AI-powered candidate engagement helps ATI Physical Therapy nurture future clinicians for more than a year before hire

HOLMDEL, N.J., March 31, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ICIMS, the leading enterprise talent acquisition platform, announced that ATI Physical Therapy 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 company's AI-enabled candidate relationship management (CRM) technology, ATI Physical Therapy has grown its candidate database threefold and increased applicants per opening by 17% year over year.

"Our strategy is all about relationship building. ICIMS gives us the visibility to make those conversations meaningful."

ATI, one of the largest providers of outpatient physical therapy in the United States, operates more than 850 clinics nationwide and employs approximately 6,000 people. Though, recruiting for clinical roles such as physical therapists, occupational therapists, and physical therapist assistants presents a unique challenge: many qualified candidates are still students who won't enter the workforce for months or even years. To address this challenge, ATI Physical Therapy partnered with ICIMS in 2021 to engage future clinicians early and maintain relationships until they are ready to enter the workforce.

"Our strategy is all about relationship building. ICIMS gives us the visibility to make those conversations meaningful," said Amanda Lobas, director of people services and analytics, ATI Physical Therapy.

Using ICIMS CXM, ATI Physical Therapy segments candidates into targeted talent pools and delivers personalized content through automated workflows. Some engagement cycles extend more than 400 days, ensuring top talent stays connected throughout their academic and clinical training.

Prior to implementing ICIMS, ATI's recruiting team spent significant time manually following up with candidates, managing recruiting event lists and coordinating communications. With automated campaigns and event workflows now in place, candidates who attend recruiting events are automatically entered into multi-step engagement journeys tailored to their stage in their academic or professional journey. By automating these communications and other administrative tasks, ATI Physical Therapy's recruiters can focus on building relationships with future clinicians and strengthening engagement with hard-to-hire talent, without adding extra headcount.

This long-term candidate engagement strategy has helped ATI Physical Therapy build a scalable pipeline and delivered measurable results:

3x growth in the company's candidate database400+ day average candidate nurture cycle17% year-over-year increase in applicants per opening"Healthcare hiring increasingly requires playing the long game," said Nikki Grigsby, chief customer officer, ICIMS. "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."

Explore ATI Physical Therapy's full story and explore how ICIMS can power exceptional hiring for your organization by requesting a demo.

About ICIMS, Inc.

ICIMS is the talent acquisition platform uniting the strengths of enterprise software with the transformative power of AI. More than 4,400 companies across 200 countries — including a quarter of the Fortune 500 — trust ICIMS to find and hire the people who shape their future. With insights from billions of hiring interactions, continuous AI innovation, and a highly extensible platform, ICIMS turns hiring into a true business advantage. For more information, visit www.ICIMS.com.

Contact:

Will DeMuria

Corporate Communications

[email protected]

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SOURCE iCIMS, Inc.