New data reveals key insights to improve recruiting tactics at U.S. healthcare organizations and help attract top talent
NEW YORK, July 31, 2025 – Recruitics, a leader in recruitment marketing and AI-driven analytics, today released the findings of its 2025 Clinical Talent Survey in a new report titled “Speed, Transparency, and Trust: The New Rules of Hospital Recruiting in 2025.” The survey – conducted across 600 healthcare professionals including nurses, physicians, and allied health staff – reveals a healthcare hiring landscape in crisis, driven by historic vacancy rates, candidate burnout, and rapidly shifting expectations around how employers communicate and compete for talent.
“This data should be a wake-up call for every healthcare organization still relying on yesterday’s playbook,” said Adam Stafford, Chief Executive Officer of Recruitics. “Healthcare professionals today have more options and higher expectations than ever before – and they won’t resonate with generic job ads and delayed responses. They expect transparency, speed, and a personalized experience that mirrors how they engage with the world everywhere else. If health systems don’t deliver that, strong candidates will move on – and take their peers with them. The future of healthcare recruiting belongs to the organizations that act now and make data-backed decisions to build a hiring experience around what today’s professionals want.”
Explore the data.
Our nationwide survey exposes exactly what wins (and loses) talent in a hyper-competitive market.
Key findings from the study include:
- Time to Hire Increases: Time to hire an RN now averages 83 days, costing hospitals over $61,000 per vacancy and putting patient care at risk.
- Fast Response Time Matters: 62% of candidates expect a response within 72 hours – a timeline missed by most systems, leading to a 31% spike in candidate ghosting.
- Salary Ranges Increase Applications: 58.5% of professionals won’t apply without salary transparency, a figure that climbs even higher in states with pay-transparency laws.
- Referral Program Impacts: Referrals outperform job boards by 60% in terms of retention and cost-efficiency, yet fewer than 3 in 10 systems have structured referral programs in place.
- Localized Burnout: Burnout hotspots are concentrated in the Midwest and West, where administrative overload and staffing shortages are pushing talent out of bedside roles entirely.
The report highlights a major generational shift in candidate behavior. Millennials now lead in demanding salary transparency, while Gen Z clinicians are burning out faster than any previous cohort despite being the newest to the field. Passive candidates increasingly trust referrals over job boards, and Baby Boomers remain the champions of word-of-mouth hiring. Geography matters too: the South lags the West in referral use by 17%, while Midwest professionals, facing the nation’s highest burnout rates, demand faster outreach than their coastal peers.
On July 31 at 1:00 PM ET, Recruitics will explore the data further with a live readout on the findings featuring Victoria Geager, Vice President, Solutions Engineering, Hunter Ramey, Vice President, Client Management, Andie Parker, Sr. Client Director, Client Management and Alex Palma, Chief Product Officer.
Register or watch the replay at https://www.linkedin.com/events/7351999543862874112/about/.
About Recruitics
Recruitics delivered the first programmatic job advertising solution and continues to pioneer category-defining technology for end-to-end talent attraction, conversion, and analytics. Recruitics puts AI-powered tools and data into the hands of industry-leading strategists to improve hiring outcomes for talent acquisition teams worldwide. With a best-in-class platform and a commitment to continuous innovation, Recruitics makes it easy for the world's leading companies to attract and hire exceptional talent.
Contact:
Victoria Geager, Vice President, Solutions Engineering
