Find & Hire Your Ideal Assisted Living Facility Administrator
Nov 24, 2024
Finding the right administrator for your assisted living facility can make all the difference between good care and exceptional care. This person is the backbone of your facility, overseeing day-to-day operations, ensuring compliance with state regulations, and providing the high-quality service your residents deserve. Whether you're just starting or looking to level up your current business, choosing the best administrator is a game-changer for your assisted living success!
In this blog, we’ll break down the best strategies for finding and hiring a top-notch assisted living administrator. From the must-have attributes to the most effective hiring tips, we’ll guide you through the process to help you make the best choice for your facility.
Check out the video, too:
1. Utilize State Databases
One of the best places to start is your state’s database of licensed assisted living administrators. These databases often have detailed information, including lists of current licensed administrators. You can find this information with a quick search like, “list of licensed assisted living administrators in [State Name].” For example, in Utah, the database provides a file listing all licensed healthcare facilities, along with their administrators' contact details.
Here’s a little pro tip: Instead of directly asking if a candidate is interested in a new position, reach out tactfully. Ask if they know anyone in their network who might be a good fit for your role. This way, you're networking without coming across as if you're trying to poach talent.
2. Leverage Local Facebook Groups and Networking Groups
Facebook isn’t just for keeping up with friends; it's a goldmine for finding your next star employee! While national groups are great for general advice, local Facebook groups can be a treasure trove of region-specific resources and job leads. If there isn’t a meaningful senior care group in your area, why not start one?
For example, if you’re in Idaho, a local Facebook group dedicated to senior care can help you connect with administrators and other professionals in your area. Post a job opening, and you might find interested candidates in no time. Local trade organizations and networking groups are also great places to post job listings and connect with experienced professionals in your community.
3. Post on Job Boards with Paid Ads
Don’t overlook the power of job boards like Indeed or SimplyHired. While they’re commonly used for finding caregivers, these platforms are also effective for hiring administrators. To stand out in the crowd, consider using paid ads to give your job posting a visibility boost. Paid ads can ensure that your listing reaches a larger audience, increasing the chances of finding your ideal candidate.
You can set a daily budget to keep your ad visible for as long as you need. This strategy works wonders, especially in competitive job markets where finding quality candidates can be a challenge.
4. Engage with Current Owners During Facility Transitions
If you’re buying an established assisted living facility, don’t rush to make changes. If possible, consider keeping the existing administrator on board. A good relationship with the previous owner can go a long way in retaining key staff members during the transition. If the current administrator wants to stay, it can ensure a smooth handover and consistent care for your residents.
If the current administrator isn’t available, ask the owner if other staff members are interested or qualified to step up or if they can recommend someone from their network. The previous owner's connections could be your secret weapon in building a solid team.
Final Thoughts
Finding and hiring the perfect assisted living facility administrator isn’t just about filling a role—it’s about building the heart of your business. Using state databases, tapping into local Facebook groups, posting job ads, and leveraging existing owner relationships can give you a well-rounded approach to finding the right fit. Remember, the goal is to find someone who not only has the skills but also shares your vision for exceptional resident care.
Are you ready to take the next step in your assisted living investing journey? Download our Business Plan Checklist, which will guide you in creating a successful business plan for your assisted living facility.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:01
[Music] hi everybody i'm brandon gustafson i own and operate two assisted living facilities and i created this channel to help people like you learn the ins and outs of investing in assisted living welcome to assisted living investing in our last video we talked about a day in the life of an assisted living operator what's it like to be an operator and and how do you handle those things and what do you need to do so go ahead and watch that video and and get an overview of what that is like today
00:00:42
we're going to be getting into how do you find and hire an assisted living facility administrator this is probably one of the questions i get most frequently how do you go and how do you find that facility administrator what what's that process like so first thing i would say is state databases actually so if you do an internet search for something like list of licensed assisted living administrators in this state you know in utah in idaho and colorado and california or whatever you um are going to be able to find um
00:01:17
an awesome resource so i did this actually just last night for the state of utah i i did that search and when i did that what i found was a resource then i had this excel file in it for all of the licensed healthcare facilities in the entire state of utah so it's a big long excel file um and in that it had you know a lot of fields in there but one of them was a provider type so it said this is the provider type and it could be you know a skilled nursing facility it could be a hospital it could be
00:01:47
a podiatrist or whatever but they have a spot for assisted living facilities and then on there it has who the facility administrator is what that person's name is and then also has that person's contact information email and phone number so right there that's a list of all of the licensed facility administrators the active ones in your state and i'm not telling you to try and go and poach different administrators but if you were to send out an email blast to them and say hey i'm a new assisted living
00:02:21
facility in salt lake city and i i i'm looking for a new administrator is this something that you have somebody in your network that that would be interested in this position something like that you i would probably keep it at that level i wouldn't ask them specifically to to tell me if they were interested in a position i would say hey i'm looking for this do you have anybody in your network that might be a good fit for this we're a small facility you know where ten beds and we're trying
00:02:49
to to find a good administrator for our facility and if they are that person they'll they'll tell you um but they might just think you know yeah um here's you know the johnny sally these people i think would be great fit this is exactly what they're looking for so use that as another resource for yourself so you can use that list database for for you to start reaching out to those licensed administrators and to ask them if if they're open to a new facility um just start having that conversation if
00:03:21
they know anybody in their network that would be interested in the opportunity you know obviously that can be a pretty time intensive process a time intensive method but it's also going to be a great resource as you are just kind of getting started in in the industry um to use that as a resource to start having a conversation and see where it goes from there second resource for you is local facebook groups or other networking groups like trade organizations or things like that so um national facebook groups um you're
