As a physician recruiter, you have many responsibilities. But before you can start recruiting, you need the most important part - an opening.
The opening can be due to someone retiring or leaving for other reasons, or due to increased business demands. Regardless of the reason, you need to start recruiting.
Here are the main steps to take to prepare for your search on the way to making the hire.
Discover as much as possible about the opening
This includes a wide variety of items, such as location, compensation and procedures you would like the physician to perform. Some of this information may be provided in a requisition/job description. The best way to find all the details about the open position is to speak with the department in which they will work. This could include, but is not limited to, clinical managers, department chairs and colleagues.
Create the ideal candidate persona
This is an important step, but often overlooked. You might ask why this is important. The main reason to create a persona is to attract the right individuals. Everything else falls under this. A persona is not only training and skills but also soft skills and personality traits. Think about what kind of person fits well into your organization and could thrive there long term.
Knowing the ideal candidate will help you create high-quality recruitment tools. These tools may be job postings, journal advertisements, flyers or another channel. The higher quality these items are, the more engagement you receive from candidates. More engagement leads to more applications. More applications can lead to a better acceptance rate and lower time to hire. If these items are haphazardly put together, they could contain misspellings and grammatical errors, and not be as visually appealing as they could be. This, in turn, may cause more qualified candidates not to explore your opportunity further.
Craft a compelling job posting
The basis for filling an opening is the job posting. Do not confuse a job posting for a job description. These are two different things. An easy way to remember the difference is to think of the job description as an internal document and the job posting as an external one.
The main purpose of a job posting is to attract attention and generate interest. This is something that cannot be done with a job description. Your posting should include a brief description of the job as well as the organization and community.
When writing your job postings, keep these tips in mind:
Capture attention with the headline
Before someone can see your online job posting, they must see your headline. The headline is often what they must click to see the full posting. Candidates are already busy before accounting for everything that goes into a physician job search. The headline may be the only thing they see about your opportunity, so it must stand out. If your headline does not stand out, why would a candidate click on it to find out more?
There is no magic bullet - it will be different for each employer. You may only have 12-15 words in your headline. Use them to point out what makes your opportunity appealing or unique.
Tell the opportunity’s story
Any good story has a beginning, middle and end. For the job description, the beginning is your introductory paragraph. This paragraph should hook the reader and entice them to want to learn more. Use this space to give a few details of why candidates should be excited about your opportunity.
The middle is where you provide more detail. Write this from the candidate point of view. Many times, job postings are written from the employer point of view and what they want the candidate to know. Creating it from the candidate’s perspective makes the posting - and opportunity - more relatable to them.
Your posting should not end abruptly. End it with a compelling and urgent call to action. Explain to them what they should do to learn more or to contact you, as well as what happens when they apply to your posting.
Use multimedia
Online job postings are not like the old days of posting jobs in the back of the newspaper. If one posting is plain text and one is more visually appealing with photos and videos, which one do you thinks stands out to candidates? Think of your online posting as a visual brochure - full of color and organizational branding that makes it stand out. Be sure to use any multimedia options available. Include a logo, photographs and video if your posting platform allows.
Keep your job posting updated
Candidates do not look at jobs that have been posted for a long time as much as they do newly posted opportunities. This does not mean you should repost your job every week. Instead, review and verify the posting, and potentially refresh it periodically. If your job has been posted for a month or two, it may be a good time to change your headline or tweak the body copy to ensure it has up-to-date information.
Look for opportunities to personalize
Another idea to make your posting stand out is to provide information about you personally. What do you do after you meet someone for the first time? You usually check them out on social media. If it is business-related, you go to LinkedIn. Even in a personal setting you look them up on Instagram, Facebook or another platform. It is no different in the physician candidate search. The candidate is interested to know who posted the job. How long have they worked at this organization? Do they live there? This is a good way to help them put a face with a name - and for you to make a personal connection.
Get a second opinion
Lastly, have someone read your job posting before it goes live. A separate set of eyes helps with tone, wording, spelling and grammatical errors. You can have anyone review the posting, but I would recommend someone outside the recruitment department. It is good to get the perspective of someone not like-minded.
A job posting is a reflection of your organization and you personally. A poor job posting can create a negative impression, which is hard to overcome. The job posting may be the first thing a candidate sees about your organization. First impressions are powerful and hard to change. Make the decision to take the time and make your posting the best it can be.
If you are a client of PracticeLink, please contact your Regional Account Manager to find out how you can take full advantage of our tools to make your job posting shine. If you are not a client and would like to learn more about PracticeLink, please contact ProTeam@PracticeLink.com.
Eric Martin is the Director of Sales and Client Relations at PracticeLink. Prior to his current role, he served in clinical and administrative health care roles, including as a physician recruiter.
Eric Martin
