Introduction:
As the recruitment industry weathered another difficult year, the most successful healthcare staffing firms stayed focused on gaining market share and improving productivity as they waited for job requisitions and market confidence to rebound. In spite of these global challenges and, perhaps more importantly, pervasive market uncertainty, some firms saw success and many are building a foundation for even better performance in the future. For our 15th annual GRID Industry Trends Report, Bullhorn surveyed more than 200 healthcare staffing firms to uncover the most effective strategies in today’s business environment. Read on to find out how these insights can inform your strategic decisions in 2025.
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Economic outlook: 2024 revenue is down again, but firms remain optimistic for 2025
Revenue declined for a second year in a row
2024 was another tough year for recruiting, with one-quarter of healthcare staffing firms seeing declines in revenue. But, 29% of healthcare staffing firms saw revenue growth the same as last year. And 21% saw growth of 10% or more in spite of the challenging market. This is better than the rest of the market where the percentage of revenue winners fell year over year, reflecting the resilience of the healthcare and life sciences space.
Firms are optimistic for 2025, but hedging their bets
Most firms remain optimistic about the future, with more than 60% predicting that revenue will increase in 2025. Given recent volatility and indications that even if the economy does improve in 2025, it will not be until later in the year, it is worth looking at how firms are positioning their businesses for success while facing an uncertain future. Although attracting new clients is the number one priority across the board for 2025, firms have learned they cannot rely solely on revenue from new clients to drive performance, they need to find new ways to add value through new solutions and services. 77% are focused on increasing market share to be well positioned when the market turns upward. The next two most popular strategies for driving financial performance are improving recruiter productivity using technology and diversifying business lines. The former reduces expenses and the latter typically means a shift to higher revenue or higher margin services, all of which boost the bottom line.
Key insights
The 2025 GRID Industry Trends Report found that the firms that saw revenue gains in spite of market headwinds took advantage of their existing resources, doing more with what they already have. In particular, a few common strategies differentiated them from the rest of the market:
1. Upgrading automation across the entire workflow to enhance recruiter efficiency
2. Deploying AI throughout their business
3. Delighting talent with faster, more accurate placement
Digital transformation has stalled
Most firms still remain in the early to intermediate stages of digital transformation, in spite of widespread acknowledgement that it is necessary to truly unlock the potential of recruiters and databases. For the first time since 2023, the number of firms that say they are in the advanced stages of digital transformation has actually fallen, from 24% for the last two years to just 14% this year. And this is lower than the rest of the staffing industry where 19% are in the advanced stages. This likely reflects the advent of AI technology that has upped the ante on what digital transformation entails, but AI implementation is particularly complex in the heavily regulated environment of healthcare. But firms are saying they remain committed to investing in technology that can improve productivity, as long as they see demonstrable ROI.
Automation correlates with revenue growth
This year’s survey shows that automating key tasks does correlate with revenue growth. However, given the volume declines in healthcare staffing this year, it is not surprising that firms are seeing stronger revenue correlations at certain points in the workflow. Automating search and match and winning new business has shown clear benefits, but there remains some work to be done around submitting candidates. This may reflect that automating candidate submissions is harder to do well, especially for those with a heavy VMS focus.
Still a long way to go in automation
In spite of the operational and financial benefits, a substantial percentage of firms still don’t have technology in place to automate tasks like search and match or candidate screening — and there is an even bigger gap for sales and middle office. This aligns with the finding that digital transformation efforts have largely stalled as the recruitment industry has slowed down. Now that the recruitment industry appears to be stabilizing at lower volumes and a slower pace of growth, productivity and efficiency will be more important than ever. Technologies like these will offer an opportunity for teams to work more efficiently as the economy stabilizes.
Healthcare staffing firms have been eager to use self-service tools to simplify credentialing
Far and away the most popular credentialing tool among firms is self-service applications that allow candidates to upload their credentials themselves, with nearly two-thirds of firms saying they are currently using these tools. This is the tool most likely to reduce the burden on firms and candidates, with nearly 30% of firms reporting that this kind of onboarding work is the biggest pain point for candidates. Plus 81% of healthcare candidates who are satisfied with their credentialing experience remain loyal to their recruiters according to the GRID 2024 Talent Trends Report: Healthcare spotlight. But firms are less likely to be adopting credentialing technology that prompts and alerts candidates or uses credentials to match candidates to roles.
Firms are less likely to be using automated shift-scheduling tools
Online shift-scheduling calendars are the most popular tool, followed closely by pay and bill rate management tools. But even these are being used by less than one-third of healthcare staffing firms. And adoption is even lower for analytic tools that can match clients to open shifts or forecast schedule openings. Given the revenue gains from standard automation tools, there is a good argument for healthcare staffing firms to consider investing in more of these tools.
