Dilys Search Answers

How do you hire RPN and RN clinical leaders in long-term care?

There is a meaningful difference between staffing a frontline RPN or RN shift and recruiting a clinical leader for a long-term care home. The roles that sit between frontline care and the Director of Care — charge nurses, ADOCs, RACs, and clinical leads — require a different hiring approach, and a market that has very few of the right candidates available at any given time.

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Market Context

LTC nursing leadership is under pressure from multiple directions simultaneously. Burnout and attrition following the pandemic thinned the pool of experienced nurses in care settings. Hospital and community health employers offer compensation and scheduling that LTC struggles to match. And the nurses who remained in LTC through the most difficult years are often carrying heavy workloads, making them selective and cautious about any career move. The experienced RPN or RN who is willing to step into clinical leadership in LTC — and who has the judgment to do it well — is not common.

How Search Fits

For clinical leadership roles in LTC, posting produces a weak applicant pool. The candidates with the right combination of LTC experience, clinical judgment, and leadership readiness are typically employed, not actively searching. Reaching them requires direct outreach from someone who understands the care sector, can speak credibly to the mandate, and makes a compelling case for the opportunity without noise.

Why Dilys Search

Dilys Search recruits into seniors living and LTC as a primary practice. We understand the clinical leadership structure in care homes, what distinguishes a charge nurse who can grow into a more senior role from one who is stretched at the current level, and how to assess leadership potential in a regulated care context where operational and regulatory pressure are constant.

Who This Is For

Long-term care operators and retirement home groups hiring charge nurses, Assistant Directors of Care (ADOCs), Resident Assessment Coordinators (RACs), clinical educators, and other RPN or RN leadership roles where the quality of the hire affects daily operations, compliance, and care team stability.

Answer

The clinical leadership layer in a long-term care home is the one most often filled by internal promotion or left partially vacant for too long. When neither works, operators are left with a gap that affects daily clinical operations, team stability, and regulatory standing.

Recruiting into this layer from outside — charge nurses, ADOCs, RACs, clinical educators — requires a search approach that most LTC operators have not used for these roles before.

The difference between frontline nursing and nursing leadership in LTC

A registered nurse or registered practical nurse working a shift in LTC is responsible for their assigned residents, their medication passes, their documentation, and their escalations. A clinical leader — whether as a charge nurse, ADOC, or RAC — carries a different accountability. They are responsible for clinical decisions that affect the whole unit or the whole home. They set the tone for how the care team functions. They are the people the Director of Care relies on to execute and to flag.

This distinction matters for recruitment because the skills are different. LTC experience and clinical competence are necessary but not sufficient. The candidate also needs to have demonstrated they can lead a team under pressure, manage competing priorities across a full unit, and make sound clinical judgments without needing to escalate everything upward. Those qualities are harder to assess from a resume and harder to find in a job applicant pool.

What the candidate market looks like for these roles

The experienced RPN or RN who is ready to move into clinical leadership — and who has the judgment to do it well in LTC — is usually already employed. They are managing a demanding workload in a care home that is reluctant to let them go. They are not circulating their resume. They are evaluating their next career step carefully, with an awareness that not all LTC environments are the same.

Reaching them means making a direct, credible approach. It means being specific about the opportunity — the home, the team, the leadership they will report to, the challenges they will be asked to help solve. Vague outreach does not work for this group. Neither does a job board posting.

The Athena and Dilys Search distinction

Dilys Group operates two parallel practices in LTC. Athena, our frontline staffing division, places temporary and contract RPNs and RNs in care homes across Ontario and Quebec — shift coverage, callout response, and short-term contract support. Dilys Search handles permanent and leadership-level hiring for the same sector — the charge nurses, ADOCs, DOCs, and executive leaders who run the operation.

If your RPN or RN need is a coverage gap, Athena is the right contact. If your need is a permanent leadership hire that a posting has not filled, that is where structured search starts.

What Dilys Search assesses in RPN and RN clinical leader candidates

Credentials confirm eligibility. What we are actually assessing is different:

How have they led a team when the unit was under pressure? What does their relationship with the Director of Care look like in their current or most recent role — do they support that relationship, or create friction within it? How do they handle a care team member who is not meeting clinical standards? Do they have the documentation and compliance discipline that LTC requires, not just the clinical skills? And critically for ADOC candidates — do they show evidence of readiness for the DOC role eventually, or are they genuinely suited to the current level?

These questions do not get answered by a resume review. They get answered by a structured conversation, reference pattern, and assessment process — which is what a Dilys Search engagement provides.

Frequently Asked Questions

What clinical leadership roles in LTC does Dilys Search recruit for?

Charge nurses, Assistant Directors of Care (ADOCs), Resident Assessment Coordinators (RACs), clinical educators, Directors of Nursing (where distinct from the Director of Care role), and other RPN or RN leadership roles where the hire directly affects clinical operations and care quality.

What is the difference between an ADOC and a Director of Care?

The Director of Care holds overall accountability for clinical operations, regulatory compliance, and care quality in an LTC home. The ADOC supports the DOC operationally — typically managing scheduling, floor-level supervision, and day-to-day clinical coordination. In smaller homes, these functions may overlap; in larger organizations, the ADOC is a distinct role that often serves as a DOC succession pathway.

Does Athena staff RPNs and RNs as well?

Yes — Athena, Dilys Group's frontline staffing division, places temporary and contract RPNs and RNs in seniors living and LTC settings across Ontario and Quebec. For frontline shift coverage, Athena is the right contact. For permanent or leadership-level RPN and RN roles, Dilys Search handles the search.

How do you assess clinical leadership potential in an RPN or RN candidate?

Beyond credentials and LTC tenure, we assess how candidates have managed clinical pressure, how they interact with the care team under difficult conditions, and whether their decision-making reflects the kind of judgment a leadership role requires. We look for evidence of real leadership behavior, not just job title progression.

Can you recruit RPN and RN clinical leaders in BC and Alberta?

Yes. We recruit Canada-wide. The regulatory designations differ by province — RPNs in Ontario are equivalent to LPNs in BC and Alberta — and we account for those differences in candidate assessment and credentialing review.

Next Step

If you have an RPN or RN leadership role open in a long-term care or seniors living setting that a posting is not filling, start the conversation. We will tell you what the candidate market looks like for the role and what a structured search approach would involve.