How to Choose a Qualified Assisted Living Administrator
Feb 10, 2026
Choosing the right assisted living administrator can feel overwhelming, especially if this is your first facility. I’ve been there, and I know how confusing the hiring process can be when you’re trying to do things the right way. The good news is there is a clear path you can follow.
Want the full breakdown? Watch the video belowπ
Start by looking in the right places for candidates
The first step is knowing where to look. You want your job posting in front of people who already work in assisted living or similar service roles. I’ve seen this work best when you use a job board with high traffic and the right audience.
Indeed has been my go-to. It gets your listing in front of a lot of qualified people fast, which matters more than anything at this stage. Other platforms like ZipRecruiter or LinkedIn can work, but they often don’t attract the right kind of people for your administrator role.
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Use a job board with high volume so more qualified people see your post
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Focus on platforms used by healthcare service workers
Write a clear job description before you post anything
Before you post the job, you need a solid job description. This is not something to rush. Your job description should clearly explain what the administrator will do, who they will manage, and what experience or license they must have.
When you are clear up front, you attract better candidates and avoid wasting time later. I teach this step inside my programs because it saves hours of frustration.
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List responsibilities, staff size, and required licenses
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Be specific about expectations and daily duties
Use pre-screening questions to save yourself time
Once your job is live, be ready. You may get dozens or even hundreds of applications. That’s normal. What matters is how you filter them.
One simple trick is adding pre-screening questions. For example, if your state requires an administrator license, ask that question first. If the candidate doesn't have a license, they don’t move forward.
This alone can save you hours of sorting through applications that were never a fit.
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Add license and experience questions upfront
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Automatically filter out unqualified applicants
Interview in stages so you can really get to know them
I like to start with a short phone call, usually about 30 minutes. This helps you see if they show up on time, communicate clearly, and have the right background.
From there, I move strong candidates into deeper interviews. These are where you ask about real situations. How did they handle a difficult family? What happened when a staff member caused problems? You want real stories, not vague answers.
If they give references, call them. That step alone can reveal a lot.
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Start with a phone screen, then go deeper
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Ask for specific stories, not general answers
Look for skills, communication style, and trust
A qualified administrator is more than a license. You want someone who can manage staff, communicate with families, and stay calm in tough moments.
Pay attention to how they respond to emails and messages. Notice how you feel talking with them. These small details often tell you more than a resume ever will.
Put people in roles that match their strengths. When staff feel confident and supported, residents and families feel it too.
π‘ People succeed faster when the role fits their skills
Manage your administrator with clear direction and regular check-ins
Once hired, clarity is everything. If you want something done, say it clearly. Avoid vague language. Clear direction removes confusion and protects you if expectations are not met.
Set a regular meeting schedule at first. Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins work well early on. Over time, you can give more autonomy as trust grows.
I don’t like micromanaging, but I do believe in accountability.
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Give direct instructions, not suggestions
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Set a regular update schedule
Incentivize the outcomes you actually want
If occupancy matters to you, tie bonuses to occupancy. If profit matters, tie incentives to net operating income. People focus on what is rewarded.
Just make sure you review results and adjust if needed. Incentives should support the health of the business, not just one number.
π‘ Incentives guide behavior faster than rules
Wrap Up
Hiring a qualified assisted living administrator takes intention, but it does not have to be complicated. When you know where to look, how to interview, and how to manage clearly, you can build a strong foundation for your facility. Take it step by step, and you’ll feel more confident with each hire.
If you need help creating a business plan for your assisted living business, check out the Free Business Plan Checklist.
And if you’re ready to figure out your next step, join me for the next Roadmap Challenge, where I’ll walk you through how to get started.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:06
All right. Hey friend, it's Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living Investing. Super excited to have you here today. Uh today I wanted to talk about this is a question that came up uh is how to choose a qualified assisted living administrator uh for your facility. So, if you're interested in how to go about doing that, the hiring process, what that looks like, super excited to dive into that topic here with you today and help you out as you're trying to launch your own assisted living business, uh,
00:00:30
make sure you stick around as well till the end of the video. I'll talk to you a little bit about the roadmap challenge. So, if you want to learn more about that, go to roadmapchallenge.com, but I'll tell you a little bit more about it. And if you need some help and some guidance as you're trying to launch your assisted living business, uh, I will have a I have a quiz for you. It's takes 30 seconds. Go to aliquiz.com. uh fill that out. It will tell you which of my programs is a good fit for you.
