Lee Ann PrescottThe healthcare industry is one of the fastest-growing job markets in the world: for example, the U.S. economy added 902,000 healthcare and social assistance jobs in 2024. With so much hiring activity, healthcare recruiting teams need better tools and processes to meet the challenges of staffing in a scarce talent environment. SmartRecruiters’ latest report offers benchmark recruiting metrics that will help healthcare organizations see where they fit into the bigger picture and determine whether their own metrics are leading or lagging.
Recruiting Benchmarks Report
For its landmark Recruiting Benchmarks 2025 Report, SmartRecruiters examined nearly 90 million applications for 1.5 million jobs across 95 countries. This blog post dives into the healthcare metrics, offering a starting place for organizations to see where they’re performing well and where they can improve.
Note that healthcare is defined at the company level, not the job level. In other words, the data includes all roles offered by healthcare organizations, from administrative staff to clinical roles.
Here are the top takeaways.
Applicant competition
- The healthcare industry receives 45% fewer applications per role than the global average. This means that healthcare candidates have less competition than in other industries, and recruiters in healthcare have fewer applications to review.
- Candidates are 37% more likely to get interviews and 70% more likely to get an offer than the global average, making healthcare the most attractive industry for job seekers.
Time to hire
- The median time to hire in healthcare is 41 days, just above the global average.
- Time to hire for organizations using AI is typically 11 days faster than those that don’t use it. By applying AI to their hiring process, healthcare organizations could not only fill positions faster but also help their recruiters achieve more hires per month. In the U.S. for example, recruiters across all industries are making 54 hires per month.
Healthcare recruiting productivity
- Recruiters in healthcare have heavy workloads compared to the global average, making 25% more hires per month than their counterparts in other industries.
Sources of hire
- Healthcare exceeds in internal mobility, generating 1 in 5 hires from internal sources. However, healthcare could do better at generating referrals, with only 5% of hires coming from referrals compared to the global average of 7%.
More insights on healthcare recruiting metrics
Healthcare roles often contain specific requirements that include certifications and/or degrees. Therefore, unqualified applicants may be less likely to apply because they know that it’s a waste of their time. With only 40 candidates per role to choose from compared to 73 among all industries, healthcare recruiters make the most hires per month out of any industry. And they could be doing even better with the help of AI tools like Winston from SmartRecruiters, which helps teams hire 11 days faster.
The talent shortage in healthcare means that candidates are most likely already employed or have another offer to choose from, with an offer acceptance rate of just 77%, the lowest among all industries tracked. According to Lighthouse Research & Advisory, Healthcare candidates across the globe said their number one priority is an attractive salary (76%) followed by an interesting career opportunity (68%).
Healthcare recruiting case studies
Based in Australia, KinCare adopted the SmartRecruiters platform to reduce their time to fill from 40 (the healthcare global average is 41 days) to 18 days. Not only is hiring faster, but it’s much more pleasing for the participants! In surveys, the hiring process receives 90+% approval ratings. Read the story
Asbury Communities, a senior living provider that hires health aides and nurses for its 11 communities, was struggling to meet its hiring goals. With SmartRecruiters text messaging, candidate communications all in one place, and the ability to engage candidates in the CRM, Asbury achieved a 69% reduction in the vacancy rate and reduced time to hire by 33% to 31 days, well below the industry average. Read the story
Get more benchmark recruiting metrics
Download the full report to get a global overview of hiring benchmarks plus insights on geographic differences in hiring.
