Healthcare is the fastest-growing career sector in the US. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry will add approximately 2.6 million new jobs between 2020 and 2030–more than any other sector. This includes doctors, nurses, and various medical support positions, such as administrative and medical assistants, health aides, and customer service representatives.
There will be more job openings than ever before, but industry experts are asking who will fill them because there is a shortage of people with the required skills. Industry analysts say staffing shortages have cost hospitals $24 billion since early 2020, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) predicts the situation will get worse as the average age of the population increases.
Many open positions and the lack of qualified candidates put a lot of pressure on HR leaders in the healthcare industry. They and their teams are often inundated with applications for open positions, and sorting through them to find qualified candidates can be like looking for a “needle in a haystack.”
This is why many healthcare organizations are incorporating basic administrative skills tests into their hiring process. By requiring applicants to complete skills assessments for healthcare as part of the application process, HR teams can quickly screen out applicants who do not have the necessary skills and focus their efforts on those who do. By automating the screening process, they can eliminate hours of wasted time and effort and improve the effectiveness of their entire hiring process.
How Basic Administrative Skills Tests Work
Adding skills assessments for healthcare to your application process is an easy and effective way to improve and streamline hiring. With an industry-leading solution such as the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM, you can browse through hundreds of pre-prepared tests, select the one closest to your hiring needs, and add or delete questions as needed.
You can also build basic administrative skills tests by choosing questions from multiple assessments and adding your own questions. Include video questions to allow applicants to record their answers to specific questions and simulations that present applicants with on-the-job scenarios. Evaluating applicants’ performance on simulation questions helps you see how they would perform on the job if hired.
Skills assessments for healthcare support workers give HR professionals the ability to assess critical skills such as data entry, typing, basic computer skills, and customer service abilities. For example, if you are recruiting administrative or medical assistants and need candidates with strong computer and customer service skills, use the Administrative Assistant skills test, include questions from the Healthcare Customer Service test, and add questions from the Medical Terminology and HIPAA Privacy and Security Standards tests.
Other Skills Assessments for Healthcare
The eSkill Assessment Library also includes basic administrative skills tests that can be used to assess applicants for specific support roles. For instance, if you are hiring an employee to handle medical billing or coding, require candidates to complete the Medical Billing or Medical Coding skills test. If the applicants will work in both areas, choose questions from both assessments that cover the areas you want to measure.
Other useful skills assessments for healthcare include Medical Terminology, Medical Transcription, and Infection and Prevention Control tests. As with all other assessments, you can add video questions and simulations to get a comprehensive view of candidates and test skills that cannot be measured on paper. For example, if you are hiring customer service representatives and want to ensure they are fluent in Spanish and have good computer proficiency, ask them to answer video questions in Spanish. include the Digital Literacy Simulation.
Get Started with Skills Assessments for Healthcare
Since the number of open healthcare support positions is increasing and there are fewer qualified candidates, HR leaders need to use basic administrative skills tests so they can quickly identify and hire top candidates and avoid hiring mistakes.
Hiring mistakes hurt organizational productivity and can negatively impact patient healthcare outcomes. Skills assessments for healthcare help you minimize bad hires, reduce hiring costs and improve time-to-hire. Organizations that use the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM have saved up to 70% on hiring costs and reduced time-to-hire by nearly 60%.
Are you ready to learn how basic administrative skills tests can help you streamline recruiting and improve hiring outcomes? Contact us to request a demo.