Given the current and projected physician shortage in the United States, recruiting medical residents is an increasing challenge for hospital administrators, group practice leadership and other health facilities. Competition for these physicians can be fierce, since there are fewer available doctors than open positions: Recent figures estimate a shortage of 34,600 to 88,000 doctors by 2025.
Physicians are in such demand that half of the final-year medical residents surveyed in a recent report received 100 or more job offers. According to the “2017 Survey of Final-Year Medical Residents,” an additional 20 percent received 50 to 99 job offers during their last year of residency training. The number of reported job offers is the highest since the survey’s inception in 1991.
With the high volume of contacts residents receive by phone, email and direct mail, your messaging can easily be overlooked. Identifying the best methods to reach residents when they are ready to make career decisions can be difficult but is crucial to recruiting success.
Timing of Residents’ Job Search Efforts
Reaching out to residents at the point in their training when they are ready to consider practice opportunities is critical. Unfortunately, there is no universal “best time,” since residents vary greatly when it comes to timing. While 45 percent begin to seriously examine their career opportunities about a year before their residency ends, 28 percent begin prior to their final year and 27 percent wait until six months before the end of their residency program. Whatever tools you use to reach out to potential new recruits, they will need to be deployed according to varying schedules and personalized to the preferences of the individual residents.
Communication Tools
Again, there is no universally best tool to reach all residents. Using a mix of contact methods can be helpful. Combining phone calls, email messages, communication with residency program leadership, job board postings and social media maximizes your ability to remain visible to candidates.
- Email remains one of the best means of outreach, both for initial contact and ongoing communication. To cast as wide of a net as possible to those most likely to connect with your available opportunities, experiment with subject lines, timing of messages and message content. If you have a national pool of candidates, filter your list to candidates most likely to match your opening.
- Social media can be a powerful means of communication, if not directly to candidates then as a vehicle for communicating who you are as an organization and what you have to offer. Keep any social media accounts active, with fresh updates and appealing information, and monitor the accounts frequently.
Relevant Messaging
To help connect positively with resident recruits, consider the following:
- Limit the jargon: When discussing possible terms of employment or compensation, keep your use of jargon to a minimum. Nearly half of final-year residents report having little to no training on the business side of employment, and use of jargon and technical contract terms could be confusing or overwhelming.
- Act as a resource: Provide valuable information about the recruiting process, and become a trusted source of information. Candidates share experiences with each other, and they are more likely to mention you favorably.
Let Adaptive Medical Partners, a premier physician recruitment agency, help you reach the right residents for your practice.
