Healthcare Provider Boosts Hiring with iCIMS Platform — How ATI Physical Therapy Built a Long-Term Clinical Talent Pipeline with AI
Talent Acquisition / Talent Relationship Management | 4 min read
iCIMS, the leading enterprise talent acquisition platform, has announced that ATI Physical Therapy — one of the largest providers of outpatient physical therapy in the United States, operating more than 850 clinics nationwide and employing approximately 6,000 people — is using iCIMS to build and maintain a long-term talent pipeline for highly competitive clinical roles. By leveraging iCIMS Candidate Experience Management (CXM), the platform's AI-enabled candidate relationship management technology, ATI Physical Therapy has achieved a threefold growth in its candidate database and a 17% year-over-year increase in applicants per opening — without adding extra headcount to the recruiting team.
The Challenge: Recruiting Clinicians Who Haven't Graduated Yet
Recruiting for clinical roles — physical therapists, occupational therapists, and physical therapist assistants — presents a hiring challenge that traditional ATS-driven processes are not built to solve. Many of the most qualified candidates are still students who will not enter the workforce for months or even years. In a highly competitive labour market for clinical talent, waiting until a candidate is ready to apply is already too late. ATI Physical Therapy partnered with iCIMS in 2021 specifically to address this challenge: engage future clinicians early and maintain meaningful relationships throughout their academic and clinical training, so that when they are ready to enter the workforce, ATI is the employer they already know and trust.
"Our strategy is all about relationship building. iCIMS gives us the visibility to make those conversations meaningful."
— Amanda Lobas, Director of People Services and Analytics, ATI Physical Therapy
How iCIMS CXM Powers a 400-Day Nurture Cycle
Using iCIMS CXM, ATI Physical Therapy segments candidates into targeted talent pools and delivers personalised content through automated workflows. Some engagement cycles extend to more than 400 days — ensuring top clinical talent stays connected throughout their academic and professional development journey. Candidates who attend recruiting events are automatically entered into multi-step engagement journeys tailored to their specific stage — whether early in their degree programme, on clinical placement, or approaching graduation. Prior to implementing iCIMS, ATI's recruiting team spent significant time manually following up with candidates, managing event lists, and coordinating communications. With automated campaigns and event workflows now in place, those administrative burdens are removed — freeing recruiters to focus on building relationships with hard-to-hire talent rather than managing spreadsheets.
Measurable Results
ATI Physical Therapy's long-term candidate engagement strategy has delivered three measurable outcomes that directly address the core clinical hiring challenge: a 3x growth in the candidate database, a 400+ day average candidate nurture cycle, and a 17% year-over-year increase in applicants per opening. Taken together, these metrics reflect a fundamental shift from reactive hiring — posting roles and waiting for applications — to proactive pipeline-building that ensures a consistent flow of qualified, engaged clinical candidates well before a vacancy opens.
"Healthcare hiring increasingly requires playing the long game. ATI's strategic approach demonstrates this in action by bringing AI and strategy together so their recruiters can engage candidates proactively and meaningfully. By building relationships with candidates early, patients and clinics across the United States can feel confident knowing they have consistent access to highly skilled clinicians when and where they need them."
— Nikki Grigsby, Chief Customer Officer, iCIMS
Key Takeaways
- • ATI Physical Therapy (850+ US clinics, ~6,000 employees) is using iCIMS Candidate Experience Management (CXM) to build a long-term AI-enabled talent pipeline for highly competitive clinical roles — physical therapists, occupational therapists, and physical therapist assistants.
- • The core challenge iCIMS solves: many qualified clinical candidates are still students months or years from graduation, making reactive, application-driven hiring ineffective. iCIMS CXM enables proactive engagement before candidates are even eligible to apply.
- • Three measurable outcomes achieved: 3x growth in candidate database, 400+ day average candidate nurture cycle, and 17% year-over-year increase in applicants per opening — all without adding headcount to the recruiting team.
- • Candidates who attend recruiting events are automatically entered into multi-step, personalised engagement journeys tailored to their academic or professional stage — removing manual follow-up and coordination from recruiters' workloads entirely.
- • The case study illustrates a broader shift in healthcare hiring strategy: from reactive posting-and-waiting to proactive, AI-powered relationship-building that ensures a consistent pipeline of skilled clinicians — with direct downstream impact on patient access to care.