For hospital and clinic
recruiters

Job seekers want to hear from people on the floor

In the Japanese Nursing Association’s 2025 Nursing Staff Survey (2025年看護職員実態調査), 26.7% of nurses said that when changing jobs or returning to work they wanted “a chance to hear from nurses working in that field,” and 20.0% wanted “a chance to try the work.” Among those hoping to move into home-visit nursing, the figures rise to 39.7% and 29.9%.

Source: Japanese Nursing Association, 2025年看護職員実態調査 (2025 Nursing Staff Survey), as published in MHLW, 2040年に向けた看護職員の養成・確保の在り方に関する検討会 (Study Group on Training and Securing Nursing Staff toward 2040), 4th meeting, Material 3 (2026)

The MHLW Survey on Employment Trends (2025) also found that, among people who took jobs in healthcare and welfare, 49.6% had looked at a website run by the hospital or facility itself, more than the share who used private job-ad sites (39.7%). Your own recruiting page, and the way you describe visits, are part of how job seekers decide.

Source: MHLW, 令和7年雇用動向調査 (Survey on Employment Trends 2025) (2026)

Show the good parts and the hard parts

In FY2024, the turnover rate of hospital nursing staff was 8.4% for new graduates and 16.1% for experienced (mid-career) hires (Japanese Nursing Association, 2025年 病院看護実態調査 / 2025 Hospital Nursing Survey). Mid-career hires are the ones who most often face “differences” after they start.

A study analyzing realistic job previews (RJP), which tell candidates about both the good and the hard parts of a job before they join, found a small but consistent effect in reducing turnover, and attributed it mainly to candidates perceiving the organization as honest (Earnest et al., 2011). We have not found any nursing research confirming that showing the real workplace through visits or trial shifts directly leads to retention. Still, a willingness to show things honestly does come across to job seekers.

In our articles, these are some of the things we tell job seekers to check:

• The actual duty rosterNumber of night shifts and days off after them. Can you show actual rosters, not planned ones?
• Break room and nap roomWhere they are and how big. Are breaks actually taken?
• Overtime and chartingHow pre-shift information gathering is treated, and whether overtime spent on records can be claimed.
• People on the same scheduleHow many staff work day shifts only, shorter hours or a few days a week, and can the candidate talk to them?
• Pay breakdownA sample with base pay and allowances shown separately. How much is the night-shift allowance per shift?

The full list for job seekers is in our workplace visit and trial shift checklist. We hope it helps you prepare to host.

From October 1, 2026, preventing harassment of visitors is also a legal duty

Under the amended Equal Employment Opportunity Act (男女雇用機会均等法), from October 1, 2026, employers must take measures to prevent sexual harassment of “job seekers and others” (求職者等), including applicants, people on workplace visits and nursing students on placement. From the same date, under the amended Act on Comprehensive Promotion of Labor Policies (労働施策総合推進法), measures to prevent customer harassment also become a duty for every employer, regardless of size.

If you host visits or trial shifts, a practical way to prepare is to decide in advance who will host them and where visitors can raise concerns, and to tell visitors both.

Source: MHLW guidance on the amended Equal Employment Opportunity Act and the amended Act on Comprehensive Promotion of Labor Policies, and guidelines (令和8年厚生労働省告示第51号, MHLW Notice No. 51 of 2026, February 2026)