Physician recruiters: Whose side are they on?
Do you get hundreds of phone calls from various physician recruiters? Ever wondered whose side are they on? Let us find out.
Physician recruiters are salespeople. There job is to sell you a ‘physician job’ or a ‘physician job interview’ depending on how the recruiters get paid. There is big money to be made in physician recruiting(Sometimes double of the monthly salary offered for the physician job! ).
The physician recruiters contract with physician employers and may elect to get paid if they are able to send a physician candidate for interview. Or they may instead elect to get bigger payout only if a physician signs up for the job. For a recruiter, who is getting paid just to get candidates into the door for physician interviews, his main objective will be to get as many interviews set up as possible. An unethical recruiter will not care whether the physician job suits you or not. He will not care whether the physician employer may like that candidate or not. He would want you to just show up for the interview. So if you get kind of calls from recruiters, who are pushing you to go to a certain desolate place for interview, that’s what it is.
If the recruiter gets paid only if a physician candidate signs up for the doctor job, they have to be more careful about selecting physician applicants to recommend for interview. But again, they would like to send more candidates to increase the chances of filling the physician job.
Lets look at another scenario: The physician recruiter is agent for two physician jobs: Job opening A and Job opening B. Job Opening A is a lucrative physician job in Beverly Hills and Job opening B is in the middle of Sonoran Desert. If the recruiter is supposed to get double commission for filling up the Sonoran Desert physician job opening, then its obvious he will try to sell that position first. If he comes across a medical resident who sticks to his job criteria, and refuses to go to middle of no where, not even for an interview, then the recruiter will disclose the position in Beverly Hills.
Summary: Physician recruiters are salesmen. They will try to nudge you to go for physicians jobs which offer them more commission. They probably care the least about what physician candidate wants or what physician employer wants. Unless you bump into a good physician recruiter. Therefore keep your guards up.
We will discuss how to chose and handle physician recruiters in our next post…Happy Holidays!
4 Responses to “Physician recruiters: Whose side are they on?”
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Dear Careermedicine authors:
I am surprised that you even mention physician recruiters as a way to find a job. I would put them last on the list, but very last. If everything fails, really, truly fails, then I would consider answer a recruiter email or ad.
It is much better to find the job yourself, without a broker that charges 20-30K for placing you, with al the conflict of interest involved. Recruiters are not on the employers side and not on your side, they are on their own side. They do what is necessary to get the commission.
Recruiters do not have access to the best jobs, since the best jobs are given out without advertising and without recruiters. The really good jobs have people waiting for the job to become available. Great practices do not need to advertise, they have people calling THEM.
Recruiters are only called to fill the hard to sell jobs, meaning the less desirable jobs, the rejected jobs, the jobs with a drawback, hidden or openly visible. And you do not want those jobs.
The 2 ways to find the best jobs are:
1. Networking
2. Sending your CV with a cover letter to every single physician in the area where you would like to work. Buy a list of contact infos of those physicians at InfoUSA.com. You can select very easily online and purchase the list online with a credit card. Then merge this list with your cover letter in Word and you will have 200-300 or more customized cover letters. Good looking, effective. Send them off with your CV.
You will be surprised by the amount and quality of answers. Adn, by the way, "your" recruiter will hate this method, becuse it makes them obsolete. They actually are obsolete, you can do it yourself, in short time, with little effort. Recruiters are a distraction at best.
Wiki How has a good post on how to find a physician job. Folow this link:
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Physician-Job
Dr Muenzer,
As a board certified physician recruiter, I obviously take exception to your perspective on physician recruiters. It is clear that you have never had a good experience with a recruiter before. I am very sorry to hear that.
I assure you that I can provide you with a number of professional references from both new and repeat clients and new and repeat candidates that are extremely happy with our services. Yes I have had several candidates that I have placed in the past that have called me to assist them with their next position in their career. In fact, my firm was recognized in the current issue of Texas Monthly magazine as one of the Top Ten Most Dependable Executive Search and Staffing Firms in the state of Texas. Eskridge and Associates is the only recruiting firm that specializes in physician placements on the list.
If you waited to call a recruiter as the very last option after trying everything else first, why are you surprised that we could not do anything for you. If during my initial conversation you told me that you wanted to practice in a particular area, I would ask who you have talked with or contacted already. I would not want to "muddy the waters" by contacting them again. It would look like we had never talked before. If you told me oh I already sent my CV and cover letter to every physician in my area of interest, I would tell you that there is really nothing I could do for you at this point. Since I do get paid by the client for a successful referral, every potential client would already have your CV and therefore would not pay me for my services.
I hope you would consider my comments.
Respectfully,
Bob Eskridge
Board Certified Physican Recruiter
http://www.eskridge-associates.com