00:00:52
Again, that's aliquiz.com. Would love to have you take the quiz. So, let's uh let's see. Um uh trying to remember. Sorry. [laughter] Uh Brandon, hey friend, my name is Brandon Gustafson. I help first-time assisted living entrepreneurs launch profitable purpose-driven businesses creating prosperity, purpose, and peace in their lives. I'm super excited to be here with you today as you're trying to figure out this process. How to find how to hire good facility administrators. This is a confusing piece uh for those
00:01:20
of you that want to do something like what I am doing and and operate this this stuff remotely or um even even if it's not remotely how to operate these businesses uh while while you're still being successful and um and delegating those those pieces of information. So, we're going to talk today about where to find a good administrator. Um, the hiring process that you should be going through, what you should be looking for when you try to find and hire an administrator, and then how to manage
00:01:50
your administrator. So, this is kind of like a how-to guide, uh, giving you some guidance and direction on how you can actually do this and be successful. Now, the first thing that I want to talk to you about is where to find a good administrator. And I would say there's a few different job boards out there that that you can go to. And I I I don't know that um I have my preference for what I think is best. U but I I think using a job board in general is going to be your best bet in helping you find people uh
00:02:18
that are going to to really help you move forward and reach your goals of launching a solid assisted living business that that you can feel confident that you've got good people in. The one that I highly recommend is Indeed. Indeed.com. Um Indeed is a job board. uh it's very heavily used for people in a service industry similar to assisted living. You're going to have a really good uh volume of people that are there looking uh for for jobs, which is the most important thing when it comes
00:02:46
to finding and hiring people is you need to get in front of a lot of eyeballs. And Indeed is great at that. You could use other tools like uh Zip Recruiter or LinkedIn. Um but I have not. I've tried them in the past. LinkedIn um really doesn't work super well for for this type of job. um just the clientele that are on there. Um you're you're not going to get in front of the right people. Uh but Zip Recruiter, you might have some luck with uh I have had luck with Facebook in the past. So that's
00:03:11
something that you may want to consider. Uh Facebook a few years ago though did change the way that they that they work through uh this and and how you can post jobs and and hire people through there. And it's not as intuitive as it used to be. So uh it it was one of my favorites. Um not anymore. So, as of the recording of this video, I would say Indeed is is your best bet. I would get familiar with it. Um, learn the process and it's it's not hard. Um, and really, uh, you you can be pretty successful using Indeed.
00:03:41
Um, so that's what I would suggest to you. Now, let's talk about the actual hiring process. So, after you have identified your job board, where you're going to put this, what do you do? What process do you go through so that you can like actually hire people? This is the process that I go through and this is uh I'm going to say this um a little bit more at like an administrator level. Um caregivers are going to follow a very similar process but it's going to be uh slightly less intensive. So keep that in
00:04:10
mind. I'm going to I'm going to go through the administrator process because it's the one where you're going to do a lot more vetting, a lot more conversations uh and and try to find the right people. Uh so if you do that and then you pair it down a little bit so that you can uh find your caregivers, I think you're going to be successful. So, the first thing that you want to do is you need to build a job description. You need to have that. And this is something that I teach inside of my uh success
00:04:31
system program in my launch accelerator program. So, if you want to see if uh if one of those programs is a good fit for you, go take the quiz, aliquiz.com, and uh and see if if it is. But, I teach you how to write good job descriptions. I have samples of those on there as well for you as you're trying to to move forward um and and and build this out. But you need to have a very specific job description for what you want this person to do, their roles, their responsibilities, what they're going to
00:04:57
be doing, uh if they're administrator, how many staff they're going to be handling, you know, the different rules and regulations, uh maybe budget. There's there's a lot of questions that can come up in there and the experience that they have. So, you want to you want to have that on there. Job description, super important. You're going to post that on the job board. Um you put put it out there. Hey, I've got a job. Uh here's the job description. If you're interested, apply. Now, what you're
00:05:18
going to find, um, and this was something that, uh, honestly kind of like blew me away when I did this the first time, is you will get dozens, if not hundreds of applications. You will get so many, you will get flooded with applications. Um, Indeed, what I love about Indeed is you can actually build in some extra questions on the front end that will let you uh, pre-screen candidates. And, uh, for example, with an administrator, you want somebody that has an administrator license. So, you're
00:05:47
going to ask that, do you have a license already? If they don't, then don't don't waste your time looking at them, unless you're willing to develop that person. But, if you're in a bind, you need to hire somebody that has a license. Have that be a pre-qualifying question and then just filter them out. And that will take you from looking at dozens to hundreds of different applicants down to just the few that that qualify based off of that question. So, that's that's a
00:06:09
