The rapid growth in demand for Registered Nurses, the competition for talent, and the shortage of workers in this profession make this a healthcare job that's known to be hard-to-fill. However, there are other healthcare positions that actually rank as harder to fill on the WANTED Analytics Hiring Scale. Our Hiring Scale scores jobs on a scale of 1 to 99, with 99 indicating hardest-to-fill. The Hiring Scale score is based on demand, supply, unemployment rates, location, occupation, and salaries. Registered Nurses score a 48 on our Hiring Scale, indicating moderate recruiting difficulty. When looking at the most in-demand jobs in the healthcare sector, there are 11 other professions in this industry that have higher Hiring Scale scores than Registered Nurses. What other healthcare positions are likely to be difficult-to-recruit?

Hardest-to-Fill Healthcare Jobs

Source: WANTED Analytics

Occupational Therapists score the highest of the most in-demand healthcare jobs, a 78, indicating very challenging recruiting conditions. Physical Therapists is another one of the most difficult-to-recruit healthcare jobs scoring a 68 on out Hiring Scale. Occupational Therapists, in addition to Registered Nurses and Physical Therapists, have been among the most commonly advertised jobs across all industries. Demand is certainly playing a role in making these positions hard-to-fill.

Another contributing factor to the difficulty-to-recruit is the available qualified candidate supply. Occupational Therapists have about 8 candidates per every unique job opening while Registered Nurses have about 17 candidates per job ad. The market pressure is even more for Medical and Health Service Managers. If you divide the total available candidate supply by the number of job openings, there are about 7 candidates for every Medical and Health Service Manager job opening. 

Demand Pressure for Some Hard-to-Fill Healthcare Jobs

SOURCE: WANTED Analytics

With high demand for these positions and difficult recruiting conditions likely, what should you do to find candidates with the right skills? While recruiting may be challenging on average, there are still some locations with low Hiring Scale scores. Milwaukee (WI) has the lowest score for Occupational Therapists, 22, meaning recruiting will be less difficult in this area. Medical and Health Service Managers jobs are least challenging to fill in Utica (NY), scoring a 7. Registered Nurses are least difficult-to-recruit in Evansville (IN), scoring a 5. 

Best Cities to Recruit

Source: WANTED Analytics

If you would like to know how to find locations with low Hiring Scale scores in your area, visit WANTED Analytics for more info. 

What else do you think employers can do to build a talent pipeline for healthcare positions?