
- Is the advertisement reaching the right audience?
- Are your recruitment channels appropriate for the role?
The goal isn’t simply more applications. It’s more relevant applications.
Challenge 3: Good candidates apply but disappear during recruitment
Now the issue has shifted. You’ve attracted suitable candidates. They were interested enough to apply. Perhaps they completed a screening call. Maybe they even interviewed.
Then they withdraw or stop responding.
This can indicate a recruitment process or candidate experience problem.
Map the recruitment process: application → screening → interview → feedback → references → approval → offer.
- How much time passes between each stage?
- Who owns the next step?
- Are candidates receiving updates?
- Are hiring managers providing feedback promptly?
- Are approvals delaying offers?
Good candidates rarely have only one opportunity.
If another employer completes their process while yours is still progressing internally, you may lose someone you had already successfully attracted.
Challenge 4: Candidates interview but don’t want to progress
If candidates regularly withdraw following interview, it’s worth exploring what they’re learning during that conversation.
Perhaps the roster wasn’t what they expected. Perhaps the responsibilities are broader than the advertisement suggested. Maybe salary expectations aren’t aligned. Perhaps they’re concerned about workload or support. Or maybe the organisation simply hasn’t given them a compelling reason to continue.
Remember: you’re interviewing the candidate, but they’re also interviewing you.
The interview is often the point where the candidate moves from reading about the opportunity to deciding whether they can actually picture themselves doing it.
Track candidate withdrawals and, where appropriate, ask why they’ve decided not to continue. Patterns can be extremely useful.
Challenge 5: We’re making offers but candidates aren’t accepting them
This is different again.
If candidates successfully progress through your entire recruitment process but regularly decline at offer stage, the issue probably isn’t candidate attraction. You’ve already proven you can attract them.
Instead, look at the offer.
- Is remuneration competitive?
- Did the candidate understand the roster?
- Were expectations discussed early?
- How long did the offer take?
- Did another organisation move faster?
- Was there a counteroffer?
- Did something change during the recruitment process?
- Was the opportunity compelling enough to make leaving their current employer worthwhile?
One declined offer may simply be an individual decision. Repeated declined offers should become workforce data.
Track the reason: salary, roster, location, counteroffer, accepted another position, career progression, flexibility, changed mind about leaving, timing, or unknown.
Over time, this information can help identify what may need to change.
Challenge 6: We’re successfully recruiting people but they don’t stay
This is where organisations need to be careful not to automatically respond with more recruitment.
If you successfully recruit five employees but regularly need to replace three of them within the next six months, your recruitment team may actually be doing its job.
The bigger issue may be retention.
Look at what happens after commencement.
- Was the employee properly onboarded?
- Did the reality of the position match what was discussed during recruitment?
- Was the roster as expected?
- Did they receive appropriate orientation?
- Did they have sufficient clinical or leadership support?
- Were expectations clear?
- How did their manager engage with them?
- Were early concerns addressed?
- Did anyone check in after the first few weeks?
Recruitment gets someone through the door. The experience that follows has a significant influence on whether they stay.
Challenge 7: We’re constantly recruiting the same positions
Repeated vacancies deserve attention.
Sometimes this is simply the reality of a large workforce. But if a particular home, team, role, shift or manager consistently experiences higher turnover, look for the pattern.
For example: are night-duty RN vacancies consistently difficult to fill? Does one location have significantly higher turnover? Are new Clinical Managers leaving within their first year? Does a particular roster rely heavily on agency staff? Are employees leaving after similar lengths of service?
Patterns like these can help distinguish between an individual resignation and a broader workforce issue.
Rather than simply asking “how do we recruit another person?”, it may be worth asking “why do we keep needing to recruit this position?”
Challenge 8: Our internal recruitment team simply doesn’t have enough capacity
There is another workforce challenge that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Sometimes the recruitment strategy is sound. The roles are attractive. The organisation knows what needs to happen. There is simply too much recruitment to manage at once.
Perhaps several vacancies have appeared simultaneously. A new service is opening. An acquisition or organisational change has created additional demand. There is a backlog of vacancies. Internal People & Culture teams are managing recruitment alongside numerous other priorities. Or a group of difficult-to-fill roles requires more proactive sourcing than the internal team has capacity to provide.
This isn’t necessarily a recruitment strategy problem. It may be a recruitment capacity problem.
Recognising that distinction matters.
Adding short-term recruitment capacity can sometimes be more appropriate than permanently increasing an internal team or allowing vacancies to remain open while existing staff try to manage the additional workload.
Turn recruitment activity into workforce intelligence
One of the most valuable things an organisation can do is start tracking what happens throughout the recruitment journey.
You don’t necessarily need sophisticated analytics. Start with some basic questions.
Attraction — how many applications are we receiving? Where are candidates coming from? Which roles receive very few suitable applications?
Selection — what percentage of applicants progress? Where do candidates withdraw? How long does each recruitment stage take?
Offer — how many offers are made? How many are accepted? Why are offers declined?
Commencement — how many candidates accept but don’t commence? Why?
Retention — how many new hires remain after 90 days? Six months? Twelve months? Which positions are repeatedly becoming vacant?
When this information is reviewed together, recruitment data becomes more than a measure of activity. It becomes workforce intelligence.
Diagnose first. Then decide where to invest.
When an aged care provider has vacancies, there is understandable pressure to act quickly.
But more recruitment activity isn’t automatically the answer.
If you aren’t attracting candidates, invest in attraction and sourcing. If you’re attracting the wrong candidates, improve targeting. If good candidates are withdrawing, examine the recruitment process. If offers are being rejected, understand why. If employees aren’t staying, investigate retention. If the strategy is working but the team can’t manage the volume, consider additional recruitment capacity.
The solution should match the problem.
A stronger workforce strategy starts with the right question
The question isn’t always “how do we find more candidates?”
Sometimes it’s “why aren’t candidates applying?” Or: “why are we losing them?” “why aren’t they accepting?” “why aren’t they staying?” “why are we repeatedly recruiting the same role?”
Or simply: “do we have enough capacity to manage the recruitment demand we currently have?”
Those questions lead to very different solutions.
And that’s why effective aged care recruitment should be viewed as part of a broader workforce strategy — not simply a response to an empty position.
Need additional recruitment capacity?
For aged care providers experiencing a recruitment backlog, multiple vacancies or a period of increased hiring demand, NurseGen’s Recruitment Sprint provides focused recruitment support for a defined period or project.
It can provide additional recruitment capacity when your internal team needs support to move priority vacancies forward without necessarily adding permanent recruitment headcount.
Because sometimes the problem really is recruitment. And sometimes you simply need more capacity to get it done.