pro tip for you. But, that will save you so much time. Um, like I I cannot tell you how much time I wasted uh the first time I did this without that question and was looking through like 50 different applications um just to see if they were qualified. And if I had just put that question in, I would have saved myself hours of time. So, put that in um and it it will save you a bunch of time. You can put any other questions in there. Uh you can have them be pre-qualifying or they can just be contextual. So, you know, uh maybe some
00:06:38
questions you want to ask like, you know, tell me about a quick scenario. Um, have you dealt with families before? A scenario where it was rough dealing with a family or have you ever hired other staff? You know, anything else that you might want to know, you can put those in pre-screen questions or you can just wait till you do the interview. Um, it's totally up to you. But you want to have that question in there. Uh, filter out the people that aren't a good fit. And then you're going to identify those
00:07:02
top candidates. Once you have those top, you know, three to five to 10 uh candidates, however many you want to look at, that's when you're going to initiate a conversation and you're going to do a phone call. This typically what how I start out with this. Uh I typically start out with like a 30 minute phone call. Um and I want to see if they number one show up. Are they going to hop on the phone with me? And I'm going to ask them a few different questions about just general uh what's
00:07:27
your experience? Do you have a license? What are your goals? What are you looking for? I want to get a feel for them. Um, I take notes when I'm doing this and I typically will score people like on I I have a few different criteria. I'll score people uh on a scale of like 1 to five and that really just helps me narrow down um are they a good candidate or not? Do I want to move them to the next phase in the process or not? Uh lets me see where they're at and it works really well for for my process.
00:07:52
Once I do that and remember I have a partner, he's my dad. um in and doing this. Once I do those initial phone screens, I will set up a second and sometimes even a third interview. Um but that's deeper and my dad will join me um and we will ask uh deeper questions. We make sure they have plenty of space to ask us any questions about the way that we operate and how that's going to work. And and we just kind of work through that with them. Uh asking questions back and forth. Uh making sure they're a good
00:08:20
fit, making sure they're licensed. Um seeing how we interact with them. uh asking them questions for things that are important to us, which are things like communication style. Uh what do you do if uh if you have a bad experience with a staff member or a family member of a resident or a bad resident or something like that? Uh tell us about situations that have happened along those lines so we can see how do they handle those, how do they react when we ask those questions. Um we want to see that information. Um, I would also uh
00:08:51
highly encourage you if you can ask for references and if they give you references, call them. Um, that's going to give you a lot of uh good insight into how that person uh has been perceived, how they have been, how they have worked in the past. So, it will help you out a ton. Once you are comfortable, you've narrowed it down, you have one person, then you're going to make an offer uh to that person and you're going to say, "Hey, um, we would love to have you work with us." Uh,
00:09:19
we want to hire you. We'll pay you x amount of money. Um can you start in uh you know two weeks? What what process? What's that going to look like? And you just kind of work through uh through the process of of hiring them. Um I I go a little bit deeper on that inside my my coaching program. So if you want some guidance and and help with that to make sure you go take the quiz, aliquiz.com to see if one of those programs is a good fit for you. But that's the process that you're going to go through when you
00:09:43
hire somebody. Now, when you're hiring a caregiving staff, it might be as simple as you put up a job description, they apply, you do a phone screen, um, and then have them come to an on-site interview, and hey, if they show up and and they, uh, aren't a drug addict, um, then, hey, you probably want to hire them because caregiving is is so cyclical. Um, and there's so much turnover uh when it comes to to that that you just want to to make sure that um that you have warm bodies that are there
00:10:12
that are qualified um that are going to be there and do the job and um showing up for it is is sometimes half the battle. Um like just to be frank. So you might have uh thoughts about that. Uh but having done this since 2020, I can tell you sometimes that's all you need. Just a warm body to be there to take care of your residents. Um make sure they pass the background check. make sure that they are certified uh in in the things that they need to be certified for their job. Um make sure you're keeping an eye on them that
00:10:38
they're not doing anything they shouldn't be doing. And if they do those things, you're going to probably find really good staff members. So, uh that's what I would suggest that you do when it comes to hiring caregivers. That's the hiring process. Now, what should you be looking for when it comes to your staff? I would say you need to be checking to see if they are licensed, if they have any certifications that you that that you need. um check that. Oftentimes you can find that information online or they
00:11:05
will have a certificate um that that they can show you proof that they are certified or licensed. One second. That's the problem with doing this live. If I got tickle in my throat or something, y'all have to just deal with it. Uh anyways, check to see if they're licensed. Look them up online. Uh look to see if they have if there's a database that has their certifications. Uh these are the types of things that uh that are that you need to be looking for as you're trying to figure out are they
00:11:33
a good fit for me or not. You want to evaluate what skills they have. Um and this can be something that you ask them in the interview process, in the application process, or it could be something that on their onboarding process, you're looking at what skills do they have. Are they are they really good at residence? Are they good at organization? Are they really good at tracking the numbers on EHR? Or are they not good at any of those specific things? And how can you train them up? You want to figure out what skills they
