If your organization is struggling to hire nurses quickly and retain them, you're not alone. With a growing shortage of qualified nurses, timely and practical nurse recruitment is becoming increasingly challenging.
It's no surprise that America’s nurse shortage is at a record high in 2025. According to the latest RegisteredNursing.org fact sheet, nearly 1.1 million new RNs are needed by 2030 to keep up with demand, and more than 900,000 nurses are projected to retire in the next four years.
This isn’t just a workforce dilemma; it’s a risk to patient care, staff morale, and, new this year, hospital accreditation.
So, what has changed?
The Joint Commission’s National Performance Goal 12 now holds healthcare organizations accountable to sustain safe nurse staffing ratios as part of accreditation.
What this really means is that if your hospital can’t reliably staff core nursing roles, not only is it unsafe, but you also risk turnover, traveler dependency, poor patient experience, and may lose accreditation.
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations face a puzzling question: how can they find the talent they need to guarantee excellent patient care? A common solution to fill staffing gaps is hiring travel nurses, but this can be costly and unreliable. Another quick fix is asking core nursing staff to work overtime; however, this can lead to overwhelm and an unsafe environment for patients.
A better solution is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO). Partnering with an RPO provider speeds up hiring and addresses nurse recruitment issues such as turnover, burnout, and dependence on expensive temporary staff.
Regarding healthcare recruiting expertise and expandable solutions, RPO helps stabilize staffing, protect patient care, and lets your HR leaders focus on delivering excellent employee and patient experiences.
What Are Nurse RPO Services?
With RPO, a healthcare organization outsources all or part of its recruitment process to a third party. RPO providers can handle every aspect of nurse recruitment, from sourcing qualified RNs to onboarding, depending on the organization’s needs.
In contrast to conventional nurse recruiters and RN staffing agencies that primarily focus on sourcing and screening candidates, an RPO provider offers comprehensive, end-to-end recruitment services.
A good RPO partner will form a strategic, streamlined relationship with your organization, hold itself accountable for its results, and strive to help your facility develop long-term solutions to your most pressing recruitment challenges.
Some RPO partners also recruit under your employer brand, helping nursing talent feel connected to your organization from the first conversation. At Hueman RPO, we recruit as you, for you, to create a seamless candidate experience.
The Advantages of RPO for Nurse Recruitment
Nurse staffing shortages lead to issues such as high turnover and lower-quality care. Collaborating with an RPO provider like Hueman can help your organization overcome recruitment challenges and improve your process with real results.
For example, we reduced the number of job openings by 41% for a healthcare partner facing difficulty recruiting for nursing and dietary positions. See our success stories to learn more about the impact of our recruitment services.
Let’s review some of the top advantages of collaborating with an RPO provider for nurse recruitment.
Tap Into Recruiting Expertise to Hire Top Nursing Talent
As many healthcare administrators would agree, attracting nursing talent is anything but easy in today's extremely competitive market. Difficulties in hiring and retaining nurses have led to limited talent pools and increased the need for healthcare organizations to set themselves apart.
An experienced healthcare RPO provider knows how to make organizations stand out from the crowd and attract top talent while relieving HR workloads. Here are some of the ways an RPO partner can help:
- Keep specialized talent pools full: Need assistance filling registered nurse and other specialized nursing roles? RPO providers have access to deep networks of highly qualified candidates to ensure your specialized talent pool stays full. An RPO provider can also conduct compensation surveys and recommend competitive salaries to help you better attract specialized talent.
- Harness deep knowledge of the healthcare industry: An RPO provider with healthcare recruiting expertise has a comprehensive understanding of the industry and its nuances, including role-specific compliance regulations. You can feel confident that a healthcare RPO provider will navigate recruitment-related complexities promptly.
- Utilize customized marketing approaches: RPO partners often use customized recruitment marketing strategies to help healthcare organizations engage top talent. For example, an RPO might guide an organization as it defines its employee value proposition, builds a strong employer brand, and creates compelling job ads. These focused marketing efforts help differentiate your organization in a crowded labor market by effectively conveying what makes your workplace unique. Properly implemented marketing strategies will position your organization as an employer of choice to potential candidates.
