NEWSFLASH FOR HOSPITALS: Physicians are Interviewing YOU-Not the Other Way Around (Part 1)

     This may come as a surprise to many healthcare organizations, but in the land of physician recruitment, most often it is the physician candidate in the driver’s seat, NOT the hospital. This is a very subtle shift in physician attitudes towards hospitals, but it is a mind shift nonetheless. It has slowly crept up over the past decade, and now it is being exercised in full force, and I see it happen on a daily basis. Everyone knows there is a physician shortage, but how are hospitals responding to the shortage?

     Surprisingly, they are responding by making it more difficult to get a job, which is the exact opposite of what is needed in order to attract and retain top tier talent. Hospitals are responding by taking four weeks to build a contract and get an offer letter out to a candidate. Hospitals are responding by making physicians pay for their own travel. Hospitals are responding by adding layer upon layer of bureaucratic gatekeepers. Hospitals are responding by drastically limiting their candidate pool (“I will only look at someone whose name starts with the letter ‘J’, etc.”) … Admittedly, I’ve never had that request, but you get my point. In a day and age where there is ONE physician for every TEN job openings, why are hospitals playing so hard to get?

     At Fidelis Partners, the search consultants are more than just CV sourcers. We each have an average of over five years of recruitment experience, and we enjoy advising our clients to be the best they can possibly be in order to attract the finest physicians in the market place. It is not our desire to make wholesale changes to any hospital’s recruitment efforts, but since we talk to 50+ physicians a day, we might know a thing or two about the marketplace and what physicians want. And right now, it is definitely a buyer’s market for physicians, and it is in the best interest of healthcare organizations to respond accordingly.

     What is the best reaction to this type of recruiting climate? Simply put, hospitals need to put their best foot forward, every moment of every day. We need to cater to the physicians … we need to be accommodating to the physicians … and yes, we need to seduce the physicians …


How can hospitals make recruitment easier on them? Stay tuned to find out ….
_________________________________________________________________________
Lori Vickers is a Senior Search Consultant at Fidelis Partners.
Connect with Lori:
LinkedIn
Email
Biography