By: Tony Barlow | tbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com
The challenges for recruiters trying to communicate with the physician population continue to grow. We have all seen the statistics, physicians are overworked and burning out. As recruiters trying to make contact with physicians to source new leads our work gets more complex and challenging by the day. Regardless of the tools available to sourcers today, there is one common element that can help you differentiate your program, messaging. Yes, many things make a sourcer successful, including tenacity, grit, a mind for sales, upbeat personality but all of those won’t get you very far if you can’t develop and communicate messaging that sells your practice opportunities.
Messaging for recruitment sourcing can include many things, you probably instantly think of things like job postings and email blasts. These are definitely high on the priority list. But we also need to think about scripts for interviews, being prepared for callbacks and simply writing clean, succinct emails in correspondence.
When we look at postings and emails our priority is capturing our prospects attention and prompting them to ask for more information. It’s about a compelling message that sells the opportunity. Prioritize your first sentence and first paragraph. When writing, try to think about your target prospect and write specifically to them. Another mindset is to think of a problem they might have in their current situation and your potential solution. Maybe they are unhappy about not being heard and your hospital has placed a priority on physician communication. Use your first sentence and paragraph to catch their attention, give them a few details and encourage them to contact you for the full specifics. Don’t forget to be completely obvious with your call to action! No need to be coy here, tell them what you want them to do, whether that is clicking a link, emailing you back or calling you on the phone.
Once we get the prospects attention and they have either emailed or called, it is our job to keep them interested as we share the details. Honesty is so important at this stage. Don’t tell them what they want to hear if you can’t deliver. Be warm in the delivery whether that is by email or phone. Address your correspondence as “Dear Dr. …,” or “Hello Dr. ….” Always sign your emails with a closing like “All the best,” or “Thanks for your time.“ Consider your email note like you would a personal conversation with the social connections and the facts.
It is important to be organized and prepared for callbacks and emails. Have your FAQs ready to go and easily referenced. Listen first and listen carefully to their questions and their priorities. If you don’t know an answer to a question, be honest and tell them you will need to talk with someone to get more details. When it comes to emails don’t wait, respond right away, and keep the prospect engaged in moving to the next step.
The final messaging step is your phone screening. This should be a formalized process that you implement in a similar fashion each time. Creating consistency in your phone screening/interviewing will help you not only manage the volume of interviews you have but will help you with your decision-making process for advancing the candidates after the interview. Many of the initial ideas apply here too. Be prepared. We want our candidate to believe they are the only interview. The communication needs to be warm and informative. Be ready to answer their questions and be ready with questions of your own. Finish the call with positivity and next steps for them, no matter what you believe the outcome will be. Leave a positive impression, because while they might not be a fit today in a couple years the situation might be very different.
I believe it is within everyone to be a successful communicator with good messaging. It is 100% worth the effort to practice and improve your writing skills. You need to commit time to your skill development to be successful. I know that you are busy, and it might be easy to pull that job posting from 4 years ago out of the dark reaches of your computer and repost it. Or, perhaps you are tempted to copy and paste last months’ email instead of making updates to freshen the content. Taking the time to rewrite content and step up your communication makes a tremendous difference in your success as a recruitment sourcer.
As recruitment sourcers ourselves we love helping programs like yours. Whether you need help training your staff or need us to take over a few searches we are here and ready to help. We specialize in email campaigns, cold calling and recruitment software management. Please don’t hesitate to send me a note at tbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com for more details or to set up a call with our team!