What to Expect From a Recruitment Firm for Your Hiring Needs

Finding the right candidate to fill the physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant opening for your dermatology practice can be a daunting task. There is more than the typical pressure for a health care organization to carefully select employees, particularly when you consider the added costs of the recent pandemic. In addition, a bad fit for your practice culture can have disastrous consequences for patients and employees alike. It is imperative that a candidate possesses all the necessary qualities for success, including proper medical training, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and a strong work ethic.

Fortunately, practices can ensure they hire the best possible candidate without having to spend an extensive amount of time and resources on identifying potential fits with the help of a trusted health care recruitment firm. An experienced recruitment firm should partner with the hiring staff (medical director, managers, and other invested parties) to outline the exact profile of a successful candidate for your practice and then work against those specifications to screen candidates. By considering more than just educational criteria, an experienced recruitment partner will also focus on a candidate’s ability to be a great fit with your team and culture.

The Process
Before the process starts, a professional health care recruitment firm should perform a detailed interview with your practice’s key stakeholders (administrators, owners, managers) to determine:

1. The reasons for your need to recruit;
2. The history and culture of the practice;
3. What your practice has to offer a potential recruit (including compensation, benefits, and perks); and
4. Specifics regarding your internal offer process and documents relating to a formal offer (offer letters, contracts, etc).

If a firm skips these vital steps upfront in the partnership, consider it a red flag. A firm cannot present a truly qualified candidate to you unless they have the full picture of everything your practice needs and has to offer.  

The Partnership
Your trusted partner in recruitment should also provide you with specific expertise regarding your market’s average compensation for candidates you are recruiting, regional and national hiring trends specific to your specialty, and advice on how to make your opportunity more attractive than your competitor’s while still keeping your financial interests in mind.  

Using the data learned during this upfront investment of time with you as the client, the search firm should create customized interview questions to screen for the right skills and qualifications in a candidate to meet your needs. By engaging in such a comprehensive process with your recruitment partner upfront, you can avoid the time involved in screening and interviewing candidates who do not align with your needs. A partner in recruitment should make your life easier, not harder.  

The Benefit
Health care recruitment firms devote most of their time to networking and marketing in order to develop a sizable proprietary database of highly qualified candidates to meet their client’s needs. Because they have access to a large number of contacts in the industry, they can cast a wide net that reaches candidates who are both actively and passively seeking an opportunity. A firm that specializes in dermatology can provide an even better focused network and expertise for your search than a general recruitment firm.  

When it comes to hiring for a dermatology clinician opportunity, the best candidate is often already employed at another organization—sometimes even at a local competitor. In addition, you may want to keep the open position you are recruiting for confidential from other members of your staff, so you need advertising to come from an external partner versus advertising on your own, which would identify your practice in the process. In both cases, working with a professional and respected recruitment firm guarantees that the hiring process is confidential and conducted with the topmost discretion. This creates a win-win situation where the best candidate is hired and important business relationships remain intact.

There are a multitude of obstacles and complications that arise in any hiring process regardless of industry. But because dermatology offices in particular face the additional challenge of meeting a rising demand for care with a limited supply of qualified clinicians, there is even less time, money, and resources available to identify candidates, interview those qualified, and finally fill positions. Outsourcing the hiring process to a specialized health care recruitment firm allows health care organization and practices to focus on more important priorities: providing high-quality, evidence-based patient care. Because search firms select from a diverse talent pool and perform a vigorous screening and vetting process, stakeholders can rest assured that their new hire’s values and skillset will be the perfect fit for the organization. n

Ms Sullentrup is the chief executive officer of MyDermRecruiter, a search and recruitment firm helping connect medical, surgical, and cosmetic dermatologists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants with employment opportunities across the United States.

Disclosure: Ms Sullentrup is a full-time employee of MyDermRecruiter.