There is no single healthcare recruiting budget number. Cost per hire runs from about $5,475 for a typical non-executive hire to $35,879 for an executive hire, per SHRM. An RN vacancy costs more than $61,000. A physician search can add roughly $16,000 in outside search fees. This guide gives the benchmarks, the sources behind them, and a method for turning them into a budget.
TL;DR
- SHRM 2025 data: $5,475 average cost per hire for non-executive roles, $35,879 for executive roles. Recruiting averages 26% of the total HR budget.
- Clinical roles sit well above the general average. An RN vacancy costs over $61,000 with an 83-day time to hire (Recruitics, 2025).
- Provider searches: about three months to fill, plus three to four months of credentialing, at a median of about $15,938 per outside search.
- Retention is part of the recruiting budget. Average bedside RN turnover costs $60,090 per nurse (NSI, 2026).
- Budget by role family, not as one blended number. Track cost per hire, time to fill and source mix every quarter.
Table of Contents
- What the headline benchmarks say
- Why healthcare costs more than the general average
- Benchmarks by role family
- The hidden costs that belong in the budget
- Retention is a recruiting budget line
- How to build your healthcare recruiting budget
- A worked example
- Our view: budget for fit, not volume
- Where ConnectedMedics fits
- FAQ
- Sources
What the headline benchmarks say
Start with the cross-industry numbers. They are the floor, not the target.
| Benchmark | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average cost per hire, non-executive | $5,475 | SHRM 2025 |
| Average cost per hire, executive | $35,879 | SHRM 2025 |
| Recruiting share of total HR budget | 26% on average | SHRM 2025 |
| Cost to fill one RN vacancy | Over $61,000 | Recruitics 2025 survey |
| RN time to hire | 83 days on average | Recruitics 2025 survey |
| Median outside search cost, provider | About $15,938 | Intelliworx |
| Cost of turnover, bedside RN | $60,090 on average | NSI 2026 report |
Two cautions on reading the table.
- The figures measure different things. SHRM cost per hire counts direct recruiting costs across all industries. The RN vacancy figure includes the wider cost of an open position. Do not add them together.
- Averages hide spread. A rural critical access hospital, an academic medical center and a home care agency will not land on the same number.
SHRM also notes that executive hires are, on average, nearly seven times as expensive as non-executive hires. That gap is useful when a CFO asks why a CMO or CNO search needs its own line in the budget. SHRM's state of recruiting analysis adds that executive time to fill has fallen since 2022 while cost per hire has risen. Organizations appear to be paying a premium to move faster on high-impact leadership roles.
Why healthcare costs more than the general average
The $5,475 figure is a starting point. Healthcare hiring adds cost in five places.
- Licensure and credentialing. Provider roles need three to four months of credentialing after the offer, according to Intelliworx. The salary line may not start, but the vacancy keeps costing.
- Scarce candidate pools. Specialty nurses, anesthesia, behavioral health and procedural physicians draw few applicants. Sourcing time and agency use rise.
- Contract labor. Company Ventures reports that contract staffing often accounts for over 50% of recruitment-related spending, with agency fees of 15% to 30% of annual salary per placement.
- Long vacancies. Each open week means overtime, premium pay or lost revenue.
- Early turnover. A hire who leaves in year one resets the whole cost.
None of these show up in a simple cost-per-hire formula. A budget that ignores them looks lean on paper and overspends in practice.
Benchmarks by role family
Blended numbers mislead. Build the budget from these role families instead.
Registered nurses
The Recruitics survey puts the cost of an RN vacancy at over $61,000, with an 83-day average time to hire. NSI's 2026 report adds the retention side: the average cost of turnover for a bedside RN is $60,090. It also reports national RN turnover at 17.6%, up 1.2 points, and says each percentage point of RN turnover costs or saves the average hospital about $295,000 a year.
For budget purposes, a nurse hire is a two-part cost: the cost of filling the seat and the cost of losing the person who held it. Our guides on cutting RN time to fill and cutting nurse vacancy rates in 90 days cover the operating side.
