Physician Recruiter Development

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Nobody started high school thinking: “When I grow up, I am going to be a Physician Recruiter”.

But then it happens, we just “fall into” a Physician Recruiter role. It has happened to almost all of us, hasn’t it? Luckily for all of us, there is a nationally acclaimed Physician Recruitment organization to connect with to get us up and running.

But what happens next? How do Physician Recruiters get developed long term? This is a topic I am passionate about as often, Physician Recruiters have stayed stagnant, developed themselves or had a great mentor or manager who helped them grow.

No matter if you are the only Physician Recruiter for a hospital system, are part of a team, or are an independent recruiter contractor, we are all responsible for our own development, both short term and long term. Let’s not wait for someone to develop our skills, or for someone to finally agree to send us to some kind of training class…. Let’s take the bull by the horn and know what need to be even more successful than we are today!

Let’s start by asking yourselves some questions:

1.       What are your strengths and your opportunities?

2.       What would really benefit you in your role and what outcome would it effect?

3.       What skill set could really bring your contribution to the organization to the next level?

4.       Are you willing to learn? How do you feel about developing to the next level?

Let’s look at your organization:

1.       Do you work on a team with a senior physician recruiter who has been very successful?

2.       Is there a Physician Recruiter leader that you can “buddy” with who can give you great insight and pointers on leading a team?

3.       Could you suggest to shadow someone during a workforce planning meeting?

4.       Could you shadow a successful leader doing a 1:1 with someone their team or having a development talk with an employee?

5.       If you work as the only Physician Recruiter, who are the leaders on the marketing team, the Human Resources team, the Medical Staff team, the Credentialing team that you can learn from and collaborate with? Remember, improved relationships = improved outcomes!

Benefits of Development:

Physician Recruiter development does not only benefit the Recruiter, it also greatly benefits the organization he/she works for and the community he/she recruits for.

When teams are being developed, they usually also have higher engagement scores. It improves the overall culture of the organization and the team’s performance.

Gallup found that “when companies strategically invest in employee development, they report 11% greater profitability and they are 2 times more likely to retain their employees.”

Sir Richard Brandon once said: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” (reference: AZ Quotes).

How to approach the subject:

When you have your quarterly or yearly review or your monthly or bi-weekly 1:1 with your manager, you might want to bring up the topic of your development. It is said that successful employees take accountability of their own development. Maybe your organization already has an employee development plan in place, maybe they don’t. It is always more than OK to bring your own development plan when speaking with your manager. They often like this type of initiative. Remember that usually development plans are aimed to benefitting the organization first and the employee second.

Perhaps you are the one and only Physician Recruiter in a healthcare system and there is nowhere for you to go? Have you thought about creating your own leadership pathway with certain milestones to get to each step of the pathway?

Case Scenario: Josie the Physician Recruiter

Josie is a Physician Recruiter at a hospital system; she reports to the CMO. Josie wants to stay with the organization but there is no upward mobility available for her. The famous saying “the only way up is out” applies to her. What if Josie brought a plan to her CMO that outlined the next step to be Sr. Physician Recruiter with the milestone of her having obtained her CPRP certification through AAPPR? Everyone wins right?

What if the next step in Josie’s career path could be leading both a sourcer and a coordinator? By freeing up Josie from 20 hours a week of sourcing and coordinating interviews, she would be able to increase her recruitment numbers by 150%. The cost savings for the hospital system are easy to calculate when you think about the downstream revenue of a specialist (and the lack of that downstream revenue because Josie is busy coordinating and sourcing instead of closing deals). Again, everyone wins.

Perhaps Josie could benefit from a leadership course and read and study “5 levels of leadership” by John Maxwell. This could all be part of her professional, long term development plan.

What if key stakeholders would like for Josie to present KPIs in a PowerPoint to them? It would benefit Josie AND the stakeholders if she was able to present a more eye pleasing presentation. Let’s include a PowerPoint class to her development plan. Josie has access to reporting out of the ATS but does not know how to analyze the data and create pivot tables? It would behoove the leaders to suggest for Josie to take an advanced excel class so that she can make professional data analytics presentations. Let’s add that to her development plan as well.

It takes some self-reflection to really humbly identify your own strengths and opportunities. A lot of successful people have identified a business coach in life. Someone they came across while doing business and who has been a great mentor to them. Be sure to pay this forward one day!

And remember, in today’s upside down world, there is a renewed commitment from organizational leaders to support developing their employees. And we all know that developing an employee is cheaper than employee turnover…

You are the expert in your field! You are valuable to the organizations as you bring in highly skilled physicians into the communities you recruit to.

Common logic: as you approach your manager, be sure your approach does not come across in a threatening way.

1.       Remind your manager that development adds to your skillset and makes you an even more valuable employee to the organization

2.       Seek development in a skill that the organization needs (example: negotiation skills to close the deal on physician offers, leadership skills to lead the sourcer and coordinator on your team, PowerPoint or Data Analytics skills to be able to present even more meaningful KPI reports to key stakeholders).

3.       Broadening your development will increase your ability to be even more collaborative across COEs. This will also increase stakeholder engagement and build stronger relationships and remove silos.

4.       Be open and honest as to the reason why you are looking for development and what this would look like. Oftentimes the employer fears that the moment they invested in you, you will leave. Remind your manager how if you had xyz development under your belt you could improve the recruitment process, cut time to recruit in halve and save the company a certain amount of money by getting physicians started faster. Who would not love that?

5.       Be flexible with the type of development your employer might have in mind for you. You might think you need PowerPoint presentation skills but your manager might think there is greater need for leadership skills as you now have a coordinator and a sourcer reporting to you.

There has never been a stronger business case for development across all of the US workforce. Just remember how more successful you AND the organization would be if you were able to develop yourself and/or your team. Put the value added in data and in dollars, that usually gets the message across!

Nothing slows productivity more than feeling stuck professionally! Never stop learning!