It’s Friday afternoon, and a key staff member calls in sick. Your carefully crafted schedule is in jeopardy! That’s when the benefits of hiring for per diem nursing jobs really shine. A skilled per diem nurse is a lifesaver for every harried nursing manager.

The upsides of integrating per diem nurse jobs into your staffing solutions are clear. Hiring per diem nurses allows healthcare employers to fill temporary positions without committing to full-time employees. They’re an important tool for reducing staffing costs and preventing burnout among full-time staff. On the other side of the equation, working as a flexible nurse is a great option for talented nurses who can’t do full-time jobs. (If you’re a nurse who landed on this page by accident, hurry over to see our per diem nursing jobs!)

But you don’t want to end up scrambling to hire flexible nurses at the last minute. Recruiting these professionals presents its own set of challenges, so you need a game plan! In this post, we’ll explore practical strategies to not only attract top per diem nurses but keep them coming back for more, ensuring your facility is never caught off guard again:

• Key Pathways to Drastically Expand Your Candidate Pool
• Track Down Niche Talent with Expert Recruiters
• To Attract Top Per Diem Nurses, Cover the Basics First

The challenges of recruiting per diem nurses

It’s not easy to find nurses who have the specific skills and qualifications for the job but are open to short-term assignments. Especially when other employers and staffing agencies will try to match your pay and benefits packages. Simply copying over your regular recruitment tactics isn’t necessarily going to work!

Above all, the key to effective per diem nurse recruitment is anticipating your staffing needs. That means consistently looking for talent, instead of rushing to advertise per diem jobs when a vacancy arises. A proactive, long-term recruitment strategy will help you maintain a steady flow of candidates! We suggest two very different but complementary approaches.

1. Key pathways to drastically expand your candidate pool

Taking a sophisticated broad-spectrum approach to expanding your candidate pool ensures consistent access to qualified nurses — and we’ll be diving into a whole array of options here. But of course we also recognize that your available resources will determine how many of these instruments you can deploy.

Luckily there’s one powerful, scalable resource we can start off with that we can personally speak on with authority. Smaller healthcare providers without a large internal HR team can take advantage of it just as easily as larger nurse employers and agencies!

Don’t just use any job board. Rely on a specialist nurse recruitment platform

Save precious time you’d otherwise waste posting your openings on general-purpose job boards. Use specialized healthcare recruitment platforms that are large enough to provide access to nurses nationwide — but narrowly focused enough to avoid wading through irrelevant candidates.

As America’s leading nursing job board, we fit that bill. Posting your nursing jobs on NurseRecruiter is a breeze, but the real prize is our nurse database of over 450,000 active, self-registered candidates. Its advanced search and filter tools make it easy to reach out to nurses who expressed an interest in per diem positions, even for the most specialized roles.

Cultivate connections through community

As proud as we are of our services, you should definitely not stop there. The more recruitment tools you use, the greater your odds of securing consistent access to per diem nurses.

— Create a “Per Diem Nurse Recruitment Ambassador” Program
Encouraging current per diem nurses to refer their peers can be a low-cost but highly effective recruitment resource. A referral program can also bring in nurses who already understand the ins and outs of per diem work, ensuring a smoother transition. Stay in contact with previous candidates too — they might have just missed the cut last time, but gained new experience and qualifications since!

— Foster a Strong Reputation and Make Word-of-Mouth Work for You
Word of mouth is a powerful recruitment tool, so building a reputation as a fair and supportive employer will pay off in the long run! Nurses who have seen how you value work-life balance and nurse well-being are more likely to refer others, making it a great opportunity to tap into their personal networks.

— Seek Out Local Talent with Hyperlocal Outreach
Reach passive candidates within the community by promoting per diem positions through local channels. Seek out new talent through local networking events or job boards. Local Facebook groups aren’t the sexiest option, but can be surprisingly effective! Be even bolder and advertise roles in community centres, libraries, places of worship, even hair salons — you might not reach nurses directly, but if an aunt or cousin sees it they’ll still find out!

Actively recruit nurses from wrongly overlooked groups

— Young Parents and Retired or Semi-Retired Nurses
Nurses who used to work full-time but currently can’t do so because of parenting responsibilities are often highly motivated candidates for per diem positions. Likewise, many retired or semi-retired nurses are eager to return to work on a part-time or flexible basis. It’s a win-win situation: you offer them the reduced hours and flexible schedules they crave, and they provide you with a wealth of experience.

— Nurses Approaching Retirement
Nurses approaching retirement are often keen to bow out from full-time roles which have become too taxing. But some of them would love to keep working on a flexible schedule with reduced hours! Better to invite full-time staff within your own organisation nearing retirement to consider this transition than risk losing them altogether. But don’t hesitate to do your research about nearby employers as well. If they’re not offering this option, their nurses might welcome your outreach!

Institutionalize your recruitment efforts

— Build an In-House Per Diem Pool
Developing an in-house pool of per diem nurses you can reach out to on a regular basis provides you with a ready list of qualified candidates whenever urgent staffing needs arise. But there’s another advantage too! Access to a reliable roster of nurses who are familiar with your organization’s culture and processes means less time spent on orientation and faster response times.