Physicians and advanced practice providers
Intelliworx reports a median of three months to fill a provider vacancy, a further three to four months for credentialing, and a median search cost of about $15,938 when an outside firm is used. Smaller organizations with fewer than 200 providers can spend over $250,000 a year in search service fees alone, according to the same source.
Physician hiring is also where passive candidates matter most. Many are not browsing job boards. See the five-stage passive physician recruiting playbook for how to reach them without paying a fee on every hire.
Executives
Plan on the SHRM executive average of $35,879 as a baseline, and expect healthcare leadership searches to run higher where retained search is used. Treat this as a separate line, not a share of the general pool.
Allied health, healthcare assistants and home care
Published benchmarks for these roles are thinner. One industry source cited in current search results shows large spreads between caregiver and therapy applicant costs, which confirms that the role mix drives the number. Do not borrow an RN or physician figure for these roles. Use your own last 12 months of cost per hire by role, and adjust with a local wage and demand check.
The hidden costs that belong in the budget
Vacancy cost
An unfilled nursing position is paid for anyway, through overtime, incentive shifts or agency staff. The AHA workforce scan points to flexible resource pools that use demand forecasting and precision scheduling to fill gaps without relying on estimates. The budget implication is simple: every week removed from time to fill has a dollar value. Calculate it before you argue for or against a tool or a fee.
Onboarding time
The same AHA scan describes onboarding as an underused lever. Cutting onboarding by even a few weeks through data-driven assessments can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per facility, as it reduces new-hire attrition and the need for temporary staff. Put onboarding in the recruiting budget owner's scorecard, or nobody owns it.
Job posting cost
Postings look cheap until you count the screening time. We break this down in the hidden cost behind healthcare job postings. A low per-post fee with a poor applicant fit costs more than a higher fee with relevant applicants.
Agency and contract spend
Agency fees of 15% to 30% of annual salary per placement (Company Ventures) mean a single placement for a $90,000 role can cost $13,500 to $27,000. That arithmetic is ours; the percentage range is the source's. Contract labor is sometimes the right call. It should be a deliberate line, not the default.
Retention is a recruiting budget line
The cheapest hire is the one you do not need to make. NYC Health + Hospitals cut staff nurse turnover from 46% in 2019 to 7.3% in 2025, against a national average of 16.4% in the AHA market scan. The AHA attributes the savings to investments such as clinical ladders and specialized fellowships. Note that NSI's 2026 report puts national RN turnover at 17.6%, so figures vary by survey and year. Compare like with like.
Recruitics' survey found that referrals are about 60% more cost-efficient than job boards and retain talent better. Internal mobility and structured residency programs rank alongside them. A practical split follows.
- Fund internal mobility and referral bonuses first. They have the lowest cost per hire.
- Fund retention programs next. Each avoided resignation saves a full replacement cycle.
- Use external channels for roles the internal pipeline cannot fill.
Finance teams looking at wider people-cost containment can compare approaches in this finance-ready cost containment playbook. It covers employer health spend rather than hiring, but the budgeting logic carries over.
How to build your healthcare recruiting budget
Step 1: Pull your own baseline
For the last 12 months, list by role family: hires made, total recruiting spend, time to fill, source of hire and 12-month retention. Include internal recruiter pay, job board fees, agency invoices, referral bonuses, sign-on bonuses, relocation and credentialing fees.
Step 2: Compare against the benchmarks
Place your numbers beside the table above. If your RN cost per hire is far below the Recruitics figure, check that you are counting vacancy cost. If it is far above, check agency share.
Step 3: Forecast demand
Count known vacancies, expected turnover and planned growth. Use your own turnover rate times headcount. The NSI figure of 17.6% for RNs is a reference point, not a forecast for your unit.
Step 4: Set a share by channel
A workable starting mix:
| Channel | Role in the budget |
|---|---|
| Referrals and internal mobility | Fund first, cap by bonus per hire |
| Specialty job board and direct sourcing | Core volume for most clinical roles |
| Retained or contingency search | Executives and hard-to-fill physician specialties |
| Agency and contract staff | Surge and gap cover only |
| Employer branding and recruitment marketing | Steady, small, measured by applicant quality |
One ranking result cites a general rule of 6% of top-line revenue for recruitment marketing. We could not verify its basis, so treat it with caution. Healthcare budgets vary too widely for a revenue rule to hold.
