Mario Brathwaite wasn’t looking for a job with the Johns Hopkins Health System when he saw the online posting for a security position.

“I thought, ‘let me just try,’” says Brathwaite, who lives in Owings Mills. He didn’t know how much longer he could tolerate the rigorous physical demands of his current job. He applied through the listing’s online link on March 22.

On April 4, he arrived at Johns Hopkins for an interview, and left less than an hour later with a start date of April 29.

“It was all pretty straightforward,” says Brathwaite as he walks out of the former Eastern High School building, where he and 55 others were being interviewed and hired that day. 

The goal of the event was to fill as many as 70 security positions in the health system, many of them newly created to staff new weapons-detection locations at Johns Hopkins hospitals.

Brathwaite was one of 31 candidates who accepted job offers on the spot. An additional 16 virtual interviews were scheduled, and five candidates were waitlisted, says Yvonne Mitchell, vice president of human talent acquisition.

Responding to a Tough Hiring Environment

Faced with employee shortages that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Health System has gotten better at recruiting and hiring.

Among the hardest jobs to fill are those in environmental services, food services and security, followed by nursing and radiology posts, says Lisa Ramming, senior talent acquisition specialist for the health system. (Physician and leadership jobs are also hard to fill, but the process for finding and hiring for those jobs is different.)

“We had to respond because of the crazy hiring environment,” says Mitchell. “The better the experience we give to our candidates, and the faster our applicants secure that offer, the more likely they are to take the job with us.”

Mitchell began making changes shortly after her 2021 hire. Her initiatives include:

1. Creating a single hiring structure and standardized process, instead of each hospital having its own system and candidate pipeline.
2. Improving the candidate experience by simplifying forms and removing scheduling delays. Recruiters have access to the calendars of hiring managers in order to schedule interviews directly, and hiring managers should make hiring decisions within 24 hours of interviewing. Follow-ups for onboarding and occupational health are also faster and simpler.
3. Allowing virtual interviews, which became commonplace during COVID and are often more convenient for candidates.
4. Holding more hiring events like the one Brathwaite attended, which allows many candidates to be interviewed and hired on the same day.

The results have been remarkable. According to the talent acquisition team, the health system filled 12,921 jobs in 2023, including 9,502 outside hires. That’s up from 10,354 jobs in 2021, of which 6,436 were external.

A New Talent Acquisition Structure

Katie Nalls Veith, senior talent acquisition specialist for nursing, was a neonatal intensive care unit nurse before joining Johns Hopkins in February 2020. Prior to the restructuring, she was responsible for recruiting and hiring nurses for Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as for performing administrative functions like hosting orientations and tracking certifications.

Now, she focuses solely on recruiting critical care nurses for both Sibley and Suburban hospitals.

“When Yvonne came, we centralized the recruitment team,” Nalls Veith says. “She identified which responsibilities would stay with recruiters, and which, like the orientations and certifications, would stay with Human Resources. It was huge for me to be able to put all my focus into recruiting.

“And then we reorganized assignments so that we were maximizing pipelines,” Nalls Veith continues. “Now, I have a bigger candidate pool. Sometimes, when a role won’t work at Suburban, I can say, ‘Oh, I have another opportunity at Sibley.’”

Through meetings and Teams chats, Nalls Veith knows what’s working for other recruiters in the system, and what they are hearing from candidates.

From Potential Applicant to Job Offer

A priority for Mitchell has been to shorten the time period between application and first day on the job.

And it’s happening: The time to fill a job dropped from 59 days in 2021 to 42 in 2023, says Mitchell. In the same two years, the time between job offer and first day on the job dropped from 28.8 days to 23.

The process begins with a proactive recruiting approach. In-person and online information sessions with tech and nursing school graduates showcase opportunities for education and advancement, says Ramming. Talent acquisition specialists also email appropriate candidates with online resumes, encouraging them to apply.

Promising applicants receive a response within 48 hours with a calendar link that allows them to schedule directly with hiring managers. (In the past, candidates had to wait for the managers to arrange the interviews.)

About 70 interview and hiring events like the one on April 4 are scheduled each year, says Mitchell.

At that event, rooms buzzed with quiet purpose as people signed in for their scheduled interviews with hiring managers of the Johns Hopkins security team, or sat with members of the preboarding team to schedule their onboarding sessions. The goal, at every step, was to move the process along.

The candidates had already met hiring criteria, so the interviews were just 15 to 25 minutes long — a chance to discuss expectations, go over schedules and look each other in the eye, says one of the interviewers, Jarron Jackson, assistant vice president for public safety.

“We do a good job of filtering before they get here,” he says. “The interview is more of a conversation. They’re an ambassador for the hospital. We want to know they can communicate and interact with the public on what is probably a tough day for the person coming into the hospital.”

New hire Ethan Tyson, 32, says his interviewer wanted to know his strategies for handling tense situations when weapons are detected. He said he would speak softly, and show the person where the weapon would be stored until the visitor was ready to leave the hospital.

Tyson was already providing security at Johns Hopkins through a contract with Broadway Services, but his new job will give him more money, plus benefits, he says.

Fellow Broadway Services contract employee Tonya Walton was beaming as she left the event, eager to begin her job at The Johns Hopkins Hospital on May 29. She had applied to Johns Hopkins before, without success. This time, she says, “It’s finally easy.”