An open letter to A Physician On...

Matthias Muenzer of A Physician on Job Search and Practice welcomed the PR Blog in a post on Sept 4. A few days later, Matthias posted a fairly scathing response to my posting on MPC and the Doctor Job – but that post has now apparently been removed from A Physician On… One assumption that has been made by Matthias is that I am a physician recruiter. I tried to respond to his original “welcome” post, but my response comment has not shown up on his blog. For anyone who is a reader of either blog and might be similarly confused about what TheRecruiter.com and Physician Recruiter publication are all about, here is what I attempted to post on A Physician On…


Matthias,

I have been on vacation and came by to read your blog last night and read both this entry and the one which you've apparently deleted about my blog. Perhaps, I shouldn't have waited to respond to the other blog....

I'd like to clarify one erroneous assumption you're making about the Physician Recruiter blog as an entity and me as the main author: I am NOT a recruiter. I am a publisher, and Physician Recruiter is a 20 year old newspaper specializing in publishing practice opportunities and career management news with a circulation of over 200,000 physicians nationwide. TheRecruiter.com is the related website. Our aim is to provide a vehicle for physicians to find opportunities and hospitals, private practices and recruiters to source candidates, as well as to provide interesting and valuable career management information for physicians.

We realize that there are many different ways for physicians to go about finding their next opportunities and many different ways for hiring authorities to find their next hire. We make hundreds of outgoing calls to hiring authorities at hospitals, clinics and small practices as well as 3rd party recruiters everyday. We also have contact with many physicians and medical professionals. We hear their stories and strategies regarding recruiting and job search and different people have different feelings and experiences with all different methods. Some hiring authorities and physicians have great success using 3rd party recruiters, some, like yourself, have had poor experiences. Some swear by this or that print publication, while other take a web only approach. Some love direct mail, others feel it’s too expensive. Some like retained search recruiters because their jobs are guaranteed to receive attention, while others prefer contingency based recruiters because they don’t limit a hiring authorities options and there is no cost unless a placement is made.

Our position on all of this: be you a hiring authority or a physician seeking a new opportunity, do what it takes to meet your objective. If this or that method isn’t working or makes you uncomfortable, then try something else. There is no single right answer.

While I can understand and respect your point of view regarding recruiters, in particular, it is evident to me that you point of view is a skewed one. While there are recruiters who provide the sort of negative experiences that fuel your vitriol, there are some terrific recruiters out there who do a great job and have very loyal customers.

On the first hand, I spoke with a recruiter the other day who is currently “working” more than 120 jobs. I asked this person how they could possibly work that many positions and the answer was (paraphrasing) “Well, I give most of my attention to the handful of positions that are fill-able”. In other words, only 5-10% of those jobs are getting any attention. In my opinion, this is a huge negative to both the hiring authorities as well as the candidates that this recruiter is “representing”. On the other hand, we recently spoke with a large hospital that is perpetually recruiting. This hospital was a client of Physician Recruiter for years and years, spending tens of thousands of dollars on advertising, but close to 2 years ago they stopped advertising with us. They didn’t stop because they weren’t getting results with us and wanted to advertise in Brand X journal or on ABC.Com Job board, they stopped advertising with us because a contingency recruiting firm was doing a great job for them, taking work load off their shoulders and finding great candidates. While they are spending exponentially more money paying fees than they were advertising with us, this hospital is happy because it’s working and they see it as a value. While not a success story for my own business, I have to give the recruiters a lot of credit in this case.

The bottom line is this. Whether hiring or on a job hunt, keep an open mind. Some things work for some people some of the time, others don’t. Find what works for you, but be prepared and open for change if you need to make one, because no method is going to work all the time.

--Will Johnson