Automation critical to faster placement time
Automating key tasks in the recruitment process clearly results in faster time to first placement. Firms that have automated searching for candidates are 44% more likely to have an average placement time under 20 days compared to those not using automation. And automating screening correlates with an 56% greater likelihood of having placement times under 20 days compared to those who don’t automate. Across the board, automation seems to mean faster placement times, and that is with current automation tools — AI tools are only going to widen the efficiency gap.
Search and match tops the automation wishlist
When asked to rank which of their day-to-day processes they would most like to automate, healthcare staffing firms chose searching for candidates and matching them to jobs. A close second was winning new business — this is not surprising given the current market and what respondents said about their priorities for 2025. Across the recruitment industry, search and match is largely seen as the most valuable use case for both automation and AI. Again, this is not surprising since respondents also list this as the most time-consuming task performed by their recruiters; the survey found that a recruiter spends 14.6 hours per week searching for the right candidates, based on a weighted average of the survey responses.
Recruiter admin and search/match are top use cases for AI today
A little less than half of firms have been using AI tools like ChatGPT to help with recruiter tasks like generating emails and summarizing candidate skills. And 46% of firms are already experimenting with AI to sort through candidate resumes and submissions to find the best ones to screen for individual jobs. In speaking with firms, most feel search and match is likely to be the first and perhaps best use case for AI, especially when recruitment-specific tools trained on their own data are available — 31% of those surveyed listed search and match agents as the future recruitment tool they expected to have the biggest impact on recruiter productivity, by far the most popular answer.
One-third of firms say data limitations are the biggest barrier to AI benefits
When asked what stands in the way of widespread AI implementation, firms overwhelmingly cite data-related concerns, either siloed systems (6%) or the underlying data hygiene (27%). This echoes what customers have shared, that there is a lot of data clean-up and data governance work that needs to be done to really reap the rewards of AI in recruitment. It is likely that this work, driven by AI, will be the push the industry needs to make significant progress on its digital transformation journey.
Firms predict AI search and match could save each recruiter 4.5 hours per week
When asked how much time recruiters currently spend on common tasks and how much time AI could save them, it is clear that firms expect a significant impact from AI tools. With responses suggesting 5 hours per week time savings from search and match, and 4.1 for screening, the effect adds up quickly. Firms predict that AI infused throughout the recruitment workflow could result in an extra 19 hours per week for each recruiter — and we think that estimate may actually be low. The operational and financial benefits to be gained align perfectly with the value firms indicate they expect to see from AI, with 22% saying they hope to see increased recruiter productivity and 18% looking to scale without adding headcount.
Healthcare staffing already seeing the benefits of AI
Firms that have already infused AI into their workflows are seeing clear results. More than 40% say AI has resulted in better job matches, faster response times, and more personalized outreach. The result is faster conversion, as we see above, and greater candidate satisfaction.
3. Faster, more accurate placement and redeployment delights talent — and drives revenue gains
Overwhelmingly, candidates say faster placement in the right job is the most important thing to them — this was clear in the 2024 GRID Talent Trends Report. It turns out that firms that saw revenue gains in 2024 were laser-focused on meeting those expectations and truly delighting candidates. The result was gains in productivity and financial performance.
Keeping time to place under 20 days leads to revenue gains
According to the GRID 2024 Talent Trends Report, 80% of candidates want to be placed in less than 20 days — and 39% in 1-9 days. But how are firms doing at meeting that benchmark? 60% report an average placement time of less than 20 days — 23% in 1-9 days. Revenue winners are 50% more likely to place candidates in less than 10 days. But 40% of healthcare staffing firms are missing that crucial 20-day window.
Firms that delight talent throughout the cycle are as much as 80% more likely to see revenue gains
Engaging candidates, having the right job matches, and readily redeploying top candidates clearly result in satisfied talent, but also yield decisive revenue gains. In every category, these engagement and productivity strategies make it significantly more likely that firms saw revenue gains in 2024. The win-win is clear — and AI agents are just going to make these gains even easier to achieve.
Attracting new clients remains top of the list
As has been true for the past two years, the top 2025 priority for a quarter of firms is attracting new clients, which is not surprising as the recruitment industry seems to be plateauing at a lower level than a few years ago. The next two priorities also remained the same as in 2024: digital transformation and attracting new talent. As we have seen in the rest of this report, AI and automation remain some of the best ways to achieve these goals.
The paradox of fewer jobs and a tight talent pool continues
Tight talent pools and falling job volumes were the top challenges healthcare staffing firms say they face in 2025 — an apparent contradiction that has persisted for two years now. Even in the face of fewer job requisitions and longer decision cycles, there are still not enough candidates with the right set of skills to fill the jobs that are out there. Coupled with high wage expectations and a growing clinician shortage, this is not likely to ease any time soon. This market context makes it even more important for firms to rely on technology to achieve the productivity and efficiency recommended in the rest of this report.