Tina McLaughlin, senior physician recruiter for Mountain States Health Alliance, recognizes physician recruitment as an opportunity to impact a community's future. Though recruiting candidates can be a tough task, she's been encouraged over the years by community members who've been directly helped by her efforts. "Members of the community have personally come up to me and thanked me for bringing quality providers to our area to help them, their friends and their family," she says.
You might have a similar story: A tough search open for a long time. Then, through hard work and diligence, you find a candidate who fits your organization's needs and culture, and a successful hire is made. It's stories like these that makes Kyle Hayman, DASPR, proud to be a physician recruiter. And it's stories like these that make PracticeLink proud to play a role.
Crystal Moore, M.D., Ph.D., who was interviewed for an article about physician burnout in PracticeLink Magazine's recent Quality of Life Issue, also shared her advice for job-seeking physicians with us. Her advice focused on patience, an invaluable virtue for both physicians and the recruiters seeking them. As she points out, finding the right fit — a placement that benefits the physician and the hospital — may take time, but it's time well spent.
“Come back to Columbia, Mo.”
That’s what the ad on the righthand side of my Facebook homepage said. It caught my eye as I scrolled through my newsfeed one day just a few months after I’d moved away from Columbia, Missouri, where I’d recently finished grad school. The ad included a little picture of what students called “the Columns,” undoubtedly the most recognizable spot on the University of Missouri’s campus and most iconic symbol of the school.
And, boy, did it tug on my heart. (“Hit me right in the feels,” as they say on the internet.) I was in the midst of that unenviable, inevitable post-grad job-seeking stage, trying to figure out where to put my new degree to use. I’d deliberately moved to be nearer family—to be home—but that little ad (produced by the school’s alumni department) tugged on the part of me that knew I had left another home behind. Out of all the countless Facebook ads I have scrolled past over the years, that ad is the only one whose headline and image I still remember.
Just as Facebook advertisers could target (and tug at) me based on my current and past locations, physician recruiters, too, can use PracticeLink to target specific physicians based on their current and past locations. You can create effective “heartstrings campaigns” by sharing your jobs with specific audiences whose hearts are already tied to your area in some way.
