Hiring Caregivers is Hard—But Better Questions Make It Easier

According to the benchmark reports from Activated Insights (formerly Home Care Pulse) industry growth exceeds 7% per year and caregiver turnover is over 60%. Both of these factors are the reason that Home and community based service (HCBS) businesses rely on recruiting for their very existence.

There are many aspects to caregiver recruiting, such as knowing the best recruiting sources in your area, writing great job descriptions, making sure that your website focuses on happy caregivers and recruiting, paying competitive wages, training, mentoring and more. 

Another interesting statistic from the Activated Insights benchmark report is that agencies on average hire between 9% and 22% of the caregivers that apply.

Best Interview Questions for Caregiver Recruiting

One important aspect of recruiting is asking the right interview questions. Below are 20 curated questions designed to improve the interview process and allow both the candidate and interviewer to achieve their goals.

General Questions Revealing Character

These questions can help you reveal whether the candidate is interviewing for the right reasons

1. What do you think makes someone a good caregiver?
2. Why the caregiver position?
3. What about seniors makes you excited to work for them?
4. Can you tell me about a day at work that really made you feel good?
5. What do you want to get out of this job?

Behavioral Questions Based on Experience

These questions help you assess how well-prepared the candidate is for a caregiving job:

1. Have you worked with seniors? If so, tell us about an experience you had.
2. What was a valuable lesson you learned in an experience?
3. Have you ever worked with a difficult client or customer? How did you handle it?
4. What’s something you’re proud of from a previous job?

Questions to Assess Job Awareness

Here are questions that will help you to assess whether the candidate has a good understanding of the caregiver role.

1. What are some of the soft and hard skills you can bring into the company and role?
2. What are some of your weaknesses and strengths?
3. In your opinion, what’s the most important skill for a caregiver?

Hypothetical Situations to Test Plans and Actions

These questions will help you to assess whether the candidate can think on their feet. These questions will also assess whether the candidate has thought through the types of situations that they may encounter.

1. If you disagreed with your supervisor, what would you do?
2. If a client didn’t follow your instructions, how would you approach the situation?
3. If a client was rude or disrespectful, how would you respond?
4. If I asked your friends or co-workers to describe you in three words, what would they be?

Further Questions Addressing Needs as an Employee

Your ideal candidates will be excited about the opportunity and will want to assess how the role can meet their bigger needs. These questions will also show that their potential employer cares about them. 

1. How do you like to be championed in a job setting?
2. What makes you comfortable in a job setting?
3. What makes you fulfilled in a job setting?
4. How much time are you willing to commit to this role?

Related Articles

As I shared at the outset, interview questions are only one aspect of the bigger picture of Caregiver Recruiting and Retention.  Here are some other articles and resources that we're hoping you'll find useful:

• 5 Key Measurements for Recruiting More Caregivers: here

• A 10 Step Plan to improve 90-Day Caregiver Retention: here

• Caregiver Recruiting and Retention Bible: here

Caregiver Recruiting Software

One way to streamline your hiring process and track measurements more effectively is by using caregiver recruiting software (also called Caregiver Applicant Tracking Software). Here's a quick video about what it does:

If you can use help to organize your job descriptions, post on job boards, centralize you resumes received, manage you interviewing and hiring process, and more, consider Ankota's Caregiver Recruiting Software.  Also, it more than pays for itself by posting your jobs on Indeed, LinkedIn and 14 other popular job sites for free.  Learn more here.

Ankota's mission is to enable the Heroes who keep older and disabled people living at home to focus on care because we take care of the tech. If you need software for home care, EVV, I/DD Services, Adult Day Care centers, or Caregiver Recruiting, please Contact Ankota.