By Robert Rector, Pinnacle Health Group
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of in-house and out-of-house recruiters (recruiters from placement firms) at the National Association of Physician Recruiters’ Fall meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition to my speech, I used part of our time allotment for an open discussion. This experience gave me some new insights that I want to share with you.
The topic of my talk was “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?: How to build a relationship between our in-house and out-of-house recruiters”. I had given a talk on this same topic before, but the topic was always divided into groups composed of the same background. Everyone seemed to believe that putting in-house and out-of-house recruiters in the same room would create a pay-per-view event much like the recent Tyson/Holyfield debacle. So, you can understand my apprehension when I discovered my audience would be comprised of both at this meeting. The history between these two groups could raise many potential problems.
However, to my surprise, the discussion proceeded without incident. In fact, I think everyone in the audience walked away from the meeting with a better understanding of each party’s roles and responsibilities. Some potential opponents even walked away as friends!
I asked each person to list the top three problems they had with their recruiting counterpart. Their answers were compiled and put on posters for discussion after my presentation. The session proceeded with my speech and an open discussion. I wanted the discussion to be open and frank; this was our chance to really discuss problems without worrying about offending someone. The discussion was a complete success. It was scheduled to last thirty minutes, but lasted forty-five and would have gone longer if time had allowed.
Here is the feedback:
In-house recruiters believed that out-of-house recruiters:
- have an attitude of superiority
- have inflexible relationships and salary expectations
- do not understand cost issues that a hospital must face or appreciate the recruiting business given to them by the hospital
- send physician curricula vitae that are unqualified
- make heavy marketing promises the firm cannot keep; and
- are not familiar enough with the areas and hospital climates to recruit successfully.
Out-of-house recruiters believed that in-house recruiters:
- give insufficient practice information and are not open to giving much information
- have no decision-making capabilities and do not allow them access to decision-makers
- do not return phone calls
- are not familiar with the search process
- accept too many curricula vitae
- do not keep accurate candidate records
- do not give feedback after an interview or have the ability to close a physician
- mistrust out-of-house recruiters because they fear their job security; and
- will recruit a particular physician for cost considerations.
As you might guess, these topics led to a very productive and open discussion.
Everyone understood that there are frustrations on both sides and that we must learn to coexist in order to achieve our common goal of signing a physician. So, our solution was for both sides to work together as a team.
Both sides must also be honest and open in the communication process. The key word that continued to surface was flexibility. Finally we agreed that the recruiting atmosphere must be about relationship building in order to succeed.
If we are not willing to work together to fix this problem, the physician recruiting industry will remain a battlefield. As you know, in a battle, one side loses but working together as a team, we both can win!
I think we can all look at the list above and gain a more complete understanding of each other’s problems and challenges. With this will come more effective recruitment efforts, which can essentially improve our bottom line.