If you're a nurse, you are in demand...for now

One of my favorite jokes goes as follows:

A man dies and much to his surprise he is met by both the devil and God. They tell him he gets to visit both heaven and hell as a tourist and then choose where he belongs. Well, this was quite surprising to him, but pretty exciting. I mean who knew, right?

So he decides to go with a bad new first approach and visits Hell. Again, much to his surprise, Hell seems mostly to be about wine,women and song. Or maybe like Vegas, but whatever the analogy, it was actually a lot of fun.

Then he visits Heaven. Lots of people dressed in white robes sitting around, maybe playing a little harp, but otherwise...a bit of a snooze.

So, when the man returns to the waiting devil and God, it seems like a no-brainer and he chooses Hell.

The devil claps him on the back saying "I knew you were a smart man", and with a snap of his cloven hoof they are back in Hell. Only this time it was quite different...this time there was all the fire and brimstone you might expect...agony, abject fear, the works.

The guy recoils in horror and says, "Hey what is all this? This isn't at all what it was like yesterday!!"

And the devil said, "Yes, but yesterday you were a prospect. Today you are a customer."

This joke ran through my mind when reading this article about the nursing shortage and the desperate measures some organizations are taking to recruit nurses.

Of course at least one blogger thinks fancy recruiting strategies are pretty useless, if ongoing working conditions suck. Retention is the ultimate recruitment, in other words. Makes sense to me. 

I'm hiring for a key position at my company right now, and I've been struck by how all the second round candidates have told me about how impressed they've been to meet the other members of our team during that second round (they met only me for a first round) and see their passion and commitment. Meeting our team was, I believe, a big plus and will help me in my recruitment.

I wonder if these institutions are able to use their current staff as recruitment tools? If not, it's no wonder they're in trouble.

Hat tip: Kevin MD.