Recruiting CNAs, LPNs and RNs with your website

Updated 2026-10-16 · 7 minute read

Your careers page is competing for the same people as everyone else

Long-term care hires from the same small pool year after year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 203,300 openings a year for nursing assistants and orderlies over 2025 to 2035, mostly to replace people who leave the job or the workforce. It also reports that in 2025, 36 percent of nursing assistants worked in skilled nursing facilities, 11 percent in continuing care retirement communities and assisted living, and 5 percent in home health. For licensed practical nurses, nursing and residential care facilities were the largest employer at 37 percent, with home health at 12 percent.

Registered nurses are a harder fight. BLS says 59 percent of RNs work in hospitals and 6 percent in nursing and residential care facilities. Your careers page has to give a nurse a reason to choose you over the hospital down the road, and "we are a family" is not a reason by itself.

None of this is news to an administrator or a director of nursing. What is often missed is how much of the hiring decision now happens on a phone, late at night, after a shift, before anyone from your building is involved. That is the moment your careers page has to win.

What a caregiver wants to know first

Think about a CNA working doubles somewhere else, scrolling at 11 p.m. She is not reading your mission statement. She is checking four things, and if she cannot find them in a few seconds she will move on to the next posting.

• Pay. A real hourly range for each role, plus shift differentials and any sign-on or referral bonus terms.
• Shifts. Which shifts are open, how long they are, whether you use 8s or 12s, and how weekends and holidays are handled.
• The work. Resident or patient ratio expectations, the unit or territory, and who she would report to. For home health and hospice: driving, mileage reimbursement and how visits are scheduled.
• How to apply. A visible button that works on a phone and does not demand a full account and a resume upload before she has even talked to someone.

After those four, the things that keep people are worth showing: benefits, paid time off, tuition help, consistent assignments, a career ladder from CNA to LPN to RN, and evidence that leadership is present. Say these in specifics. "Tuition assistance up to a set amount per year after 90 days" is believable. "Great benefits" is not.

Show the pay, and check whether you are required to

Posting pay is good recruiting. In a growing number of places it is also the law, and the rules differ by state. A few examples, from the state agencies themselves:

• California: employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in any job posting, and the Labor Commissioner says a link or QR code to the range is not enough. The range has to be in the posting itself.
• Washington: employers with 15 or more employees must post a wage scale or salary range, a general description of benefits and a description of other compensation, according to Washington L&I. L&I says the range should not be open-ended.
• New York: the New York State Department of Labor says the law applies to employers with four or more employees and requires a compensation range in postings for covered jobs, promotions and transfers.

Other states and some cities have their own versions, and thresholds and details change. If you hire in more than one state, or you are a multi-site operator posting from one careers page, ask your HR lead or employment counsel which rules apply to each location. This is not legal advice. The practical takeaway is simple: build your job pages with a pay field from day one, so the range is always in the posting and never in a PDF or a "call for details" line.

One page per job, with job posting markup

Google can show job openings in a special jobs experience in search results, but only if each job has its own page with structured data. Google's job posting documentation is clear on a few rules that many care provider sites break:

• Use JobPosting markup only on a page with a single job. Do not put it on a list of openings.
• Required properties are title, description, datePosted, hiringOrganization and jobLocation. The title must be the job title only, not "CNA, Great Pay, Apply Today."
• baseSalary is recommended, and Google notes only employers can provide it. For hourly roles, use the HOUR unit.
• employmentType can list more than one value, such as FULL_TIME and PART_TIME, which fits PRN and part-time roles.
• Expired jobs are not allowed. When a job closes, set validThrough to a past date, remove the markup, or remove the page so it returns a 404 or 410. Google warns that failing to act on expired jobs can lead to a manual action.
• Every posting needs a way to apply, and the content cannot sit behind a login.

Validate each job page with Google's Rich Results Test before you rely on it. If your applicant tracking system generates job pages, check that it is producing this markup correctly. Many do, some do it badly, and a few put markup on the list page, which Google says not to do.