— Build Relationships with Nursing Schools
Partnering with local nursing schools for internships or job-shadowing will create a pipeline for future nurses to employment at your facility, and many student nurses and recent graduates start off taking flexible nurse positions. You can provide them with a valuable entry point into the workforce — and in return, get your pick of nursing talent to hire in permanent roles as they transition to full-time employment.

— Host Virtual Job Fairs or Webinars
If you have the resources to recruit at scale, virtual job fairs can help you engage larger numbers of per diem nurses and boost their application rates. Informational webinars allow potential candidates to ask questions, interact with hiring managers, and learn more about the roles you’re offering.

2. Track down niche nursing talent with expert recruiters

If you’re looking to fill per diem roles which are particularly challenging because they require specialized skills or niche experience, it might be time to bring in the nurse recruitment experts. Specialized healthcare recruiters like ours can source per diem nurses who are overlooked by generalist staffing agencies. 

Bringing in external recruiters also makes sense for smaller and mid-sized employers who don’t have an extensive in-house HR team. Not everyone has the resources at hand to be identifying, screening, and interviewing candidates in the middle of a staff crunch! The benefits of working with experienced per diem nurse recruiters include:

• High-Quality Candidates: Experienced recruiters who specialize in your industry have built up an extensive personal network. They’ll have the ear of passive candidates you won’t be able to reach — and staffing agencies might miss.
• Tailored Service: With a dedicated team of nurse recruiters, you get personalized support every step of the way, minimizing friction when you’re already juggling multiple responsibilities.
• Faster Hiring: Thanks to their specific expertise and a sophisticated recruitment process, they can help you fill positions more quickly.

Calling in the per diem nurse recruitment experts

With NurseRecruiter’s tailored nurse staffing solutions, you can let our seasoned recruiters do the work for you — and only pay when you hire. Thanks to their many years of experience and vast network they can specialize in identifying top nursing talent, even for difficult-to-fill positions.

Their in-depth familiarity with our nurse database of over 450,000 candidates gives our recruiters a key strategic advantage over other recruiters. They can hand-deliver you the right per diem nurses to hire for your position, freeing up your team’s limited resources.

To attract top per diem nurses, cover the basics first

We’ve gone deep on innovative recruitment strategies, but now it’s time for a word of warning! None of the above tips to expand your candidate pool will get you very far if you don’t have the basics in place first. All your patient work cultivating local networks and professional pipelines is at risk if your per diem employment offers aren’t competitive, the onboarding process scares people off, or you are functionally invisible online.

Offer enhanced perks, flexibility — and empathy

Keep a firm eye on what competitors on the job market in your area are offering per diem nurses. Not just in terms of salary, but when it comes to financial perks and “soft” benefits as well! Per diem nurses typically seek positions that allow them to balance their professional lives with personal commitments, so make sure your positions are as accommodating as possible and take family schedules into account.

Empathy pays off in per diem nurse recruitment. Perhaps experienced nurses are looking for per diem roles in order to avoid suffering burnout in travel or permanent jobs with crazy hours. Offering nurses self-scheduling options can set your per diem roles apart from other opportunities, and providing mental health resources can make your positions more appealing.

Streamlining the application and credentialing process

Cumbersome hiring and onboarding processes will discourage any job seeker. But they are especially off-putting for per diem nurses, who are not looking for the same type of long-term commitment. Developing your own fast-tracked application and credentialing process can ease the way. If you want to reduce the administrative burdens for yourself as well, tools like the NurseRecruiter job board are a great alternative for streamlining the process.

Use social media to advertise your workplace, not just the job

The salary offer comes first for most per diem nurses. But before they even hit that apply button they’ll also want to know more about what kind of workplace they can expect. You’ll have the chance to tell them once they get to the interview phase, of course! But how many of the best nurses won’t even apply if they can’t find out more about you, or don’t like what they see?

LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram all have soft power. By all means make the most of their opportunities to post your job openings — and don’t forget to look for specialized healthcare or nursing groups. Use them to directly connect with passive candidates who are not active on job boards. Hone in on nurses with the right qualifications and experience with LinkedIn’s search tools.

But maintain a steady stream of other posts as well to generate a wholesome impression of what your company stands for. Don’t limit yourself to trite sentiments; be specific about what it’s like to work for you and what you do for your nurse employees. That’s what many potential candidates will see before they ever speak to you!

Bottom line: Recruiting per diem nurses doesn’t need to be hard

Recruiting per diem nurses doesn’t have to be a daunting task, even for employers with limited resources. By building a proactive, ongoing recruitment strategy, working with expert recruiters, and leveraging a menu of effective tools like NurseRecruiter.com to expand your candidate pool, you can build and retain a reliable pool of per diem talent that meets your needs.

If you’re ready to take the next step, consider posting your per diem jobs on NurseRecruiter.com — a unique resource for employers at any scale. Our platform makes it easy to connect with thousands of qualified nurses who are actively looking for per diem positions.

Alternatively, if you prefer to let our experts handle the whole recruiting process for you and take the hassle out of hiring, contact our team about our no-risk nurse recruitment services. You’ll only pay when you fill the position!