How Values-Based Recruitment Can Transform Your Hiring Strategy

Many care providers we speak to are facing the same challenges when it comes to recruitment: there are plenty of people expressing interest and applying to your job posts, yet none are ‘quite right’ for the role.

So, what’s going wrong?

From our experience, it isn’t that the right carer isn’t out there. It’s that you’re relying on the same job boards and recruitment spaces as everyone else, trying to attract the same candidates in the same way.

It’s what’s known as the Red Ocean: a crowded, competitive space in which standing out from other employers becomes increasingly difficult.

In this blog, we’ll outline how you can move away from this saturated Red Ocean and towards attracting amazing candidates through this tried-and-true values-based approach.

What is Values-Based Recruitment?

‍Through the lens of the Red Ocean vs. Blue Ocean strategy, developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, it becomes clear why traditional recruitment methods often fall short.

In a Red Ocean, providers compete in the same spaces, using similar messaging and experience-led criteria. This limits the talent pool and leads to high volumes of poor-fit applications.

‍A Blue Ocean, by contrast, focuses on reaching people outside that competition; those who may not be actively searching for care roles, but already demonstrate the right values in their everyday lives.

Values-based recruitment focuses on hiring for the qualities that define great care: empathy, reliability, and a drive to make a difference. These qualities are the number one thing to look out for, rather than prior experience.

‍

‍Why this Approach Works

What changes with this approach is the type of person you attract.

‍Instead of relying on candidates with formal care experience, you search for people whose experience comes from everyday life, such as supporting a parent, raising a family, or being actively involved in their community.

We’ve already seen this in practice. Home Instead Wimbledon & Kingston shared that, since adopting this approach, they’ve begun recruiting people nearing retirement age, those with experience caring for family members, and stay-at-home parents returning to work.

Their recruitment manager, Cloé, says:

‍“Since making this change, I’ve seen a real improvement in the quality of candidates. They’re also a much better fit for the team.”

‍ These individuals bring patience, consistency, and an understanding of what it means to support someone over time, qualities that are difficult to teach through training alone.

How to Adopt this Approach

‍Moving from the Red Ocean to the Blue Ocean starts with changing where you look for candidates and how you present the role.

Here are some practical ways to do that:

• Use job boards differently
  Job boards attract active job seekers, often the same candidates your competitors are targeting. Continue using them, but don’t rely on them as your primary source of recruitment.
  
  

• Change what your job ads lead with
  Most job ads focus on tasks and requirements, attracting experience-led applicants. Lead with your core purpose, supporting people in your community, and you’ll appeal to a different type of candidate.
  
  
  

• Actively recruit in your community
  Your ideal candidates are often already local, but not searching for care roles. Focus on places where people demonstrate care-related behaviours, such as community groups, schools, local networks, and volunteer organisations.
  
  

• Stop filtering by experience alone
  Requiring previous care experience limits your pool. Prioritising behaviours like empathy and reliability allows you to bring in people who are new to care but better suited to the role.

What’s Next?

Values-based recruitment isn’t about increasing application numbers. It’s about changing where you look and how you attract people.

‍

That’s exactly what we help home care providers do at My Way. With experience supporting offices to move beyond job boards and into their local communities, we help you reach people who are better aligned with the role from the start.

‍

If you’re ready to step away from the Red Ocean and adopt a more values-led approach to recruitment, we can help you put that into practice.