How to Attract MH/BH Talent

Overview

We surveyed our job board members to better understand what’s important to them in their career in psychology and what attracts them to apply for a new job.

Our goal was to get a data-backed answer for our employers on how to create the best package and how to construct an enticing job advert.

Do candidates care more about remote work or the financial package? Is administrative support more important than vacation allowance?

We’ve got these answers and more.

We asked our members to rate 11 different job factors on a scale of 1 to 5; 1 being not important, 5 being the most important.

Here are the factors we asked our members to rate:

  • Employer brand / reputation
  • Opportunity to work remotely
  • Flexible working schedule
  • Financial package
  • Interesting / challenging patient work
  • Vacation allowance
  • Shared values with employer e.g. team diversity and inclusivity policies
  • Career development / progression opportunities
  • Admin / back office support i.e. allowing focus on patient
  • Wellness package e.g. mental health days, access to services
  • Lifestyle opportunity e.g. livability of local area

The Results

FactorAverage rating
Opportunity to work remotely4.94
Career development opportunities4.55
Financial package4.42
Interesting / Challenging patient work4.23
Wellness package4.2
Flexible working schedule4.19
Vacation allowance4.19
Shared values with employer4.16
Lifestyle opportunities4.03
Employer brand/reputation4
Back office support3.81

The top rated factor was the opportunity to work remotely. This scored an average of 4.94 out of 5 among our members.

This result is perhaps unsurprising given the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact this has had on working practices across industries.

The pandemic considerably accelerated telehealth adoption. McKinsey analysis suggests that telehealth use post-COVID has increased 38x from a pre-COVID baseline.

Telehealth necessity in the pandemic it seems led to consumer comfort post-pandemic which has resulted in a wealth of remote psychology job opportunities and it seems that remote working and the quality of life improvements associated with it are top of mind for our members.

Employees seek personal growth

LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report found that 94% of employees will stay at a company that supports progression in their career.

Our survey highlights similar feelings among our members with career development opportunities scoring our 2nd highest rating with a 4.55 out of 5 rating.

Additionally our members also rated interesting / challenging patient work highly with this factor garnering an average score of 4.23 out of 5.​

If your organization can offer rewarding and challenging patient work then you need to be highlighting this in the job advert.

Money isn’t everything

Healthcare workers typically enjoy salaries that (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) are on average 64% higher than the national average salary across all industries.

How important is money to our members? The answer is it’s important but perhaps won’t cover for major deficiencies in other areas.

Our members gave financial package an average rating of 4.42 out of 5 landing it in 3rd position.

This highlights a clear opportunity for employers, who perhaps historically couldn’t compete on salary with larger healthcare providers, to construct a package which is strong on other factors.

It seems many of our members would opt for a position with remote working opportunities even if that pays less than another opportunity.

Mental health professionals care about wellness

Mental health professionals on the front line see the impact of workplace stress and burnout so it is perhaps unsurprising that our members place such value on an employer’s wellness package.

Our members gave this factor an average score of 4.2 out of 5.

We see an increasing number of our employers offering packages to employees which include wellness days and access to services that facilitate mental wellbeing as well as other nice-to-haves like discounts on activities associated with stress reduction such as gym memberships or yoga.

Your employer brand can’t do all the heavy lifting

Deloitte’s Bersin unit reported that 40% of companies they surveyed indicated that employer branding was a “must have” in their talent acquisition strategy.

It was surprising therefore to see employer brand as a factor score relatively poorly compared with other factors.

A positive reputation as an employer is a minimum requirement but our survey highlights how, at least in the views of our members, spending to create a brand isn’t a silver bullet for attracting talent.

That being said, an employer can build their brand by creating an enticing package for candidates (based on the other factors listed in this report) and, assuming follow through on those promises made at the recruitment stage, will be cultivating their employer brand anyway.​

Summary

We hope you find the results of this study interesting and actionable.

To recap, the 5 leading factors that attract our members to a job listing are; remote work opportunities, career development opportunities, financial package, interesting patient work and wellness package.

Next time you’re posting a vacancy on PsychologyJobs.com, you may wish to particularly emphasise any remote working opportunities your organization can offer and the career development opportunities that are available.

Methodology and limitations

The survey was distributed to 5514 of PsychologyJobs.com’s US based members. The survey was completed by 292 members giving us a response rate of 5.3% and we received at least one response from each US state.

We did not collect information on a respondent’s career path, career stage or specialism therefore the results of the survey are a blend of all of our members who range from entry level and newly qualified to doctorate level with decades of experience.

It is highly likely that these results would vary if we were to segment respondents in the future.​