Three voicemails, two texts, and an email nobody opened. The aide you were sure about, the one with clean references and open availability, has gone dark. And a new referral needs a start of care by the end of the week.

You know how this goes. Home health candidates apply to several agencies in one sitting, and whoever gets a real conversation first usually wins. A screen booked for next week loses to an agency that called today.

So stop asking people to meet you at a set time. A one-way video interview lets them answer on their own time, and it takes out one of the places ghosting starts.

Why they vanish (it's rarely flakiness)

Your candidates work in other people's homes. A CNA mid-visit can't take your call. An aide between clients isn't picking up a number she doesn't recognize, and she shouldn't. Your screen lands in the one window she can't use.

Then there's speed. If the application sat for two days, she's already had a conversation somewhere else. Add a long packet before anyone has said hello, and the quiet ones start to make sense.

Most of this isn't a character problem. It's a timing problem, and timing is something you can fix.

Put a number on your no-shows first

Pull last month. Count the screens you booked, then count the ones that never happened. Multiply the no-shows by the minutes you set aside for each call, and that's the coordinator time you spent waiting on calls that never came.

That's the small cost. The bigger one is the case that sat unstaffed while you rescheduled, and the candidates you never reached because the slots were full of people who weren't coming.

Write your number down. You'll want it later.

Here's the fix. A link goes out the same day someone applies. The candidate answers three to five questions whenever they like, on their phone, with nothing to download. Your team reviews between visits. No scheduling, no back-and-forth.

Candidates get something out of it too. The candidate experience is a few minutes after their last visit instead of a call they dodge at the grocery store.

Keep your phone screen. This just decides who earns one.

Here's what Wedge doesn't do. It doesn't run live interviews and it doesn't schedule anything. It also doesn't pick anyone. Candidate Signals reads the transcript only and gives you a summary, so you can see who's worth watching first. A person still decides.

Pricing details are on the pricing page.

Ask the questions that matter in this work

Home health is people-facing in the most literal way. You're sending someone into a client's kitchen. Your questions should sound like the job.

  • Tell us about a time a client was having a rough day. What did you do?
  • A family member questions how you handled a task. How do you respond?
  • Which shifts and areas can you reliably cover?

Ask every candidate the same questions, every time. It's quicker to compare, and it leaves a recorded record of how you screened. That's a structured interview, not a legal shield, so talk to your own counsel about what your state requires.

Close the gap after they answer

Ghosting doesn't stop at the interview. Silence after a good answer reads as a no, and the candidate moves on.

  • Send the interview link within the hour of the application.
  • Say in the invite who reviews it and when they'll hear back.
  • Block one review window a day, so videos don't pile up.
  • Call the ones worth watching first the same day.
  • Send a short note to everyone else, so nobody is left guessing.

Review time is where video wins for a small team. Watching a stack of short answers beats rounds of phone tag, and you can do it with a coffee between care plan updates.

Start with one list

Tomorrow, take last month's list of booked screens and mark every one that didn't happen. That's your baseline. Then send the next ten candidates a link instead of a calendar slot, and compare.

If you want to see it set up for a multi-location team, you can book a demo and bring that list with you.