Health Care Professional Jobs: A Day in the Life of a Healthcare Recruiter

By Rick Fromme

Health care recruiters are responsible for searching for and indentifying qualified candidates for specific job openings in the medical field.  Recruiters pre-qualify candidates based on their experience, credentials, education, licensing and assist with coordinating the interview process. Usually the pre-qualification process involves reviewing many CVs and résumés, then following up with phone or web conference interviews to determine the most qualified applicants.  

Recruiters may function as a corporate or “in-house” recruiter. That is, they are employed by a health care agency or hospital, and serve primarily to fill internal positions for that given entity.  These may be either long-range hiring projects, particularly if searching for top-level positions such as physicians, department managers, administrative executives, etc., or clinical positions such as nurse, physical therapist, occupational therapist, sonographer, etc.

In-house recruiters have varied responsibilities; among them are sourcing candidates and screening

candidates (via telephone, web conferencing, in-person and via email correspondence).  A recruiter may also serve as “tour guide” of sorts, introducing the candidate to various clinical and administrative personnel within the facility (and possibly its satellite services), and, as may be the case when fulfilling a physician other top-level position, showing the candidates some of the highlights of the city/area where she or he may be relocating.

Furthermore, once a candidate is chosen and if both parties agree there’s a mutual fit, recruiters may often engage in contract negotiations as it relates to their employer and/or affiliation within the health care network. Here the recruiter is evaluating and balancing two perspectives in that s/he is assessing whether or not a candidate would be a good professional and cultural fit for their organization, but concurrently selling their organization/facility, and even promoting the surrounding community to the candidate as well. 

"Recruiters may often engage in contract negotiations ..."

Recruiters may work for an independent recruiting firm or agency.  These recruiters typically manage a number of searches for various entities on a third-party or contract basis. The recruiters receive a commission from that particular organization or facility when an ideal candidate is hired. 

Recruiters may also work in-house for a health care or locum tenens physician staffing firm.  In this scenario, recruiters search for a variety of health care clinicians or physicians who’re interested in being employed by the staffing firm itself.  Then they’re contracted out for temporary assignments in a variety health care settings and environments.

Health Care Recruiters Can Post & Find Applicants on MedMasters.com

Typical Work Schedule

A clock with a 24-hour dial. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many health recruiting jobs require a flexible work schedule that oftentimes exceeds a typical 40-hour work week.  Because many health care empolyees have different shifts within a 24/7 work week, some candidates aren’t available for phone or web-based, real-time interviews during typical weekday “office hours.”  Also, some candidates’ visits include dinner or luncheon meetings with executives or managers, which were arranged by the recruiter, who’s sometimes expected to attend. Additionally, many in-house medical recruiting positions also require weekend work, entertaining candidates and their families during visits, particularly if it’s a top-level candidate who traveled to the interview from another location.  

Job Requirements and Skills

At the very minimum, strong candidates should have bachelor’s degree, preferably in a discipline such as business, business management, human resources, business psychology, etc.  Having a clinical background could also be highly advantageous, such as a BSN, especially in terms of understanding the clinical components of the position(s) for which you’re recruiting. 

Typically, when hiring health care recruiters, employers seek a candidate that has prior experience or knowledge in the health care industry. As mentioned above, having some type of clinical experience is certainly helpful, but recruiters may also have a solid background in medical sales, or other non-clinical or health care industry experience. If you have a strong track record in recruiting, but in a non-health care-related field, you’ll need to prove you can attain the requisite medical knowledge quickly.

Recruiters must have excellent written and especially strong verbal communication skills, due to the fact they’re frequently on the on the phone conducting interviews and pre-qualifying potential candidates. Attentive listening skills are also critical. Strong presentation and negotiating skills are also important. Recruiters usually spend several hours per day doing administrative work such as posting jobs, searching job boards, reviewing résumés and CVs, conducting background checks, contacting references, emailing candidates, creating travel and meeting itineraries, keeping up candidates’ licensure, credentials, certifications and more. Recruiting also requires the ability to multitask, as they’re often working on several job openings simultaneously.

Since, according to numerous key studies, many health care jobs will be in demand for the next several decades, consequently so is the need for qualified, talented recruiters. Recruiters that focus primarily on higher-level professionals such physicians, medical executives, department managers typically have a long, more in-depth search/recruitment process, but concomitantly earn a higher fee once the candidate is hired (unless you’re salaried employee of a health care facility). Recruiters that primarily focus on health care clinicians and providers (i.e., nurses, allied health personnel such as sonographers, PTs, OTs, etc.) typically can place these candidates faster, although the commission is less.  

In particular, physician recruitment emerged as a niche service about 25 years ago and since then,

has become an integral part of health care industry.  The need for recruiting services in the 1990s was accelerated by managed care and its emphasis on primary gatekeepers.  Whereas once recruiters focused primarily on searching for physicians for second-tier and rural areas that had limited access to residents, today recruitment has become a priority for urban facilities competing for managed care contracts, large medical groups, and corporate systems that often have their own recruitment arms.

There are a handful of large, national recruitment firms. Additionally, there are hundreds of local and regional recruitment companies and thousands of in-house physician recruiters working for hospitals, health networks, practice management companies and HMOs.  It’s estimated there are nearly 5,000 physician recruiters throughout the US, more than one for every four final-year medical students.

In this article, I discussed the various types of health care recruitment positions, and provided an overview of their oftentimes highly varied responsibilities (both interpersonal and administrative), preferred educational background and professional skills, job outlook, etc. I also briefly discussed the changes that have recently occurred concerning physician recruitment.  If you found this article useful, or have an opinion you’d like to share, please leave a comment below. Also, please feel free to share and repost it.  

Rick Fromme combines entrepreneurial enthusiasm with an insider's knowledge of the medical industry to co-found MedMasters.com. Both his drive and perspective help provide health care professionals with a superior mechanism with which to communicate, network and market their strengths. Prior to founding MedMasters.com, Rick operated a highly successful medical device distributorship. Other milestones in his 12-year career in the medical industry include a key position at a medical device start-up company that was later sold to the Ethicon Endo division of Johnson & Johnson. You can also reach Rick by connecting with him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Youtube. 

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