Predictive hiring intelligence forthe aged care workforce
A 3.5-minute behavioural science survey that predicts which candidates will genuinely commit to a care role, and which will leave before they've finished onboarding.
Built on a decade of research across 250,000+ participants in seven countries.
Why it matters
Built for
Aged care & community hiring teams
What you get
Retention signal at the point of hire
Pilot partner
Feros Care × ethyx
The sector doesn't have a recruitment problem.It has a retention prediction problem.
The challenge
Continuity of care is foundational to dignity, safety, and trust
Yet with workforce shortages projected to exceed 110,000 direct-care workers by 2030, the sector can't afford to keep losing the people it already has. In regional areas where the talent pool is thinnest, every departure hits hardest. Strengthened Quality Standards now tie star ratings to care minutes, with funding reductions and penalties for non-compliance, making agency reliance not just expensive, but unsustainable.
The discovery phase at Feros Care confirmed what the data showed: early departure is rarely about capability. It's driven by an expectation-reality gap that traditional recruitment wasn't designed to detect.
Sector turnover
37–45%
Aged care turnover rate
More than double the cross-industry average of 16%. Every departure costs 50–150% of annual salary to replace.
What recruitment misses
89%
Exits driven by attitude, not skill
Traditional recruitment measures competence. It misses the thing that actually predicts whether someone will stay.
Cost per hire
$23,860
Average cost per hire
All-in cost per candidate in Australia. Doubled from $10,500 in recent years. Every failed hire means paying this again.
The solution
OPUS intervenes at the hire: the decision that determines everything else
Most aged care innovation focuses on what happens after someone is employed. OPUS intervenes at the most consequential decision point: the hire itself. It measures genuine motivational commitment, not static personality traits, using attitudinal science that's tamper-tracked and resistant to gaming.
Attitudinal science, not personality testing
Psychometrics measure job fit: whether someone can do the role. But capability doesn't predict retention. Just because someone is good at their job doesn't mean they'll stay, and just because someone struggles doesn't mean they'll leave. OPUS measures genuine commitment.
Self-refining by cohort
Regional candidates behave differently from metro candidates, so OPUS runs them as separate cohorts. Retention data feeds back into the model, recalibrating scoring weights for each location. The algorithm gets more accurate with every hire.
Impact & outcomes
The Results
Pilot figures, then what changed on the ground for the team and for candidates.
Efficiency
30–50 min
Saved per candidate
Screening time returned to HR for onboarding, culture, and relationships instead of manual administration.
Accuracy
100%
Match with manual screening
Pilot cohort: OPUS matched experienced HR’s screening judgements candidate-for-candidate.
Prior research
42%
Improved outcomes (prior research)
Validated behavioural-science lineage: prior programmes showed materially better employment outcomes using the same foundations.
Projected results
Based on prior research programmes and initial pilot outcomes.
In-role likelihood
2×
More likely in role at 6–9 months
Committed candidates vs High Risk (Coppin PhD, n=1,247).
Early exits
30–45%
Reduction in 6-month early exits
By screening out High Risk candidates at hire.
Agency avoidance
$280K–$680K
Annual agency cost avoided
Per 120-bed facility, based on sector-average agency rates and avoided-vacancy modelling.
Feros Care's recruitment team validated OPUS against experienced hiring judgement; the algorithm reached the same screening conclusions candidate-for-candidate, in a fraction of the time. Time no longer spent on repetitive screening goes to onboarding, culture, and the people already in care.
Preventing a single early departure pays for the entire OPUS programme.
Eliminated selection bias
Detailed psychometrics were inflating the very biases they claimed to remove. Attitudinal science opened the pipeline to genuinely motivated candidates.
Freed the team to focus on people
Replaced manual and telephone screening entirely. HR now goes straight to interview with candidate-specific intelligence.
Built a fairer process for applicants
Upfront consulting reviewed what staff actually do and what makes them successful, then recruited to that reality, not a legacy job description.
Approaching three-month retention review
Real retention data is about to flow back into the model, recalibrating scoring weights for regional and metro cohorts separately.
How it works
From invite to thank-you
Candidates receive a personal link by SMS or email, complete twelve short survey questions on any device, then see a branded thank-you screen. Survey links expire after seven days, matching the live participant experience.
Survey experience
What candidates tell us
“The survey was easy to fill out on my phone and only took a few minutes. Compared to other job surveys I've gone through, this one was easy.”
- OPUS candidate
90%
Completion rate
Surveys sent via SMS and email
See it for your team
Book a demo to see a full report and recruiter guidance
Walk through sample outputs: what hiring teams see after each completed survey, and how to use the readout in your process.
Book a demo“World leading.”
“Profound.”
“I fear this tool is great.”
Contact
See OPUS in action
Book a conversation with Dr Darren Coppin. Live demo, Feros Care pilot data, and projected savings for your organisation.
- Live platform demo: real candidate surveys and intelligence outputs
- No obligation: a conversation, not a sales pitch
Request a conversation
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