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Healthcare Staffing: What Some Agencies Don’t Tell You

Healthcare Staffing: What Some Agencies Don’t Tell You

Not all staffing companies are the same

Imagine this: you’re a healthcare professional looking for a new job. It should be easy, right? Everyone knows healthcare professionals are in high demand, and facilities and providers are always searching to fill roles. 

Your first step is likely to grab your phone and search for healthcare jobs near me based on your specialty. The results will come flooding in, and you’ll be instantly presented with dozens of job boards offering great jobs. Which one will you choose?

The job board, app, or website you choose to search and apply for jobs can significantly affect your chances of getting hired and may even influence your long-term career path. As a job seeker, it can be challenging to discern which job boards are legitimate and which ones exist merely to generate leads and collect your data.

What’s the problem?

Since not all healthcare staffing agencies operate the same way, some pay little attention to actually helping you secure a job. Healthcare recruiting and staffing companies may claim their business is focused on healthcare recruiting, but many act merely as lead generation services that are misappropriating your data.

You’re wasting your valuable time and energy on fake job listings while unknowingly handing over your personal data to random companies. Many of the staffing companies you encounter online aren’t legitimate. In reality, these companies are just selling your data or passing it along to others. What seems like a genuine job application is often nothing more than a ploy to profit off your information.  

It’s a frustrating and unfair practice for job seekers. Job hunting is already stressful—whether you’re employed and looking for a better opportunity or unemployed and urgently in need of work. Regardless of the circumstances, finding a job is stressful overall, and some staffing agencies only add to that stress, making the process even harder.

A flawed system

How does this happen, and why are staffing agencies hiding the fact that the jobs they list aren’t positions they have any direct control over? To begin with, it’s well known that the healthcare job market is a consistently expanding sector. Healthcare professionals are in high demand as shortages persist due to skill gaps, geographic disparities, and evolving patient needs in both short-term and long-term care, including the management of chronic diseases over time.

In any industry, growth brings opportunity, but not all of it is positive. To take advantage of the increasing number of healthcare facilities and hospitals seeking to staff their organizations, hiring agencies that pose as legitimate have flourished. The number of employment, staffing, and recruiting agencies in the U.S. has risen by nearly four percent over the past five years. However, not all companies share the same values and standards.

What you see isn’t always what you get

Staffing agencies in healthcare—whether large corporations or small firms—can be deceptive in their hiring practices in various ways. Let’s explore a few of them:

  1. Bait-and-switch job boards. When you apply for a job on a job board, you assume you’re applying directly through the agency that posted it. It appears as though that agency owns and manages the job and collaborates directly with the facility to find candidates. However, behind the scenes, the job doesn’t belong to them, and they’re forwarding your information to a third party. This practice is misleading because you think you’re working with a reputable healthcare staffing company, but the reality is quite different. Your best chance of securing a job is to work with a staffing agency that has a direct relationship with the hiring facility.
  2. Fake job listings. Some jobs online simply aren’t real. They’re created by agencies that don’t actually hire; they just collect data to sell for consumer marketing purposes. You find yourself applying for a job that sounds fantastic but doesn’t actually exist. Not only does this waste your time, but it also means your data is circulating among companies where you don’t want it to be. Additionally, it exposes you to data breaches and results in all sorts of spam emails, texts, and phone calls.
  3. Outdated job listings. In this scenario, the job you’re applying for has already been filled, but it seems that the facility is still hiring. Staffing agencies do this to create the illusion that their platform is active and has many job listings. You end up applying for positions that may have already been filled for weeks or months.
  4. Poor employer screening. Most staffing agencies don’t do their homework and screen the employers posting jobs. Some healthcare facilities are located in unsafe areas or have poor employee reviews. Job descriptions can be misleading and make the job sound better than it really is. Staffing agencies that know their clients and have the resources to confirm job posting data will screen out jobs that aren’t appropriate or worthwhile for job seekers.
  5. Pay-to-apply schemes. Some companies and agencies that specialize in healthcare staffing often charge job seekers for access to what they falsely claim are ‘hidden’ jobs that aren’t available to everyone. To generate profit, these companies typically require monthly or annual subscriptions to their site to access jobs that can be found for free on other job boards. If you encounter a paywall requesting your credit card information and payment to access hidden jobs, you should navigate away from that site.

