What makes physician recruitment so challenging?

It’s not your imagination. Physician recruitment is a challenge, and it’s only getting harder. Why? And what can physician recruiters do about it?

High demand, low supply

With annual job growth of 15 percent forecast for the foreseeable future for physicians—which is much faster than average—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the need for health care workers continues to exceed the number of trained physicians.

“It’s a supply-and-demand issue,” says Leslie Stockton, RN, BSN, senior clinical recruiter with TeamHealth. “There simply aren’t enough physicians to fill the current openings available,” making the job of a physician recruiter more challenging today than ever.

Changing culture

On top of the dearth of doctors is a shift in health care culture, she says. Many physicians coming out of med school want to work fewer hours and expect to earn the same or more despite working fewer hours, says Stockton. “Their expectations are different” from physicians of even a decade ago. Work-life balance is now high atop many candidates’ list of priorities.

How to make physician recruitment easier

So how does Stockton consistently fill jobs available in her recruiting territory of Upstate New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island? She starts by focusing on the physicians themselves.

When connected with a candidate, Stockton’s goal isn’t to pressure them into accepting one of her current job openings; it’s to get to know them and their career goals. She asks a lot of questions about their aspirations, their lifestyle and the type of work environment they thrive in. She works to build trust so that, together, they can find the perfect job for the physician—even if it’s not at one of her facilities.

In order to find and place prospective candidates, Stockton and TeamHealth use a number of strategies, including:

• Participate in live chat on the TeamHealth website so someone is always available to immediately respond to a candidate about an opportunity.
  
  
• Post jobs on physician job boards such as PracticeLink, to spread news of a job opening far and wide.
  
  
• Search candidate databases, which Stockton uses to search for candidates by geography and specialty.
  
  
• Use email marketing to target physicians about a new opening they may be interested in based on their geography, specialty or career aspirations.
  
  
• Ask for referrals from other physicians. “If you take good care of them, doctors will recommend that their friends and colleagues reach out to you when they’re ready for a career move,” says Stockton.
  
  
• Text, especially with residents, who rely heavily on text messaging to gather information. Once you have their personal contact information, texting has become the preferred way to keep a conversation going.

“I focus on finding the perfect job for each candidate,” says Stockton, and the physicians she works with recognize that about her.

But if an opportunity doesn’t work out, a spouse gets transferred, or they’re ready for a new challenge, physicians also feel comfortable coming back to her for help in landing their next job because she has proven she is their advocate, not just a salesperson.