Should You Hire Caregivers or Find Clients First When Starting a Home Care Agency?

One of the biggest mistakes new Home Care CEOs make may happen before they ever serve their first client.

You finally decided to start your home care business. You're working through licensing, developing your policies and procedures, setting up your business operations, and preparing for the day you can officially begin accepting clients.

Then comes one of the biggest questions:

“Should I hire caregivers first, or should I start marketing for clients first?”

I have been asked this question countless times by aspiring and newly licensed Home Care CEOs.

My answer?

Market first.

Now, that does not mean you should completely ignore caregiver recruitment until a client calls you tomorrow needing care.

There is an important difference between recruiting caregivers and hiring caregivers.

Understanding that difference can save your new home care agency time, money, frustration—and potentially protect your reputation in the caregiver community.

Let me explain.

Recruiting and Hiring Are NOT the Same Thing

Recruiting is the process of finding, attracting, screening and developing relationships with potential candidates who may be a good fit for your agency.

You can recruit before you have clients.

In fact, you should.

You can begin:

• Identifying where qualified caregivers are located
• Posting employment opportunities
• Collecting applications and résumés
• Networking with CNAs, HHAs, PCAs and nurses
• Building relationships with potential candidates
• Learning about the caregiver workforce in your market
• Creating a pipeline of people you may eventually want to hire

Hiring, however, is different.

Hiring means you've selected someone and are moving that person through the process necessary to formally bring them onto your team.

Depending on your agency, state requirements, payer sources and the position being filled, that process may include interviews, reference checks, credential verification, background screening, health-related requirements, employment documentation, orientation, onboarding and training.

That's where many new Home Care CEOs get ahead of themselves.

They don't simply recruit before they have clients.

They start hiring everybody.

“But Sean, I Want Caregivers Ready When I Get My First Client!”

I understand the thinking.

You're afraid that you'll start marketing, someone will call needing services, and you won't have anyone available to staff the case.

So you decide to solve the problem in advance.

You hire five caregivers.

Maybe ten.

Maybe more.

Everybody completes your process and is ready to work.

There's just one problem.

Where are the clients?

A week goes by.

Your caregivers start calling.

"Do you have any cases?"

Another week passes.

"When can I start working?"

Eventually:

"Do you have anything available in my area?"

Remember something very important:

Your caregivers need income.

They're probably not going to wait indefinitely for your agency to find its first client.

They're going to find work somewhere else.

And now you may have created two problems instead of solving one.

Hiring Caregivers Costs Money BEFORE They Work a Shift

New agency owners sometimes think:

"I'm not paying caregivers until they're actually working with a client, so what's the harm in hiring early?"

Here's the problem:

Hiring isn't free.

Even before payroll begins, you've invested resources into that employee.

Someone had to create the job posting.

Someone had to review the applications.

Someone had to screen the candidates.

Someone had to make the phone calls.

Someone conducted the interviews.

Someone processed the paperwork.

And who is that someone?

It may be you.

Or it may be an employee whom you're paying by the hour.

Either way, there is a cost.

Yes, technology and AI can help streamline parts of recruiting and screening, but human oversight and final decision-making are still necessary.

Then you decide to hire the candidate.

Now there may be additional costs and administrative responsibilities associated with background screening, credential verification, onboarding, orientation, required health documentation or testing, training and other applicable requirements.

The specific requirements—and who is permitted or required to pay particular costs—can vary based on your state, worker classification, payer, agency type and applicable employment laws.

But the larger business lesson remains:

There is a cost associated with getting a caregiver from “applicant” to “ready to work.”

Now multiply that cost by ten.

Ten applications processed.

Ten interviews.

Ten employee files.

Ten onboarding processes.

Ten orientations.

Ten people trained.

And all ten are sitting at home because...

You forgot to market the business.

Welcome to today's lesson:

How NOT to Waste Money in Your Home Care Business! 😂

The Bigger Problem: You May Have to Pay for the Process TWICE

Here's where premature hiring can become even more expensive.

Let's say you hire ten caregivers.

Three months later, your marketing finally begins generating results.

You get your first client.

Then another.

Maybe a referral source sends you a fantastic case requiring multiple shifts.

You're excited!

Now you call those caregivers you hired months ago.

Guess what?

They've moved on.

They needed work, so they accepted positions with other agencies.

Now you need caregivers immediately.

What happens next?

You start recruiting again.

You start screening again.

You start interviewing again.

You start onboarding again.

You start training again.

You're repeating work you already paid for—in either money or time—because the timing between your client-acquisition strategy and staffing strategy wasn't aligned.

