By: Mitzi Kent | mkent@barlowmccarthy.com
The physician sitting across from you has an impressive resume. Top medical school, strong residency, excellent references. You ask about their clinical experience, review their credentials, and check all the traditional boxes. Six months later, they’re gone.
If you’ve been in healthcare leadership or recruitment for any length of time, this scenario probably hits close to home. You’re hiring physicians who look perfect on paper but don’t stick around. Meanwhile, your competitors seem to be landing candidates who not only stay but become advocates for their organizations.
The difference isn’t the quality of candidates you’re attracting. It’s how you’re evaluating them.
Most healthcare organizations are conducting physician interviews the same way they did twenty years ago, when recruitment was simpler and candidates were just grateful for opportunities. But today’s physicians have options: multiple offers, different practice models, and varying organizational cultures to choose from. More importantly, they’re interviewing you as much as you’re evaluating them.
While you’re asking about residency training and patient volumes, they’re wondering whether your leadership team actually collaborates or just says they do. While you’re focused on clinical competencies, they’re evaluating whether your organization supports the work-life balance they’re seeking.
The organizations that have figured this out aren’t just asking different questions. They’re approaching the entire interview process differently. Instead of treating interviews as credential verification sessions, they’re using them as strategic assessment opportunities.
Traditional interviews focus almost exclusively on what candidates have done: “Tell me about your experience with hospital medicine.” But the most revealing questions focus on how they approach challenges: “Describe a time when you had to adapt quickly to a significant change in protocols. How did you handle it?”
The first question tells you about their background. The second tells you how they think, how they handle change, and whether they’ll thrive in your specific environment.
The best healthcare organizations have learned that clinical competency is just the entry point. What separates good hires from great ones is cultural fit and behavioral alignment. They’re asking questions like: “How do you handle working under pressure when multiple priorities compete for your attention?” and “Tell me about a time you disagreed with a colleague’s approach to patient care.”
These questions reveal the soft skills that determine whether a physician will integrate well with your team and contribute to your long-term success.
The most successful physician recruitments involve both clinical and executive leadership in the interview process. When a CEO and CMO interview candidates together, they send a powerful message about how physician priorities are valued at the executive level. Candidates see consistent messaging and unified leadership—exactly what physicians want in their next organization.
The organizations that get this right are asking questions that help them understand not just what candidates can do, but how they’ll do it within their specific culture: “What does an ideal practice environment look like to you?” “How do you approach building relationships with nursing staff?” “What attracted you to our organization specifically?”
These conversations reveal whether candidates are looking for just any job or whether they’re genuinely interested in what your organization offers.
The transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t require a complete overhaul. Start by adding one or two behavioral questions to your current interviews. Train your interview teams to listen for cultural alignment signals. Most importantly, make sure your leadership team is involved in the process.
Because here’s the reality: while you’re still conducting interviews like it’s 2005, your competitors are building relationships with physicians who already know they want to work there. They’re finding physicians who will stay, contribute, and become advocates for their organization.
In today’s competitive market, that’s the difference between filling a position and building a sustainable practice.
Ready to strengthen your interview process? At Barlow McCarthy, we work with healthcare organizations to transform physician recruitment from “check-the-box” interviews into meaningful assessments that uncover true fit. Our recruitment assessments help you refine your process, align leadership involvement, and ensure you’re hiring physicians who will stay and thrive.
Send us a message at info@barlowmccarthy.com to start the conversation—we’d love to explore how we can help you build lasting recruitment success.