RSS FeedDespite Physician Shortages, Some Qualified Talent May Be Overlooked
7 December 2011Are Healthcare Employers and Recruiters Overlooking Qualified Physician Candidates?
Physicians are in great demand, and a shortage is looming, according to multiple healthcare industry analysts. While some regions of the country will have plenty of doctors, other regions will feel the effects of the shortage more intensely, particularly in rural areas, and in high demand specialties.
As the population ages, and more than 30 million people gain health insurance coverage over the next few years under the health reform laws of 2010, the potential shortage is expected to be so severe, that the Obama administration recently announced $1 billion for the Health Care Innovation Challenge, which grants funding to physicians, institutions, or organizations who can submit proposals to increase and accelerate the training and deployment of more healthcare workers, including physicians. The program is designed to find innovative ways to increase the physician workforce and alleviate shortages.
At such a critical time of increased demand for the physician workforce, when the government is practically throwing money at proposals for innovative ways to expand the healthcare workforce, many qualified, capable physician candidates are possibly being overlooked by recruiters and employers.
Hospitals and employers of physicians could be making their own searches more difficult if they are not managing processes effectively and efficiently, and they may be overlooking or missing out on many qualified physician candidates.
The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm, recently conducted a survey to examine the recruiting processes of hospitals and physician search firms from the candidates’ perspective, to help identify areas in need of improvement for better results in physician search and placement.
“We wanted to explore the recruiting processes of direct employers and third party firms, for comparison and contrast,” states Jim Stone, president. “Our goal was to understand physician candidates’ perceptions about the recruiting process of employers and firms, and look for areas of improvement and any trends that may be helpful to us, as well as any other entities that are currently recruiting physicians.”
When the various demographic groups were broken out of the response pool, the gaps in response and recruiting processes widened, emphasizing some different results for applicants of various demographic groups.
Do Recruiters Overlook or Devalue Experienced Physicians?
The survey shows that a candidate’s experience of the recruiting process varies greatly based on his or her level of experience, and even gender or training. One of the largest discrepancies was reported by candidates who are 16 or more years out of training, as compared to respondents who are within 15 years of completing training.
28.6% of candidates with 16 or more years of experience report a ZERO response rate on applications to hospitals and direct employers. Meanwhile, only 8.2% of candidates within 1-15 years of completing their training report a zero response rate from hospitals
Additionally, the average number of offers received (in the past two years) from younger candidates (within 15 years of completing training) is about 7.88, while older candidates have received only about 2.12 offers over the same time period. This is despite the fact that the two groups report applying for approximately the same number of jobs (about eight) in the past two years.
International Medical Graduates vs. American Medical Graduates
Response rates varied widely for AMG vs. IMG candidates, especially when applying directly to employers. For example, 62% of AMG respondents reported a response rate of above 50% over the past two years, whereas only 43% of IMG respondents reported a response rate of above 50% from employers.
Female vs. Male Respondents
Women reported longer response times than men, in general. When applying directly to employers, 58% of female physician candidates report receiving a reply within a week, while 68% of men report the same.
Response Times and Response Rates of Third Party Firms vs. Direct Employers
In all, of the respondents who were actively looking in the past two years, (between 61-81% of the total respondents have applied actively within the past 2 years), they reported that they applied to an average of 9.34 opportunities during that time period, and received 4.91 offers.
When examining the survey responses across the board, there were a few significant differences between third party firms and direct employers.
The survey asked candidates to indicate the response times experienced when submitting applications and/or CVs to both direct employers, and to firms. 66% of respondents indicated that they receive a response from direct employers within 72 hrs or a week. 78% of respondents indicated receiving a response from third party firms within that same time frame of one week or less.
While response times are a strength for third party recruiters, an area of improvement was also identified. One key area firms need to improve is their accuracy in describing the opportunity to candidates. While third party firms scored well on accuracy, they were only ranked above average by 25% of respondents, while direct employers were ranked above average for accuracy by 35% of respondents, when asked to rate the accuracy of the opportunity as presented vs. the reality experienced on the interview.
Stone adds, “For many years, we have understood this can be a challenge for third party recruiters. Therefore, we devote a great deal of time to training and educating our recruiters on the importance of accuracy and detail in presenting opportunities to candidates, and how best to provide both when speaking to physicians about opportunities. Most reputable recruiting firms are committed to a code of ethics and standards set forth by the NAPR (National Association of Physician Recruiters) which helps regulate the integrity of corporate members such as The Medicus Firm. That being said, recruiters at any third party firms can only describe the opportunity with as much accurate detail as is provided by our clients, which is why we encourage clients to communicate as much as possible about the opportunity, including nuances and details that will be later confirmed on the physician’s site visit.”
In conclusion, the reported response times and rates were not the same for all types of candidates, suggesting that employers and recruiters may be too focused on inconsequential parameters of candidates, and may be profiling them based on their applications or CVs. Whether this is done intentonally or inadvertently is unknown. By making employers and recruiters aware of this trend, hopefully recruiters will be more conscientious when replying to applicants and candidates regarding physician openings, focusing on qualifications instead of other non-performance related factors to fill critical physician openings.
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