Hiring nurses means screening high volume quickly. A 200-bed hospital might post one med-surg role and get 150 applications in two weeks. Most hiring managers spend weeks conducting first-round interviews just to narrow the pool—time they don't have when staffing gaps directly impact patient care. The standard problem: you need to identify clinical competence, assess fit for 12-hour shifts and on-call schedules, and confirm licensure eligibility before phone screens even start. Delays compound: if your first interview loop takes three weeks, candidates accept offers elsewhere. Raffi, an agentic AI recruiter, handles the structured first-round interview at scale. It conducts consistent, rubric-scored interviews for every applicant—assessing clinical reasoning, resilience under pressure, communication across hand-offs, and cultural fit—in parallel rather than serially. Candidates complete interviews on their schedule; Raffi scores them against your criteria; your team sees ranked results, not an undifferentiated pile. You skip the administrative churn of scheduling and note-taking and move directly to final conversations with qualified candidates. For nursing roles, where volume and speed matter equally, this workflow compresses hiring cycles and ensures no strong candidate gets lost in scheduling chaos.
3,620/mo
Nursing recruiting searches
10-15 min
Per applicant interview
$0
Placement / hire fees
Raffi calls every applicant for a 10-15 min structured interview. Not just the top 5 résumés — every one. Result: nobody good slips through.
Conversational AI interview, rubric-anchored scoring, transcripts you can read. You get a top 3-5 shortlist while competitors are still scheduling first-rounds.
SaaS pricing from $199/mo. No 15-25% of first-year salary, no per-hire kickback. Cancel anytime.
Nursing labor markets remain tight across most regions and specialties. Vacancy rates in acute-care settings hold between 8–12%, well above pre-pandemic levels, though some markets (parts of the upper Midwest, certain rural areas) are seeing softer demand. Turnover remains elevated—industry data points to 20–25% annual turnover among RNs in hospital settings—driving continuous hiring pressure. Time-to-fill for med-surg and ICU roles still averages 45–60 days, and teams report that extended hiring timelines correlate directly with offer rejections (candidates get multiple offers and move fast). What's shifting: teams are moving away from culture-fit-only hiring and building objective rubrics around clinical judgment and communication. Some health systems are experimenting with asynchronous video first-rounds to compress interview cycles. Passive sourcing remains low in nursing—most hires come from active applications or direct referrals. The market rewards speed and clarity: clear role descriptions, prompt communication, and fast feedback loops now directly influence acceptance rates.
Nursing hiring differs fundamentally from generic tech or professional services roles. First, credentialing is non-negotiable: licensure verification, background checks, and sometimes specialty certifications (ACLS, PALS) must be confirmed before hire, not after. Second, the role is highly regulated; certain questions about physical demands, shift flexibility, and on-call availability are legally constrained. Third, clinical judgment cannot be assessed via resume—you need behavioral signals about decision-making under pressure, prioritization, and collaboration. Fourth, nursing roles are high-volume: a single opening can generate 100+ applications, making serial interview scheduling impractical. Fifth, retention risk is acute; poor culture or schedule fit drives turnover quickly, so assessing these dimensions early prevents costly mis-hires. Finally, shift-based scheduling requirements make availability assessment critical from the start—someone unavailable for nights or weekends needs to be identified before time is invested.
Anchored to real offer data, not estimate aggregates.
Role-specific, behavioral, structured. Same questions for every applicant — the only way to score fairly.
Tell me about a time you had to prioritize care for multiple patients with competing needs. How did you decide what came first?
What it tests: Clinical judgment and prioritization under pressure
Describe a situation where you caught a potential medication error or safety issue. How did you handle it?
What it tests: Safety awareness and willingness to escalate concerns
You notice a colleague is struggling with a procedure. Do you step in, and how?
What it tests: Teamwork, communication, and support in high-stress environments
Tell me about a patient interaction that didn't go as planned. What did you learn?
What it tests: Resilience, reflection, and ability to adapt to difficult encounters
Our shifts include weekends, nights, and on-call rotations. Walk me through your availability and any constraints.
What it tests: Schedule fit and honesty about shift flexibility
Nursing hiring teams typically deal with high applicant volume per role, narrow technical bars, and tight time-to-hire windows. Raffi automates the screening loop end-to-end — every nurses applicant gets a structured interview within 24 hours, scored against your rubric. You spend your time on the top 3-5 instead of 60 résumés.
Yes. Raffi generates role-specific behavioral questions tied to your scorecard. For nursing we anchor on the structured questions hiring managers in this vertical actually use (a few samples are listed above). You can edit any of them before they go live.
License verification and background checks should be initiated after your first-round screening but before final offer. Raffi's interview loop doesn't replace credentialing; it accelerates your ability to identify clinically sound candidates worth verifying. You complete formal licensure checks through your state nursing board database and approved background services—this remains your responsibility and is non-negotiable.
Yes. Schedule fit is a legitimate and critical assessment area in nursing—you can ask directly about willingness to work nights, weekends, and on-call rotations. Avoid questions about caregiving obligations or disabilities; focus on the availability itself. Raffi's interview structure lets you embed these questions consistently across all candidates.
Prioritize clinical decision-making, communication, and adaptability alongside cultural fit. Med-surg environments are unpredictable; you're hiring for nurses who think critically and stay calm. Use behavioral questions about past high-acuity situations. Let Raffi conduct these interviews at scale so your team focuses final conversations on relationship-building and unit-specific scenarios.
Agentic recruiting is recruiting done by an AI agent that takes action on your behalf — not a chatbot or résumé summarizer. Raffi calls every applicant for a structured 10-15 minute interview, scores them against your rubric, and hands you a ranked top 3-5. The work happens autonomously.
Most agencies charge 15-25% of first-year salary as a placement fee — a $90k hire runs $13-22k. Raffi is SaaS at $199-599/mo plus per-action credits, typically landing under $10k/year for a team hiring 12 people. Same shortlist quality, no placement contract.
About 25 minutes to onboard, post your first role, and have Raffi ready to interview applicants. No engineering work, no integration project. Connect your work email, paste a JD, you're live.
Free $25 starter credit. No credit card. Screening live by tonight.