Getting your jobs onto Indeed

Most caregivers search Indeed, so your website and Indeed need to agree. Indeed can pull jobs from your careers site through what it calls aggregation. According to Indeed's employer help center, each posting needs a clear, complete job title, a full job description, one job location per job, a way to apply, and a unique, valid URL for each job. Indeed also says meeting those requirements does not guarantee aggregation, because its teams review jobs and websites, and that if your applicant tracking system is already integrated with Indeed you should post through that integration.

The overlap with Google's rules is not an accident. One job per page, one location per job, a real title and a working apply link will serve you on both. If you run three buildings, post the same role three times, once per location, rather than one posting that says "multiple locations."

Make applying fast on a phone

The biggest leak in most care provider hiring is the apply flow. A candidate taps Apply and lands on a vendor screen that wants an account, a password, a resume upload and a forty-question assessment. Many will not finish it from a phone on a break.

Offer a short first step: name, phone, email, role, preferred shift and license or certification status. Then call them. Keep the long application for after the first conversation. If your applicant tracking system cannot do a short form, put a simple interest form on your own careers page next to the full application link, and route it to the person who actually makes the calls.

Speed matters after the click too. Put a named recruiter or HR contact on the page with a direct number or a text line, and say how fast you respond. Then keep the promise.

Use real staff photos, with real permission

Stock photos of models in perfect scrubs do not recruit caregivers. Experienced aides spot them instantly. Photos of your actual team at work, your break room, your parking lot at shift change and your director of nursing on the floor tell a candidate far more about whether this is a good place to work.

Get a signed photo release from every staff member who appears, and let people decline without any pressure. Be careful with residents and patients in the frame. CMS told state survey agencies in S&C 16-33-NH that taking photographs of a nursing home resident without the resident's or representative's written consent violates the resident's right to privacy, and its examples include a resident eating in the dining room or taking part in an activity in a common area. Under HIPAA, full face photographs are one of the identifiers listed in 45 CFR 164.514, and 45 CFR 164.508 generally requires an authorization to use protected health information for marketing. Have your compliance officer approve your consent forms before anyone takes a picture.

Short staff quotes work well too, if they are real and the person approved the wording. Never write a testimonial for someone, and never use a former employee's photo after they leave.

Say what you will teach

Many nursing homes grow their own aides, and your careers page should say so clearly if you do. Federal rules at 42 CFR 483.152 say a nurse aide who is employed by, or has an offer from, a nursing facility when she starts a nurse aide training and competency evaluation program cannot be charged for any part of it, including textbooks. The same rule requires states to provide pro rata reimbursement for people who become employed as a nurse aide at a facility within 12 months of completing a program.

That is a real recruiting message for a nursing home: "Want to become a CNA? If we hire you, we cover your training." Confirm how your state runs its program and how your facility handles it before you publish it, and list the next class start date if you run classes on site.

Checklist

• A Careers link in the main menu, not just the footer.
• Pay range, shifts, location and benefits on every job page.
• One page per job per location, with valid JobPosting markup tested in the Rich Results Test.
• Closed jobs removed or marked expired the same day.
• Job pages meet Indeed's aggregation requirements, or are posted through your ATS integration.
• A short, phone-friendly first step to apply, routed to a real person.
• A named recruiting contact with a direct phone or text number.
• Real staff photos with signed releases; no resident photos without written consent approved by compliance.
• Training, tuition and career ladder details written in specifics.
• Pay transparency rules checked for every state you hire in.

Questions

Sources

1. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Nursing assistants and orderlies
2. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses
3. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Registered nurses
4. California Labor Commissioner: California Equal Pay Act FAQ
5. Washington L&I: Equal Pay and Opportunities Act
6. New York State Department of Labor: Pay transparency
7. Google Search Central: Job posting structured data
8. Indeed for Employers: What is aggregation
9. CMS: S&C 16-33-NH, Protecting resident privacy (photographs and recordings)
10. eCFR: 45 CFR 164.514, De-identification identifiers
11. eCFR: 45 CFR 164.508, Uses and disclosures requiring an authorization
12. eCFR: 42 CFR 483.152, Nurse aide training program requirements

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Confirm regulatory and legal questions with your compliance officer or counsel.