At a time when almost four in five senior caregivers leave their job after the first 100 days — and the average caregiver costs $2,600 to replace — asking the right interview questions is an essential component of any home care, senior living, or hospice organization’s hiring process.

Showing respect for candidates’ time can also help support retention efforts by engaging potential senior caregivers who truly want to work for your organization. Here’s how to identify the best candidates to build a strong caregiving team.

Inside this guide, you’ll find:

What is a senior caregiver?

Senior caregivers are essential workers who help older individuals with physical or cognitive limitations perform daily life tasks, such as eating, bathing, cleaning, and taking medication. They either work in an individual’s home or in a residential care facility. Common titles include: Personal Care Aide, Home Health Aide, Care Specialist, and Certified Nursing Assistant.

95% of caregivers said educational opportunities are an important part of accepting an offer.

Qualities to look for in senior caregivers

Similar to nurses, counselors, and EMTs, senior caregivers need a large amount of empathy and patience to be good at their job. In addition, they must also possess or be willing to go through appropriate training. Here are ten must-have qualities to look for when interviewing senior caregiver applicants.

Empathy: Sees clients as whole people, demonstrates compassion for needs, and cultivates patience.
Respect: Understands how to respect boundaries and remembers clients’ preferences.
Time management: Prioritizes to-do lists effectively and practices good communication around schedules.
Physical stamina: Performs all responsibilities related to the role, such as lifting, squatting, and pushing.
Sense of humor: Finds moments of fun in day-to-day life, helps counterbalance tension and foster bonds with clients.
Trustworthiness: Trustworthy with medications, shows up on time, reports mistakes when they occur.
State requirements: Meets minimum state requirements such as legal authorization to work, background checks, and proof of residence. If required, possesses current CNA or LNA license where applicable.
Basic training: Assists clients with medical, social, and personal services, including hygiene and mobility.
Speciality training: Assists clients with specialized needs, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, infection control, and palliative care.
Home safety: Identifies hazards, secures medications, sets up and inspects bathroom equipment, uses safety equipment.

20 interview questions for senior caregivers

Home health and personal care aide jobs are projected to grow 29% by 2030, so setting a strong foundation for your hiring process now will pay off when it’s time to scale. Here are 20 interview questions to help you vet applicants and surface the best ones quickly.

Empathy

What personality traits or skills in particular make you a good caregiver?
What is your biggest struggle when caring for seniors (or what do you think it will be)? How do you (or how would you) overcome that?
Tell me about a time you had a positive impact on someone.
How do you provide emotional support to a client who you don’t naturally connect with?

Trustworthiness

How do you stay motivated when you’re working with little to no supervision?
What is your approach to maintaining confidentiality and privacy in your caregiving role?
What measures do you take to ensure the physical safety of your clients, especially those with mobility issues or other vulnerabilities?
How would you respond to a client who uses rude or derogatory language toward you?

Skill level

How do your skills relate to this job?
Are you certified to perform CPR?
Do you have a driver’s license? Do you have reliable transportation and insurance?
Are you comfortable performing care and hygiene tasks for clients?
What types of diagnoses have you cared for?
What specialized certifications do you have, or would you like to pursue?

Collaboration

How do you manage or approach challenging family members of clients?
In your opinion, what role does family communication play in effective caregiving, and how do you facilitate this?
What would you do if you disagreed with your supervisor on how to best care for a client?

Culture fit

What strategies do you use to manage the stress that comes with caregiving?
Share with me a time when you demonstrated [one of your company’s core values].
What is a personal value that is important to you, and why?

Tips for hiring senior caregivers

With caregiver turnover rising to 79.2% in 2024, it can be helpful to adopt proven tips from other industries with higher turnover rates –- such as retail and hospitality. Here are five strategies for reaching qualified senior caregiver talent, attracting them to your business, and making the hire.

Offer a mobile application experience

Senior caregivers are often on the go, caring for clients, performing tasks around homes or facilities, and driving to and from work locations. Offering a mobile-optimized recruiting experience that lets them apply in one click on their phone can go a long way in reaching candidates who are busy — and don’t often own a computer.

Communicate with candidates via SMS or WhatsApp

High-volume candidates are less likely to conduct their job search from a computer or use email frequently, so it’s important to offer the option to communicate through mobile messaging. With SmartMessage, the entire hiring team can view the text-based communication that reaches the candidate via SMS or Whatsapp in the ATS’s candidate inbox.

Post videos on your career site

An effective career site showcases your business’s culture and values, elevates employee voices through video and photography, and encourages applications with a user-friendly design. Videos offer a glimpse into your facility and prepare candidates for what they can expect when they arrive on-site. SRG Senior Living offers a variety of content features on its career site built with SmartAttrax.

Integrate with background check tools

Senior caregivers are required to pass certain background checks to meet minimum state requirements, such as criminal checks. Using an applicant tracking system (ATS) that integrates with background check tools helps streamline this process by triggering the relevant checks when the offer is made.

Develop a job fair and event marketing strategy

Networking like career fairs, partnering with local organizations, and campus recruitment events let your business connect with senior caregiving candidates in a more personable way. Use a QR code to direct interested prospects to job pages and be ready to capture interest from promising talent with a CRM that allows you to follow up after the event.

How to show care for your candidates

Senior caregivers perform extremely important work helping vulnerable members of communities live with dignity and grace. You can meet them where they want to be met with seamless application experiences that take their needs into consideration as well as yours.

KinCare offers personal in-home aged care services to older Australians through their workforce of 1,500. After improving the candidate experience with SmartRecruiters, the company saw:

Time-to-fill reduced to 18 days from 40
60% decrease in candidate drop-off rate
>90% approval rating of the recruitment process in employee surveys

Hiring competitively in regulated industries like senior care requires a technology partner you can rely on. Sign up for a demo to explore how SmartRecruiters can help you streamline your senior caregiver recruitment with a collaborative, easy-to-use hiring platform.