By: Mitzi Kent, RN, BSN | mkent@barlowmccarthy.com
“We’ve brought in consultants before. They gave us a 60-page PowerPoint report and left. Nothing changed.”
I hear this more often than you might think. And honestly, I understand the frustration. Healthcare organizations don’t need another binder full of recommendations they’re expected to implement on their own. When it comes to provider recruitment, real progress doesn’t happen when someone hands over a strategy and walks away. It happens when the strategy is built for use.
When Barlow/McCarthy partners with an organization to develop a strategic recruitment plan, the end product isn’t a presentation, it’s a working plan. One that your team can actually pick up and run with.
That starts with understanding the full picture. Recruitment challenges are rarely isolated to “not enough candidates.” They’re tied to workforce planning assumptions, service line growth goals, practice building capacity, compensation structure, physician alignment, access constraints, and internal recruiting resources. If those pieces aren’t aligned, no amount of “candidate prospects” will fix the problem.
Our work focuses on turning strategy into action. A strategic recruitment plan with Barlow/McCarthy typically delivers:
- A prioritized, multi-year provider demand plan tied directly to service line strategy, access goals, and realistic ramp-up timelines
- Clear recruiting priorities that distinguish urgent needs from important but deferrable roles, so teams aren’t chasing everything at once
- Defined recruitment models by specialty — what should be handled internally, where support or augmentation is needed, and how roles should be positioned in the market
- Practical lead generation and outreach strategies that align with each distinct specialty and candidate behavior today, not five years ago
- Role clarity and workflows for internal recruiters, leaders, and partners so accountability is shared and realistic
- Implementation-ready tools, including search sequencing, messaging frameworks, and dashboards that leadership can use to track progress
Most importantly, the plan is built with your team, not for them.
We sit in the room with clinical leaders, recruitment teams, operations, and executives to pressure-test assumptions and work through what’s actually achievable. Together, we identify quick wins, longer-term structural changes, and the steps required to move from today’s state to where the organization needs to be.
Because a recruitment strategy that lives in a slide deck won’t change outcomes. A strategy that’s embedded into daily recruiting work will.
If you’re thinking about the future of your provider workforce, it’s worth asking a different question, not just what should our recruitment strategy be? But who will help us build one we can actually execute?
Partnership beats PowerPoint every time.
If you’re ready for a more collaborative, implementation-focused approach to recruitment strategy, the Barlow/McCarthy team would love to connect. Reach out to start the conversation at info@barlowmccarthy.com.