How to Reach Out to and Recruit Physicians

The increasing competition among practices to recruit physicians is not the only element of the physician recruitment environment that is changing. Successful tactics to recruit physicians are also in flux.

“What we do today to recruit physicians is very different than what we did a couple of years ago,” David Cornett, senior executive vice president of business development at physician and executive search firm Cejka Search, told Physicians Practice.

If you are about to start the physician recruitment process, ensure you do it the right way. Here are three elements every successful physician recruitment outreach plan should include:

1. E-mail utilization

Make sure you use all of your resources when it comes to recruiting doctors, and that includes e-mail. “Young physicians do look at e-mailed job opportunities,” Mary Barber, senior executive vice president of marketing at Cejka Search, told Physicians Practice. “But not all e-mails are created equal.”

E-mails are useless if candidates aren’t receiving them or mark them as spam. To help avoid such problems, make sure the e-mail is very explicit about the type of physician you are looking for. Also, ensure the e-mail contains detailed information about your practice.

“It cannot appear as if it’s generically aimed at a mass of physicians,” said Barber. “It has to be very specific to that particular organization, it should brand the organization that is hiring, and it should be mobile-enabled.”

Start your email outreach by working with a trusted source.  Quality of the list is more important than quantity, so be sure that your source has a permission-based list of deliverable email addresses, said Barber.

2. Mobile friendly e-mails and website

Keep in mind that your website needs to be mobile friendly as well as your e-mails, said Barber. “It’s critical because [candidates] are doing everything on a mobile device.”

If candidates receive an e-mail, like what they see, and go to check out your website, you could lose their interest if they can’t view it on their mobile device like an iPhone or BlackBerry.

Failure to have such access to your website could include potential hires forgetting about the opportunity and delaying a response to the job opening. Plus, technology is important to them, they may even disregard your practice because it did not make a tech-savvy first impression.

3. Networking

While the recruitment environment is changing, keep in mind that networking remains the number one way young physicians seek jobs, said Barber.

“They really rely a lot on the word of mouth, the endorsement, the information they can gain from their attending physician in training, their friends, their colleagues,” she said.

Barber recommends taking advantage of recruiter conferences, career fairs, and specialty conferences as networking opportunities. It can also be helpful to create a physician ambassador program at your practice. For instance, physician ambassadors can connect with physicians coming from the same training program. 

Once a physician does come to your practice for an interview, identify a physician on your staff who might share common interests to speak with the candidate and follow up after the visit, said Barber.

“New physicians want to envision what their professional and personal lives might be like one, three or five years after joining your practice,” she said. “The ‘veterans’ can share insight and establish a connection to their practice that may make the difference when it is that physician’s time to choose.”