00:03:52
probably a part of them they're not going to be great for getting um that type of advice they're excellent at giving you general advice and answering questions and kind of building relationships with other owners and things like that throughout the country it's a great resource for that but if you need to get into something that's really specific you're looking for an administrator in your region i've also seen posts on some of those where it's like hey i'm trying
00:04:16
to fill a bed in in my facility um doing that at that really high level you're just not going to see a lot of of interaction you're not going to get a lot of help there it's just not going to happen you need to find more specific region-specific local facebook groups if you can find them they're a great resource if there isn't one i would suggest starting one i think you could probably build a pretty robust facebook group in in areas where where you're at um so in idaho for example we
00:04:45
found just an excellent facebook group that was centered on senior care in the state and i think i've mentioned this several times in past videos but many of the providers and even suppliers are are part of that group and there's really good conversation and when there's a bed open or somebody's looking for a medicaid bed or a private pay bed or you have a job posting or whatever they are excellent resources to go in and ask those questions and you can even ask kind of more general
00:05:12
questions to those groups and they're going to give you um specific uh advice in your area what you can expect and that's how we found our administrator in idaho i posted that job on on my facebook group and had you know 10 people say i'm interested hand me a resume and set up conversations there to start the process of hiring an administrator so if you can find it excellent resource i'd also recommend as you're getting started in in this process create that um create that type of a facebook group
00:05:41
because you're gonna it's gonna be extremely valuable um for you as you get things up up and running um you know it's also likely that in your state or in your region there's gonna be some kind of a trade organization that you could join like the local chapter of ahca and ncal you can go and see them at their website is a h c a n c a l dot org um so you can go to their website there um it it's a trade organization that's kind of around senior care and assisted living and things like that so i would suggest
00:06:15
just kind of going and i'm not going to do an in-depth overview of of their organization on their website you can you can go and look at that yourself but by joining and getting involved with those local chapters of those larger national um organizations it's going to allow you to start doing some networking getting involved with people in the industry and oftentimes they those local those local chapters will have things like a job board where you could post a job opening and use that to kind of springboard your
00:06:45
search into finding an administrator you're through those conversations you might even find people that that have past administrators that they've worked with or um that they would be willing to kind of work with you in that process you know it's also possible they're just local networking groups apart from those local chapters and national organizations so doing an internet search for something like assisted living networking group in my state could start you down the path of finding
00:07:12
a group that could be helpful to you in finding that person and if you're going the route of a networking group whether it's in facebook or a trade organization or something like that the other thing i would just encourage you to do is make sure you are a valuable member don't suck everybody else's energy make sure that you're adding value to the group and and having conversations with you you want to build those relationships and maintain those relationships so that people are
00:07:39
happy to work with you and happy to help you out as as you are you know if if you ever had to find an administrator again in the future or if you're trying to fill a bed or something like that you want to build those relationships so that there's trust ingrained in them um so that you can you know then progress um more as you go forward now the third uh the third way is to just kind of post a general job on a job board and and see what happens so you can always you know resort to posting that
00:08:10
on on a job board we found indeed and simply hired to be to be pretty useful in hiring our caregivers i've not had to use it for firing finding an administrator but a lot of administrators are out there kind of posting jobs on those websites and so there they are on them quite frequently and so i think you'd have some success if if you were to use one of those types of virtual job boards um you know if you end up using one of those virtual job boards i would also just suggest that you use paid ads to to get
00:08:41
more people to see your job posting there's just so many postings on those types of websites that it's very easy for your job posting to just get lost in the shuffle so it's going to cost you a little bit of money but they're not horrible you can set a a limit for how much money you want to spend per day on the ads so say that you know i want to spend five dollars per day on ads or ten dollars or whatever it is and they kind of give you a breakdown of what that looks like and the type of
00:09:09
exposure you're getting for that amount of money um so those my that that would be another suggestion suggestion there is to use a job board and use paid ads to get your position on to the point that people can actually see it on there the fourth reason um is to talk to existing owners um if if you're purchasing an existing facility then ask the current owner if their administrator is willing to stay on through the transition uh i talked about this in a previous video i'll link it up here but
00:09:40
that's one of the reasons why you want to maintain that relationship with the the previous owner is you know they might have you know if if they're not the current owner and they they have an administrator that person might want to stay on through the transition and that that's excellent um if they are the current owner and they were also the facility administrator and that's why they're getting out they just don't want to do it anymore then i would ask them if any of their current staff would be
00:10:05
interested in or capable um you want to make sure they're capable uh as well but if if anybody you know at the facility is interested in in becoming that facility administrator um and if not you know are they aware of somebody in their network or even a past employee who might be a good facility administrator they've been working in the industry for a while now and they probably have built up some relationships so ask them and see if they could help you out with that now next time we're going to get
00:10:34
into how much i should pay my assisted living facility administrator we talked i get that question often and so we're going to talk a little bit about that how you can set that expectation for what pay is going to look like and we'll really dive into that more about investing in assisted living please make sure you visit assistedlivinginvesting.net i'd love to see over there got other content and working on setting up a way for us to do some consulting calls i'd love to have a conversation with you and help you
00:11:02
through the process as you are trying to get into assisted living investing uh just and also follow me on all my other social media platforms and remember it doesn't take a lot it's just a little bit if you keep making that progress step by step you're going to be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music] you
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