A plan and a strategy may appear similar from a distance - both involve a series of steps on the path to a larger goal. However, there may be an important detail that distinguishes the two.
According to advertising and marketing agency Infinity Concepts, a plan says, "here are the steps," while a strategy says, "here are the best steps."
Anyone can develop a plan, but an ideal outcome requires an optimized strategy. As you recruit, consider how a combination of the right tools and resources could lay out the best steps for your strategy to achieve the best possible results.
Posting jobs
Posting your organization’s opportunities to a job board is one of the most effective ways to make them known and accessible. The more powerful the system, the more powerful your attempts at reaching and forming connections with prospects who interest you.
With that need in mind, PracticeLink makes it easy to share your opportunities using the PracticeLink Job Board. There, you can post your organization’s opportunities and utilize best-in-class search engine optimization and distribution tools to automatically circulate them to active and passive candidates.
Sourcing tools
Sourcing tools, like email marketing and an active candidate database, can be game changers for finding and making contact with promising job seekers you’d like to recruit or get to know better.
With PracticeLink sourcing capabilities, you can create campaigns and use email marketing features to reach out to job seekers in the 100% opted-in active candidate database and focus more on nurturing connections.
Tracking applicants
When candidates apply for your open positions, the last thing you want is for promising contenders to slip through the cracks. The right tracking capabilities make a world of difference for the connections you form, and those you’re determined to maintain.
When you need an organized approach to assessing and keeping tabs on your prospects, you can turn to PracticeLink’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to do just that. With ATS, you can utilize a Recruitment Planner to note when you’ve made contact and conducted interviews, assess your candidate pipeline and more.
In fact, from one cohesive interface you can post jobs, source candidates and track applicants using the PracticeLink Recruitment Management System (RMS). Utilizing a job board is key to a recruitment plan, but implementing an advanced, all-in-one system like PracticeLink RMS could be what helps solidify a major step in your strategy.
Exhibiting at virtual career fairs
Virtual recruitment took center stage in 2020 following changes brought on by the pandemic. While this has been an adjustment for many, it has also provided a unique opportunity to more conveniently reach a diverse group of candidates in a fraction of the time.
For the first time ever, PracticeLink unveiled Virtual Career Fairs last year to provide a platform for recruiters like yourself to stick to their strategies and continue building and advancing connections. The PracticeLink Virtual Events will continue in 2021, offering you a place to set up a virtual booth, engage with prospects who are interested in your opportunities, expand your candidate pipeline and build lasting connections which lead to future hires.
Be on the lookout for the return of in person career fairs later in the year - which can offer a different type of networking environment with the additional value of face-to-face interaction.
Find out how you can exhibit your opportunities at a Virtual Career Fair.
Publications and resources
Another "best step" you can take to develop your strategy is offering in print and online educational tools and career advancement resources to your potential hires. Doing so demonstrates an eagerness to help candidates as they make informed and timely decisions about their career moves, and simultaneously defines you as a valuable resource.
Publications like PracticeLink Magazine and First Practice, The Resident and Fellow Career Guide, offer advice on the job search, interviewing, contract and compensation discussions, quality of life aspects and more to help residents, fellows, practicing physicians and providers navigate the processes. Aside from sharing these resources, you also have the opportunity to brand and increase visibility of your organization when you advertise to over 95,000 readers in PracticeLink Magazine or First Practice’s employer directory.
Learn more about PracticeLink publications and advertisement opportunities.
Recruitment research + marketing
While a job board, recruitment management system, virtual career fairs and publications are effective for making your opportunities visible and accessible, what if there was another way to find, reach and market your openings to virtually every resident, fellow, GME program, physician and APP nationwide?
With MedNavigator by PracticeLink, that’s a reality. As another powerful sourcing tool, MedNavigator encompasses an extensive provider database with email marketing, campaign building, and reporting and analytic capabilities. This helps extend your reach to more potential hires beyond a typical database. You can build campaigns using customizable templates and categorized contact lists to promote awareness of your organization and continue circulating your opportunities to passive and active prospects - and even those still within GME programs. Diving into a suite of untapped prospects could be another step that evolves your plan into a seasoned strategy.
Start connecting with residents, fellows, GME programs and providers with MedNavigator.
Specialty conference lead reports
Although the pandemic has put a pause on live events for now, when things do start returning to normal, another great option to make connections with active and passive candidates is attending specialty conferences. When looking to fill an opening for a specific specialty, this has the benefit of focusing your search and condensing candidates based on your interest or need. Nevertheless, attending conference after conference can be expensive, time-consuming and downright exhausting - whether it’s in-person or virtual.
To help busy recruiters save money, time and effort, PracticeLink attends specialty conferences year-round to collect and provide lead reports for the specialty positions you need to fill. We do the legwork of attending, collecting candidate information and, most importantly, making sure it’s in your hands so you spend less time searching and more time reaching out to those who could one day practice at your organization.
Get your PracticeLink specialty conference leads.
At the end of the day, there are numerous steps you can take to establish a plan for how you’ll make connections. But the best results will require taking the best steps to roll out a strategy you can count on time and time again.
Want to know more about how you can develop your recruitment strategy with these resources? Contact us at ProTeam@PracticeLink.com.
Alexandra Cappetta