 

Where job seekers should turn instead

Thankfully, there’s a better way to find real jobs in real time: StaffDNA®. StaffDNA is an unbiased source of jobs for healthcare professionals. We never post fake jobs and don’t sell your data. Once a job closes, it’s immediately removed from our database, so you’re not wasting time applying to jobs that are already filled.

StaffDNA’s easy-to-use app gives you direct access to thousands of positions in nursing, allied health, therapy, physician and advanced practice. We work directly with facilities that are actively hiring for open positions and there are no fees and job postings are vetted by our team of recruiting experts.

StaffDNA offers clear advantages for job seekers in healthcare. One key benefit is pay transparency, an essential factor for any job seeker. Knowing what you’ll take home each week provides the clarity you need in your job search. As one of the first companies to collaborate with facilities to include take-home pay in job postings, StaffDNA ensures you have the details about a job upfront. And if you’re in travel, that means showing housing stipends, too.

Second, our platform is built on proprietary technology that matches a job seeker’s credentials and job preferences seamlessly with available jobs. The search tool in the StaffDNA app allows you to choose from hundreds of specialties, settings and locations. By creating job alerts, you can spend less time searching and more time applying to jobs that suit your experience and match your preferences.

And, what’s more, we’re adding new features all the time to help you manage your career. Our recent addition is a feature where you can see your pay stubs right in the app itself.

At StaffDNA, we believe it should be easy to find a job you love. Download our app today in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. 

Headshot of Jennifer Pomietlo

Jennifer Pomietlo

VP of Marketing

Check out these other great StaffDNA articles

Healthcare organizations face some of the toughest workforce challenges: tight budgets, lean IT teams and limited tools for sourcing, hiring and onboarding staff. Add in manual scheduling, rising labor costs and high burnout, and the pressure grows. Rolling out complex systems can feel out of reach without dedicated tech support. Even simply evaluating new technology can overwhelm already stretched-thin teams.

These challenges make it clear that technology isn’t just helpful; it’s essential for healthcare organizations. Especially when they’re striving to do more with less. Not only are healthcare organizations falling short on implementing new technology, but they’re struggling to update outdated systems. A 2023 CHIME survey found that nearly 60% of hospitals use core IT systems, such as EHRs and workforce platforms, that are over a decade old. Outdated tools can’t integrate or scale, creating barriers to smarter staffing strategies. But the opportunity to modernize is real and urgent.

Tech in Patient Care Falls Short

In healthcare, technology has historically focused on clinical and patient care. Workforce management tools have taken a back seat to updating patient care systems. Yet many big tech companies have failed when it comes to customizing healthcare infrastructure and connecting patients with providers. Google Health shuttered after only three years, and Amazon’s Haven Health was intended to disrupt healthcare and health insurance but disbanded three years later.

Why the failures? It’s estimated that nearly 80% of patient data technology systems must use to create alignment is unstructured and trapped in data silos. Integration issues naturally form when there’s a lack of cohesive data that systems can share and use. Privacy considerations surrounding patient data are a challenge, as well. Across the healthcare continuum, federal and state healthcare data laws hinder how seamlessly technology can integrate with existing systems.

Why Smarter Staffing Is Now Essential

These data and integration challenges also hinder a healthcare organization’s ability to hire and deploy staff, an urgent healthcare priority. The U.S. will face a shortfall of over 3.2 million healthcare workers by 2026. At the same time, aging populations and rising chronic conditions are straining teams already stretched thin.

Smart workforce technology is becoming not just helpful, but essential. It allows organizations to move from reactive staffing to proactive workforce planning that can adapt to real-world care demands.

