By: Mitzi Kent, RN, BSN | mkent@barlowmccarthy.com
In physician recruiting, there’s really no such thing as downtime. As the seasons change, so do hiring needs, and just coming out of a pandemic, more than ever, we need to stay focused. For many organizations, summer means people out of the office on vacation, making it difficult to get interviews on the schedule. Candidates relax, too, spending less time in your talent pool and more time in the outdoor one.
Summer is a disruptive time for recruiters and their workflows. But, just as physician candidates have a different plan for high and low seasons, so should recruiters. During the high season, recruiters are near or at capacity for managing the candidate pile and flows, and the focus is on execution. But during the low season, when there is spare capacity, the focus shifts to getting in a position to execute and keep your recruitment funnel full. Here are a few tips.
- Don’t presume this is the worst time to call or email target physicians. For certain specialists, the practice pace during this time of year is slower – because patients delay scheduling elective procedures until after vacation. So, go ahead and reach out to your interventionalist and surgeon targets – they just might be available.
- Many residents and fellows want to finalize their practice decisions by year-end, giving them time to focus their remaining training months on pure learning. Don’t miss out on those ready to close the deal.
- Reflect back to move forward. Spend some time looking back at the first half of the year. First, examine your Q1 and Q2 results to determine what worked and what didn’t. Next, analyze data to identify where issues arise—application abandonment, source of hire, cost-per-hire, diversity of hiring—and select an area of improvement to focus on.
- Continue to keep the pace. Though hiring may be slow, it is unlikely to stop altogether. Don’t let a seasonal shift impede time-to-fill. Workaround your internal team’s vacation schedule to make sure that interviews happen so you can stay on top of top candidates. If you can’t do face-to-face, there are many solutions to facilitate the interview, including options that utilize texting.
- Check-in with your most recent recruits – those who are approaching their year one anniversary. They have been with you long enough to offer a “testimonial” to use on a posting, email push message, or direct mail piece.
- Professional athletes use the “offseason” to change their training routine or add new elements to their game. This could be your time to edit posting messages, refresh templates, work on skill advancement through a class, get that podcast subscription, or dive into that book that’s waiting to be read.
Too often, as physician recruiters, we can get complacent during the high season and turn from being strategic partners into order-takers. We wait for staffing needs to come to us and for candidates to pop out of our ATS.
Summer is the time to break out of that and switch into active recruiter mode. It’s a time to replenish your pipeline and tap new sources, but also fix leaks and tend to some probably much needed maintenance. A high-performance recruiting function is like a high-performance sports car: if you’ve been driving it as it was designed to be driven, it’s going to need some maintenance, especially if you plan to drive on more challenging roads. Working your summer plan will pay off when activity picks up again, and you can’t afford a breakdown. You never know; you might just get that rockstar candidate over the line ahead of your competitor.
Need some guidance on your recruitment plans and goals for the next few months? Reach out to me at mkent@barlowmccarthy.com and we can discuss some options to get you the help you need.