How to Recruit & Retain the Best Physicians to Your Organization

How to Recruit Physicians 

The demands of physician recruitment continue to get more and more tedious as recruiters begin to drown in volume. Obtaining the best physicians for your practice or organization requires multiple key players and components. When focusing on how to recruit physicians, it’s important to not only focus on making a better recruitment process within your organization but also to call on physician liaisons to create better programs that physicians desire to be involved in.

According to Medscape’s 2016 Physician Compensation Report, career satisfaction among physicians is at 60% while specialties such as family medicine are at an even more disappointingly low 30%. How do physician liaisons increase these satisfaction rates within their own programs and organizations? How do recruiters find top physicians and show them that their program/organization is more rewarding?

1st, Focus on Physician Recruiters

To create content that connects with physicians, all recruiters should be knowledgeable about the specialty, practice or organization, and location for which they are recruiting. Knowing these important details can mean the difference between landing a top physician and being seen as another organization vying for a candidate’s attention. By taking the time to ask the right questions, recruiters can build relationships with physicians and internal stakeholders to find out what kind if candidate will be successful in the role. This expertise, influence, and ability to connect people to the right opportunity are needed to keep a recruiter relevant in a field that often overlooks recruiting for long-term retention.

How do Doctors Like to Receive Our Information

Knowing how to mix up contact methods in physician recruitment is imperative to the recruitment strategy. Email continues to be one of the best tools for messaging candidates although it can be easy to ignore. The key to getting in contact with residents is persistence, whilst avoiding annoyance. For example, if a recruiter has an eye on a candidate but does not message them enough, the recruiter may miss the time when the candidate (and family) are ready to make a change. However, if a recruiter messages too many times it is possible that said resident may become annoyed and uninterested.

When recruiters do get in contact with a top candidate, they should be sure to ask questions, closely listening to their personal, familial, as well as professional wants and needs. A recruiter’s goal is not to make a sale but to build a relationship with this physician that shows their organization wants to find the perfect fit, creating a work environment that respects the physician and involves them in decisions about their own career.

Lastly, physician recruitment and liaison teams should partner together to focus on building a standard recruitment process that enhances the candidate experience and reflects the culture of the organization as a whole. Working with numerous aspects that affect your recruitment process such as internal personalities, the needs of candidates, as well as their families can make consistency difficult. However, a consistent physician recruitment process is key to having an organized recruitment approach.

Use Data to Scout the Best Physicians

While data can often stir a plethora of emotions from staff, without data, leaders and teams would be in the dark when it comes to developing strategies. A poll done by Marketware determined that the top two areas liaison teams could improve with the support of data are: strategic planning and proving team ROI. Having access to internal (financial, clinical, operational, etc.) and external (2nd and 3rd party, information from the field, etc.) data is imperative to putting proven intelligence behind strategies. A platform that manages and evaluates internal and external data relieves some of the stress off a team and allows them to focus on other issues, accomplishing more tasks and increasing ROI more efficiently.

Recruiters should be casting a wide net when it comes to potential recruits but also focus on candidates with ties to the area who are most likely to connect and will better their organization, and community. A data analytics platform ensures that time and resources are spent on the right candidates by building solid strategies and proving measurements of success.

Build a Great Program Physicians Will Love

A physician liaison’s main goal should be to enhance the experience of the people and practices within their organization. Bettering the lives of physicians sets a foundation for an amazing program that top residents wish to be a part of. As stated earlier, the satisfaction rate of physicians is disappointingly low; it’s time to bring that number up. Without a doubt, salary is a key component of today’s recruitment and retention discussion. However, the process of obtaining a high-level physician is much more than numbers; in the long run, it’s about the physician’s professional fulfillment.

Managing inefficiencies within and outside the practice as well as communicating what is needed decreases disruptions and allows physicians to practice. Allowing physicians involvement in decisions that impact them directly, finding out physicians’ personal goals removing barriers, and allowing them to do meaningful work that they love are just a few ways of increasing long-term professional fulfillment.

Building a program to better current physicians’ lives gives an organization a good reputation and can increase referral potential. Of course, salaries should remain competitive, but it is important to create a program that is more than just financial gain. Innovating a space that allows physicians to connect with other physicians, and grow in what they love and is trained to do increases physician loyalty and makes recruiters’ and liaisons’ lives easier.

Closing Thoughts

Attracting the best physicians is more than the involvement of recruiters. It is realizing that candidates care about more than salaries. Then, building programs that reflect physicians’ wants and needs to increase professional fulfillment. Obtaining top physicians is the responsibility of credible recruiters and physician liaisons. By building a program that involves physicians’ and candidates’ desires, an organization will not only attract top candidates but will also improve physician loyalty, therefore enhancing referrals and increasing the efficiency of ROI.

See how Marketware’s physician recruitment platform can help your recruiting efforts! Schedule a customized tour with a recruiting specialist today!

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Tool Kit — Physician Recruitment

Physician Recruitment Playbook

A physician recruitment playbook is a guide your team can use to effectively deploy best practices. Helping them achieve success when recruiting and retaining physicians…

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