Hiring Too Early Can Also Hurt Your Agency's Reputation

This is the part I believe aspiring Home Care CEOs need to hear more often.

Caregivers talk.

CNAs know other CNAs.

Nurses know nurses.

Home Health Aides know other Home Health Aides.

Personal Care Aides know other Personal Care Aides.

People tell their friends where the good cases are, which agencies communicate well, which companies pay competitively—and which agencies don't have work.

Imagine several people having the same experience with your new agency:

"Yeah, they hired me, but I never got a case."

That can eventually become:

“That agency will hire you, but they don't have any work.”

You've now potentially created an employer-brand problem.

And the irony is painful.

When you finally have clients and desperately need caregivers, some candidates may already have a negative perception of your agency.

Your staffing problem didn't start when you got the client.

It may have started months earlier when you hired too aggressively without sufficient demand.

So What Should a New Home Care Agency Do?

This is where strategy matters.

My philosophy is:

Build your client pipeline AND your caregiver pipeline.

You don't have to choose between completely ignoring caregivers and hiring twenty people tomorrow.

Start recruiting.

Build relationships.

Develop your job descriptions.

Create your interviewing process.

Establish your onboarding system.

Know your state's requirements.

Identify good potential caregivers.

Create a pool of qualified candidates.

At the same time, MARKET YOUR BUSINESS.

Start building relationships with referral sources.

Build your digital presence.

Introduce your agency to your community.

Develop your marketing strategy.

Create awareness around the services you plan to provide.

Start developing potential leads.

Then, as client demand becomes more tangible, you can strategically move qualified candidates from your recruiting pipeline into your hiring and onboarding process.

I like to explain the sequence this way:

MARKET → BUILD DEMAND → RECRUIT → HIRE → ONBOARD → STAFF → RETAIN

And several of these activities can and should overlap.

The goal isn't to wait until you desperately need someone before recruiting.

The goal is to avoid building a large workforce with nothing for them to do.

Or, as I recently told my community:

Build your client pipeline before you build your caregiver payroll.

Don't Forget What Happens AFTER You Hire Them

There's another mistake I see new Home Care CEOs make.

They put tremendous effort into finding caregivers but very little effort into figuring out how they're going to keep them.

Recruitment is only the beginning.

Once good caregivers join your agency, your company culture matters.

Communication matters.

Leadership matters.

Scheduling matters.

Training matters.

Recognition matters.

Competitive compensation matters.

Feeling respected matters.

Your caregivers' experience working with your company matters.

I want you to remember this:

Recruiting gets them through the door. Culture gives them a reason to stay.

Your goal shouldn't simply be to have names on a caregiver roster.

Your goal should be to build a dependable field team capable of providing consistent, quality care as your client census grows.

Watch the FREE Training: Hire First or Market First?

I recently went LIVE to discuss this exact question because it comes up so frequently with aspiring and newly licensed Home Care CEOs.

During the training, I break down the difference between recruiting and hiring, the hidden financial costs of hiring too early, the potential impact on your reputation, and how to think strategically about building your caregiver and client pipelines.

🎥 Watch the FREE “Hire First or Market First?” training here

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

This is one reason I constantly remind aspiring Home Care CEOs that getting licensed and knowing how to operate an agency are two different things.

You may know that you need caregivers.

But:

When should you recruit them?

When should you hire them?

How many should you hire?

What should your screening process look like?

How will you onboard them?

What training is required?

How will you retain them?

How do you build your client pipeline at the same time?

These are Administrator-level decisions.

And if you've never operated a Home Care or Home Health Care business before, you may not even know which questions you should be asking yet.

That's where having a system—and mentorship—can make a significant difference.

Inside the Home Care Kickstarter Program, we spend approximately 2–3 weeks working specifically on the recruiting, hiring and onboarding processes.

And we don't stop at getting people hired.

We also address the company culture and retention strategies necessary to keep good field workers—including nurses, CNAs, aides and caregivers—loyal and engaged with your agency.

If you're preparing to start a Home Care or Home Health Care Business and didn't realize these are systems you need in your Administrator toolbox, you don't have to figure everything out through trial and error.

Get the mentorship and guidance you need.

Enrollment in the Home Care Kickstarter Program is open, with both full-payment and payment-plan options available.

👉 LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOME CARE KICKSTARTER PROGRAM

Because the goal isn't simply to open a home care agency.

The goal is to build one that can market, recruit, hire, retain, serve and grow.

Sean
Savvy Business Chick™
The Original Home Care Mentor