00:11:57
have, what do they enjoy, and then try to put them in positions where they can succeed because uh staff members who are in positions where they can succeed and it it's playing to their strengths, they're going to be happier and um that that means your residents will be happier, their families will be happier, everybody's happy uh when you do that. So look at what skills they have. Make sure you're putting them in a spot where they can succeed and everybody's going to be a lot happier. Um, I would say
00:12:22
that you should also be asking, especially with your facility administrator, um, what experience do they have with other staff, with residents, with with their families, um, in in regular interactions with them, in rough situations. This is a big question that we ask in our interview process as we're bringing in a new administrator is tell us stories about this and and look for like specific stories, not generalities. Oh yeah, I do that all the time. It's rough. like don't accept that
00:12:50
as a qu as as as an answer. Dig deeper. Well, tell us about a specific experience. What happened? Tell me um how how you know what happened there. Uh they start telling you the story and then dig deeper on those stories and like really probe a little bit on those. Those are going to help you identify if they're a good fit. um and they're going how they're going to handle those types of situations which is going to help you just move forward with confidence that you got a good person uh that that you
00:13:18
can trust in this position. And um the other the other thing that I would say here is as you're talking to them and interacting with them, this is why I try to do two or three interviews. Um you want to get a feel for how you feel as you're talking with them in the interviews. is this because this is somebody that you're going to be working with regularly for the foreseeable future. Um hopefully forever, right? Um and so you want to make sure that you uh are good with their communication style
00:13:47
and the way that they are getting back to you when you're trying to schedule an interview and how they react to questions and and different like little types of questions and ways that you ask questions in the interview process. and just pay attention to that and how do you feel uh with them if they make you feel uncomfortable or they're very wishy-washy or they're they take forever to get back to you like on on messaging or things like that. Um those might be red flags for you. They might not be,
00:14:13
but they might be. And so you want to pay attention to those types of things that's going to allow you to just like be like, "Okay, I I this person knows what they're doing. They can handle it. We'll be okay." Or this is this is rough. um maybe I don't want to hire this person because I don't know what uh what what's going to happen out of here. Uh so pay attention to how you feel as you have those interactions. The next thing that I want to talk to you about is how to manage your
00:14:38
administrator. Um especially if you're doing this um out of state or out of area and you want to be more passive, right? If you want to be that passive person, how should you be managing your administrator? It's a good question and I think it's something that uh that people need to um kind of get a hold on because it can be really confusing. Um what you need to do is you have to be clear in the directions that you give that it's absolutely crucial. If you want something to happen, don't say,
00:15:09
"Oh, it would be really cool if you if you did this." Say, "I need you to do this." Be very clear. Be explicit. Be be as clear as possible. um for two reasons. One um it takes the ambiguity out of it and they know exactly what you want to do. And two, if they don't do it, then you have an ability to say, "I gave them a direct uh a direct order, a direct um set of requirements that they needed to follow and they didn't do it." And so then you can write that person
00:15:38
up. Uh so if you are running into issues with somebody, you're going to need to let them go. Be as explicit as possible and then make sure you're documenting all of that stuff. you you hopefully you don't get to that situation, but you also need to to be doing that. Um, but if you're wishy-washy in the way that you communicate your directions to people, they will not follow those directions. They will do it the way that they think they should. They will not do it the way that you want them to do it.
00:16:01
So, pay attention to that. Clear directions absolutely crucial. Be clear, crystal clear on how you do this. I would set up a regular meeting cadence cadence with them as well. And do this for how it's going to work for you. Um, this could early on in the process be weekly. Uh, you could be doing bi-weekly, you could be doing doing monthly. Maybe you're doing uh things where they're sending you video or written updates on a regular basis as well. Uh, but have regular touch points with them, regular a regular cadence for
00:16:30
when updates are coming in to you so that you know what's going on. This is absolutely crucial. And then you may get to a point where you feel comfortable with them and the way that they operate. And those can then become ad hoc. Uh, hey, if something comes up, text me an issue or just text me once a week. Let me know if anything's coming up. Um, you I love giving people more autonomy. I do. I'm not a micromanager. It's just not in my nature. I hate when people micromanage me. I'm not going to
00:16:55
micromanage other people, but I do want to make sure that they are doing the things that I ask them to do. And as long as they are doing those things, I I'm not super concerned about how they're doing them. I just need to make sure those things are done. Okay? That's that's how I handle it. You may be different but that's what I do. And in that vein I would say incentivize the things that you want. So if you want high occupancy then build in a bonus structure that is around occupancy rate.
