Employers’ requests when advertising for nurses—A national mapping of recruitment advertising for nurses in Sweden

Introduction: There is a shortage of nurses and many are leaving the profession. Maintaining sufficient nursing staff is a major healthcare challenge for societies worldwide. Work conditions, job orientation, and career opportunities all factor into nurses’ rates of attrition, exit, and turnover. Newly graduated nurses have requested structured introductory and/or mentoring programmes to ease their transition from education to work life and develop the skills and knowledge necessary in their particular work setting. Nurses also seek opportunities to continue learning and developing professionally. Aims: To map and describe the content of recruitment advertisements for nurses. Research questions were: ‘What qualifications do healthcare employers request when recruiting nurses?’ and ‘What sorts of professional development do healthcare employers offer nurses? Materials and methods: A comprehensive national mapping of recruitment advertisements for nurses in Sweden where all advertisements, N = 450, on 20 of the 21 regional hospital websites were collected. A qualitative and a quantitative content analysis was performed. Results: Personal characteristics dominated requested competence in recruitment advertisements. Employers offered general nursing opportunities with unspecific work content and focused more on recruiting newly registered, rather than experienced, nurses. In only a few advertisements, employers asked for a master’s degree. No employer requested nurses with a PhD or research experience. Conclusion: While the World Health Organization stresses the need for a sustainable recruitment and attainment of nurses to secure health care, employers’ recruitment of mostly newly graduated nurses and offering little professional development and few career opportunities may be one explanation for the difficulties in securing safe nurse staffing.