Step 5: Add a contingency
Credentialing delays, agency use and unexpected turnover push spend up. Hold a reserve in the plan and release it against defined triggers, such as a vacancy open past your time-to-fill target.
Step 6: Review quarterly
Track cost per hire, time to fill, offer acceptance, first-year retention and agency share. Our list of eight healthcare recruitment metrics gives benchmarks that flag hiring gaps.
A worked example
Take a 200-bed community hospital planning 60 RN hires and 6 physician hires in a year. The figures below are illustrative inputs, not benchmarks.
- RN hires: if internal data shows $8,000 of direct cost per hire, direct spend is $480,000. The wider vacancy and turnover cost sits on top.
- Physician hires: with six searches at the median of about $15,938, outside search fees alone come to $95,628.
- Agency cover: if 10 RN gaps are filled by agency at 20% of a $90,000 salary, that adds $180,000.
The point is the structure: direct costs, search fees and gap cover are three separate lines, each with a different lever. Moving five of the physician searches to direct sourcing, or five agency placements to referrals, has a visible effect on the plan.
Our view: budget for fit, not volume
We run a healthcare-only network with verified profiles and a global jobs board that lists over 22,000 active healthcare vacancies. What we see is consistent with the benchmarks above.
Generic boards produce volume. Healthcare teams need relevance. Every unqualified applicant costs screening time, and screening time is a recruiting cost that rarely appears on an invoice. A smaller pool of credential-checked clinicians filtered by specialty is usually cheaper per hire than a large pool of unfiltered applicants. Our comparison of a medical job board versus general recruitment sets out the trade-offs.
Three practical points follow from this.
- Measure cost per qualified applicant, not cost per posting.
- Move spend toward channels that reach clinicians in their specialty, including referral networks. See how a clinician referral network works.
- Treat diversity and pipeline work as budget lines with targets. Our guide on diversity hiring in healthcare gives two evidence-backed starting moves.
Benchmarks tell you where you stand. They do not tell you where your own money leaks. Your last 12 months of data does.
— David
Where ConnectedMedics fits
Employers can post jobs and reach verified clinicians through ConnectedMedics employer plans. Plans are Free, Growth, Enterprise and Premium Employer. The Growth plan is listed at £99 per month. Free, Enterprise and Premium Employer have no published price. Details for the top tier are on the Premium Employer page. Per-hire fees apply to successful placements. Check current terms on the plan pages before budgeting.
FAQ
What is a good cost per hire in healthcare?
There is no single good number. SHRM's 2025 data shows $5,475 on average for non-executive roles across industries, and clinical roles often run higher. Compare against your own role family and your own past 12 months. Lower is only better if first-year retention holds.
How much should a hospital spend on recruiting?
SHRM reports that recruiting averages 26% of the total HR budget. Beyond that, build from demand: planned hires times cost per hire by role, plus search fees, agency cover and a contingency. Revenue-based rules of thumb vary and are hard to verify.
How much does it cost to replace a nurse?
NSI's 2026 report puts the average cost of turnover for a bedside RN at $60,090. Recruitics reports an RN vacancy costs over $61,000 with an 83-day time to hire. The two figures measure related but different things, so use one consistently in planning.
Are referrals cheaper than job boards?
Recruitics reports that referrals are about 60% more cost-efficient than job boards and retain talent better. Results depend on your bonus structure and workforce size. Track source of hire for a full year before shifting spend.
How long does it take to hire a physician?
Intelliworx reports a median of three months to fill a provider vacancy, plus three to four months of credentialing. Start credentialing paperwork as early as the offer allows, and budget for the vacancy cost during that period.
Sources
- SHRM: 2025 benchmarking reports
- SHRM: The State of Recruiting 2025
- Recruitics: 2025 Healthcare Talent Survey
- Intelliworx: Efficient physician hiring 2025
- Company Ventures: workforce whitepaper
- AHA: Good News about Hospitals
- AHA: 2024 Health Care Workforce Scan
- NSI: 2026 National Health Care Retention and RN Staffing Report