Global Inspiration: Japan’s AI-Driven Workforce Model

Healthcare staffing shortages aren’t just a U.S. problem. So, how are other countries addressing this issue? Countries like Japan are demonstrating what’s possible when technology is utilized not just to supplement staff, but to transform the entire workforce model. With one of the world’s oldest populations and a significant clinician shortage, Japan has adopted a proactive approach through its Healthcare AI and Robotics Center, where several institutions like Waseda University and Tokyo’s Cancer Institute Hospital are focusing on developing AI-powered hospitals.

Japan’s focus on integrating predictive analytics, robotics and data-driven scheduling across elder care and hospital systems is a response to its aging population and workforce shortages. From robotic assistants to AI-supported shift planning, Japan’s futuristic model proves that holistic tech integration, not piecemeal upgrades, creates sustainable staffing frameworks.

Rather than treating workforce tech as an IT patch for broken systems, Japan’s approach embeds these tools throughout care operations, supporting scheduling, monitoring, compliance and even direct caregiving tasks. U.S. health systems can draw critical lessons here: strategic investment in integrated platforms builds resilience, especially in a labor-constrained future.

The Power of Smart Workforce Technology

In the U.S., workforce management is becoming increasingly seen as more than a back-office function; it’s a strategic business operation directly impacting clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Smart technology tools are designed to improve care quality, staff satisfaction, scheduling, pay rates, compliance and much more.

For example, by using historical data, patient acuity, seasonal trends and other data points, organizations can predict their staff needs more accurately. The result is fewer gaps in scheduling, fewer overtime payouts and a flexible schedule for staff. AI-powered analytics can help healthcare leadership teams spot patterns in absenteeism, see productivity and forecast needs in multiple clinical areas in real-time. Workforce management tools can help plan scheduling proactively, rather than reactively. It’s a proven technology tool that can help drive efficiency and reduce costs.

Why So Many Are Still Behind

Despite the clear benefits, many healthcare organizations are slow to adopt smart tools that empower their workforce. Several things are holding them back from going all-in on technology:

Financial Pressures

Over half of U.S. hospitals are operating at or below break-even margins. For them, investing in new technology solutions is financially unfeasible. Scalable, subscription-based and even free workforce management tools are available, but most organizations are unaware of or lack the resources to source these products. Workforce management tools can deliver long-term return on investment for most organizations. Taking the time to understand where the value lies and which tools to invest in needs to happen.

Outdated Core Systems

Many facilities still depend on legacy technology infrastructure that lacks real-time capabilities. Many large players in the healthcare workforce management industry dominate hospital systems. Other smaller, real-time tools that offer innovative solutions to scheduling, workforce hiring, rate calculators and more are available at a fraction of the cost.

Competing Priorities and Strategic Blind Spots

Healthcare organizations and hospitals have many high-priority business objectives and regulatory demands. Digital transformation naturally falls down on the priority list, which causes them to miss improvements that can lead to long-term stability. With patient care and provider satisfaction at the top of the priority mountain, technology changes can be easily missed or shoved to the side when other business objectives are perceived to “move the needle” more.

Poor Change Management

Even the best technology efforts can fail without the right strategy for adoption and support from senior leadership. Resistance from staff, lack of training, or poor rollout communication can undermine success. Effective change management—clear leadership, role-based training and feedback loops—is essential.

Faster than the speed of technology

Change needs to come quickly to healthcare organizations in terms of managing their workforce efficiently. Smart technologies like predictive analytics, AI-assisted scheduling and mobile platforms will define this next era. These tools don’t just optimize operations but empower workers and elevate care quality.

Slow technology adoption continues to hold back the full potential of the healthcare ecosystem. Japan again offers a clear example: they had one of the slowest adoption rates of remote workers (19% of companies offered remote work) in 2019. Within just three weeks of the crisis, their remote work population doubled (49%), proving that technological transformation can happen fast when urgency strikes. The lesson is clear: healthcare organizations need to modernize faster for the sake of their workforce and the patients who rely on providers to deliver care.

 

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