You may be in you last
year of residency, well trained and Board Eligible. Other residents
laud your clinical judgment and admire your procedural skills. Your
Program Director predicts that you will enjoy a deservedly rosy
future.
Somewhere.
Or you may be a
practicing physician, seasoned and Board Certified. Your patients
acknowledge your saintly bedside manner. Your colleagues seek your
opinions. But you know there is a better position than the one you
have.
Somewhere.
The question is where?
If you are
reading this you are probably among those physicians who, for one
reason or another, are contemplating a step into the unknown. If that
is the case, you will find plenty of people ready to lead you across
the void. They are physician recruiters.
They write and call (more often then you would like), offering to tell
you of wonderful practice opportunities. Their counsel, they are quick
to assure you, costs you nothing.
Some of them are in-house recruiters, seeking physicians for
their own organizations. Some are recruiters for search firms,
retained by a particular hospital, clinic, or group to find physicians
to fill specific needs. Some are contingency recruiters,
looking for candidates to supply a broad client base.
It is the contingency recruiter whose work is the least understood
and, in many ways, the most complex. Unlike the in-house recruiter
(who is typically a salaried employee) and the retained recruiter (who
usually receives partial payment "up front" and then bills
the client for expenses and effort), the contingency recruiter
receives nothing unless a successful match results between candidate
and client. This arrangement offers advantages to both the physician
seeking a job and to the hiring entity needing a doctor.
What's in it for the Candidate?
Whether you are a resident or a practicing doctor who has decided
to relocate, the contingency recruiter offers access to thousands of
potential employers. While the in-house recruiter represents one
client and the retained recruiter represents several, the
contingency recruiter has a wide and diversified client pool,
representing every section of the nation. This extensive client base
allows the contingency recruiter to consider your preferences and
aspirations to a degree which other recruiters cannot.
The contingency recruiter's first task, therefore, is to get
"inside your head," to find out what makes you tick, to
learn as much about you as possible, to discover things not listed on
your curriculum vitae. The purpose of such probing
questions is to uncover the subtleties that determine whether an
opportunity is right for you. Would you be happy in a high-powered
academic setting? Or are you better suited to a more relaxed, patient
focused office? Do you want to work 40 hours a week? Or 50?
How important is geography? Where are you from? Where do you want to
go? Where do you have "connections"? While considering your
preferences, the recruiter may also try to expand your horizons.
Perhaps you grew up in Texas, attended medical school in Nebraska, and
did a residency in Ohio. What if the perfect practice appears in
Georgia?
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