- Use cutting-edge recruitment technology: RPO providers are skilled at leveraging the latest tools to streamline recruitment. Here at Hueman, we use Hueman AI to quickly identify, screen, and prioritize nurse candidates, delivering top matches to hiring managers fast. By automating resume reviews, interview scheduling, and candidate engagement, recruiters can focus on personal interactions while speeding up the hiring process.
- Decrease time-to-fill: An RPO company leverages industry experience, recruiting best practices, and the latest technology to ensure critical nursing roles are filled quickly. For instance, at Hueman, we reduced a pediatric hospital’s time-to-fill rate to an average of 36 days across all roles.
- Provide long-term results: RPO providers find full-time talent who match your organization's values and want to work at your healthcare facility for the long term. This reduces the need to continually recruit, onboard, and train new staff, thereby lowering related costs. In the U.S., the average cost per hire is approximately $4,700 per new employee.
Minimize Dependence on Travel Nurses
With RN shortages and growing demand for patient care, healthcare organizations sometimes rely on travel nurses to supplement staffing. While working with travel nurses can be a great temporary fix, it's not an ideal long-term solution.
Hospitals spend an average of more than $90 an hour to cover a staffing shortage with a travel nurse, versus $45 an hour for a full-time RN. Without contracting travel nurses, a nursing leader can hire more full-time nurses to reduce the workload and burden on the other staff members.
Relying on travel nurses to quickly fill positions is problematic for the following reasons:
- Heightened financial pressure: Organizations typically provide travel reimbursements and accommodation allowances in their travel nurse rates. These premium expenses may result in significant monetary stress, especially if a facility relies too heavily on travel nurses. Considering the average travel nurse bill rate in 2024 was about $89.78 per hour, cost pressures remain significant.
- Time-consuming training: When a healthcare facility recruits travel nurses, it must train them on their specific processes and protocols. This requires time and resources from existing staff and disrupts productivity.
- Inconsistent care: Travel nurses may not be familiar with an organization's policies, resulting in inconsistent care and lower patient satisfaction.
- Lowered morale: Core nurses often know that travel nurses receive higher pay without greater responsibility. This can lead to team animosity, reduced job satisfaction, and lower morale overall.
Your organization can break free from reliance on travel nurses with the help of an RPO provider. An RPO partner offers customized, flexible RN hiring approaches that leverage metrics and forecasting to ensure your facility maintains adequate staff levels no matter the season or circumstance.
At Hueman RPO, we offer a Travel Nurse Reduction Program designed to help organizations secure full-time nursing talent using value-based recruiting strategies. As part of this program, we build float pools to support your facility during unexpected staffing shortages.
Reduce Turnover Rates Among Nursing Staff
High nurse turnover is one of the top challenges healthcare organizations face. According to the American Nurses Association, burnout among nurses is the leading cause of turnover. Many different elements can contribute to nurse burnout, including challenging workloads. The problem is often cyclical: insufficient RN headcount spreads existing teams too thin, leading to heavier workloads, greater stress, more burnout, and higher turnover.
An RPO partner can help reduce nurse burnout and turnover by maintaining adequate staffing levels, thereby easing workloads and supporting staff well-being. Additionally, integrating retention strategies into recruitment strengthens long-term engagement.
A quality RPO provider prioritizes candidates who align with your organization’s core values, ensuring long-term retention rather than simply filling roles. At Hueman, we help you hire culturally aligned nurses quickly, easing staff workloads and proactively addressing burnout. From the start of every RPO partnership, we implement a thorough process to deeply understand your organization’s culture and values. Once we know your needs, we tailor our recruiting strategies to deliver the best-fit candidates.
Elevate Nursing Recruitment With Hueman RPO
Nurse recruitment can be a challenging, time-consuming, and costly process without the help of an experienced nurse RPO provider. That’s where we come in.
Our recruitment leadership team has over 30 years of experience serving healthcare organizations and supplying bespoke people-first hiring approaches. Complete our contact form to learn how we can revamp your nurse-hiring processes and solve your most challenging healthcare staffing challenges.
