Recruitment is Hard!

I was in my car the other day when I heard an advertisement for one of those big online recruiting services. You know the one. They usually feature a make-believe business owner or manager at the end of their rope because of a lack of sufficient, competent help. Then the voiceover promises that signing up with their service will solve all their problems by sending qualified applicants within 24 hours. Only this time, there was a twist. The voiceover said they were offering physician and medical professional recruiting.

I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the road.

Maybe those online recruiters do okay helping sustainable loggers and trendy restaurateurs find entry- and mid-level applicants to fill their employment rosters, but physician recruiting is not something that can be done well with a mobile application. I’ve been a physician recruiter for nearly four decades. I’ve worked for big firms, started and sold my own agency, and launched my current physician recruiting firm nearly ten years ago when I saw that the industry needed a new approach.

That new approach was not the Monster, ZipRecruiter, or Indeed model, but a return to recruiting that is hyper-focused on building relationships based on a deep understanding of a hospital’s needs, the community’s needs, and the candidate’s needs. Online job boards thrive on passive candidates who make their interests known and wait for opportunities to come their way. But physician recruiting is not a passive endeavor. It takes a lot of work, knowledge, and experience. It is an active pursuit that demands more than an application (or a desk in a glass building in downtown Dallas) can deliver.

To be certain, job boards can be helpful in filling a search – but if you don’t use them correctly, they can become huge waste of time. The challenge with job boards in general, and physician job boards in particular, is that a lot of candidates are going to be sub-optimal. And they’re also likely to suffer from contact fatigue from the incessant hounding they’ve experienced since posting their interest and availability.

The message? Good recruiting is hard. And good physician recruiting is harder still. According to McKinsey & Co., the U.S. healthcare industry is 64,000 physicians short, and that gap is expected to grow to 86,000 over the next ten years as age and burnout see more doctors exit the profession than universities can replace. Exacerbating that shortfall are the raw economics that put hospitals in rural and needy communities at a disadvantage.

Many bright people who pursue a medical degree with noble intent often emerge with crushing student debt that, by necessity, pushes them toward large healthcare organizations offering tuition reimbursement, higher salaries, relocation payments, and other benefits that are hard for a young doctor to turn down and harder for financially deprived hospitals and clinics to match.

Because the neediest hospitals in the neediest communities can’t compete on economic terms, they must build their appeal on intangible benefits such as small-town living, work-life balance, and mission. But these things tend to be more attractive to doctors in the second phase of their careers who may have a young family or are eager to return to a location near to where they grew up. But an over-emphasis on work-life balance can be a limiting factor when a community is unable to provide the range of amenities and support systems for a young family.

Competition for these candidates is fierce. Good doctors who have decided to seek out new challenges have no lack of opportunity. But what they do lack is time. And it’s the same for the hospital eager to fill a role. What both need is an intermediary who can spend the time it takes to understand what each party needs to establish a lasting and productive relationship. Doctors are busy people. In-house recruiters are busy people. An application on a mobile phone can only scratch the surface of what it takes to close the gap between the two.

A good recruiter is equipped to have the kind of conversation that answers unasked questions, identifies unanticipated challenges, and navigates the delicate issues that often arise and can derail otherwise promising discussions. For example, if a doctor is considering joining a large group in a large city their call ratio might be better, but the provider gets destroyed when they are on call because they are covering 2-3 large hospitals. No physician wants a job with loads of windshield time. It’s inefficient and you can’t make money with two hands on a driving wheel.

As with every industry, technology has opened tremendous opportunities for innovation and efficiency in physician recruiting. But technology is no panacea. You can have all of the fancy tools in the world but if you neglect old-fashioned, authentic human connection, you will lose candidates and clients. To be truly successful in this business demands a curiosity that reveals the person you want to represent and the community that needs them.

Van Allen [email protected]

Mike Spinney [email protected]