00:17:22
If you want more profit build in a bonus structure that is around your NOI, your net operating income. Figure out the things that are important to you and build in a way to incentivize your staff, your administrator to do those things. And when you incentivize them to do something, usually monetarily, then they will reciprocate and they will figure out a way to make that happen because it really helps their bottom line out and that's what they're all for. Okay? So, incentivize the things
00:17:51
that you want and keep an eye on it and make sure that once they are doing those things that it really is the thing that you want. If you want higher occupancy rates, so that's what you incentivize, but then your your expenses are going up and you're you're still your NOI isn't improving, then maybe you should be evaluating and doing something around different types of expenses or just generally the NOI um and what that's going to look like. That's going to help you out. Uh so pay attention to those
00:18:16
things and it's okay for you to change them as well. Um so that's what I would encourage you to do. And I would say if possible, if you have a current administrator and you need to bring in a new one um or you are bringing in a new one from the beginning, you need to have a good handoff to the new administrator to whoever that person is to give them confidence straight off from the beginning. Make sure they know where everything is, know what the passwords are, know who the different vendors are.
00:18:43
if they need to talk to an internet vendor or a security company or something like that that they know how and who to talk to uh what those passwords are so they can get access to them and and help you move things along. All right, so those are the things that you should be doing. That's how you can effectively manage your administrators. There's a lot more into it. Um but that that should give you a lot of guidance there at least at high level on how to do this. Again, in my coaching programs,
00:19:07
I talk a little bit more about that. Uh if you want to figure out if one of those programs is a good fit for you, go to aliquiz.com and take the 30 secondond quiz and see which of those programs is going to be best for you. Now to recap what we talked about today, uh we have been talking about where to find a good administrator, the hiring process for hiring them, what you should be looking for when you're working with an administrator and also how to manage effectively manage your administrator.
00:19:31
If you found this video helpful at all, make sure you like it. Uh give it a thumbs up. Um share it. Uh you know, do all the things so that you get notifi and ring the bell as well so you get notified anytime I put out content. We go live on Tuesdays, put out content on Thursdays, um to help you out in launching your assisted living business. And if you need some help, I talked about this at the start of the video. Um go check out the next Roadmap Challenge, roadmap challenge.com. I would love to
00:19:53
have you in there. It is a live coaching experience as of the recording of this uh of this live. Uh we have one in two weeks. I would love to see you there. It is uh it's so much fun. It is like my favorite. It's the highlight of the month for me. I love doing it, helping you out, answering your questions, giving you guidance, and and helping you work through the problems that you have as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. Uh if you're in the VIP room, this is virtual, by the way. Um
00:20:16
you can ask me any questions at all. Um and I'm there for you to answer any of your questions. Um and in the general session, we're going to go over how to build your why. uh to help you have confidence and get excited about why you want to do assisted living, to help you build your business plan, understanding how to do underwriting so you can like actually see will this be profitable for me or not? Uh which is huge in your confidence and moving you forward. Uh we're going to talk about the different
00:20:41
paths that you can go down giving you clarity on which path is the best one for you. We have a quiz in there that we go through and then we talk about funding options that are out there. There's so many of them. So, we're going to help you out in figuring that out and then also your licensing uh process. So, I would love to have you in there. Again, go check it out. roadmapchallenge.com. Our next one is coming up soon. Would love to have you in there. roadmapchallenge.com. If you need some help and some guidance, but
00:21:05
you're not sure which of the programs are a good fit for you, go take the quiz. Aliquiz.com. And then, uh also, if you need some help uh some guidance and you just like on a strict budget, go get the book uh the assisted living uh the profitable assisted living facility. um you can get on Amazon or go to the alibook.com um and it will give you all the links there to get access to that book. It has like my entire brain uh put into a thing. We're working through editing the audio version of it as well. So audio
00:21:31
book will be coming out soon on that. Uh so keep an eye out for it. Are you curious about assisted living but you're not sure how to get started? At assisted living investing, I help first-time assisted living entrepreneurs launch profitable purpose-driven businesses creating prosperity, purpose, and peace in their lives. I would love to help you and coach you out along your path. Go take the quiz, aliquiz.com, to see which of my programs is a good fit for you. And remember, it doesn't take a
00:21:55
lot, just a little bit. Just keep going step by step by step. And I promise you, if you do and you are consistent and persistent, you are going to be successful. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
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