Common Tactics used by Headhunters and Third-Party Agencies:
Physicians and End Employers BEWARE! The common question among both end employers and physicians alike is: “How do 3rd Party Agencies SOURCE the physicians they refer?” or, “How did they get my name?!?!” The short answer is: there is NO SECRET FORMULA; they utilize the same tactics used by in house recruiters – they’re just more inventive. These inventive tactics (some of them questionable) however, are the tactics physicians need to be aware of in order to avoid a 3rd Party Recruiter:
Most Popular Website!!
This tactic comes in many forms and is by far the most successful in luring physicians to give up their contact information (information which Docs4Hire does not ask for). The internet is rampant with physician recruitment websites, all claiming to be some variation of ‘The Most Popular website’ on the internet. In order to make their site appear to be popular, many of these sites will post as many positions as possible, with or without permission from the hiring institution.
When an employment seeking physician visits one of these sites, he or she will be very impressed by all the jobs they believe they can apply for and will be very eager to begin using the site to browse for employment opportunities. Upon finding an employment opportunity that interests them, the employment-seeking physician is then presented with THE CATCH! To see the contact information, the employment-seeking physician must Log In as a member. This Log In information is the only information the website is interested in, because it has the physician’s Name, Address, Email, Phone Number, Specialty, and normally a Geographic Location of preference. The physician’s information is then stored in a database and recalled when the Third-Party has contracted with an employer.
With all of the inquiring physician’s information in hand, the Third-Party Physician Recruitment Firm will then approach ALL of the end employers in the market, and will sell the end employer the physician’s lead. A common script to the end employer is, “We are representing a physician who is looking for a Full Time (FT) opportunity in your area and has expressed an interest in your hospital. Would you be wiling to speak with this physician?” At this point, a contract is written and the physician’s exploitation is complete.
Many of these firms use email and/or faxes to list a few teaser details about the physician, being sure to omit the important contact or lead information. This is how the Third-Party Agencies and Headhunters make their money, and this scenario is repeated hundreds of times every day.
PHYSICIAN TIP: The ONLY way for physicians to guarantee that he or she is not exploited in this way, is to never give ANY of their personal information to these firms, especially in the form of Membership Applications. Physicians should only provide their personal information when they are sure that they are speaking with the END EMPLOYER, NEVER ON-LINE.
The All Inclusive Ad – Medical Journals & Websites
With collections, in some cases, exceeding $150,000 per physician, some of the larger Agencies may have many contracts and is likely to have more than adequate funding. With large budgets, these firms can often afford to run many large ads in some of the most prestigious medical journals and websites currently in existence. Their goal with these ads is QUANTITY. They may or may not have positions available in the areas in which they advertise, or the ad might be worded vaguely in order to reach as large an audience as possible. The purpose of these ads is to fill their databases with as many physicians as they can, and then they allow their sales teams to market them.
PHYSICIAN TIP: Do not be tempted into responding to these ads, when physicians do, they invariably and unknowingly contribute to a large database. If you are looking for employment in a certain geographic market, simply use the Docs4Hire website and negotiate with the end employer DIRECTY.
Annoying Phone Calls At Work, Home, Pager and Cell
The American Medical Association (AMA) recently addressed this overtly aggressive tactic by writing a formal complaint to the National Association of Physician Recruiters (NAPR), an organization comprised almost entirely of Third-Party Agencies. They published their plea for all recruiters to discontinue the practice in the April 2007 edition of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
With very few exceptions, Agencies now have no scruples about calling a physician’s work, home, pager, or cell phone numbers – at any time of day. Some of the more unscrupulous agencies will even use the local phone book and will call to the point of harassment until they speak with the physician. Hospitals with training programs are prime targets due to the large potential pool of employment-seeking physicians. A common technique Agencies use is to place a call to the operator and have the operator page the physician they are attempting to reach.
Some agencies have been known to misrepresent themselves when talking to the operator (or the clerk, the RN, or whoever screens the physician’s calls) and falsely claim to be a patient, a Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) representative, another physician, another hospital, or… anyone. When the physician calls them back they become ensnared! The Agency on the other end with Caller ID now has free access to that physician’s cell or land-line phone number.
PHYSICIAN TIP: To avoid these types of calls, it is most important that you never provide any personal information; if you do, consider it up for sale. Another way to avoid these types of calls is to respond to unknown pages only with a hospital phone, a pay-phone, or by using a BLOCKED CELLPHONE NUMBER. Physicians should adopt the habit of calling them back only at specified times, and not allowing them access to your personal phone number(s).
Direct Mail
Direct mail is one of the most essential and noninvasive tools in the repertoire of every physician recruiter, for both In House and Agency alike. Because of its effectiveness, it is likely that it will continue to be used for some time to come.
The mailing lists that both the In House and Agency recruitment department’s use is accessible to both. The most reliable and trusted source for physician mailing lists is from the American Medical Association (AMA), but there are other reliable lists available.
The difference in how Agencies and In-House Recruiters use direct mail is in their approach. Agencies often try to emulate the look and feel of an In-House recruiter’s marketing approach (in an attempt to confuse the employment-seeking physician into thinking that they are responding to an actual end employer); many Agencies even omit their own company name in an attempt to distance themselves from their own bad reputation! Another tactic Agencies use is to imply in their direct mail literature that the Agency is the sole contact for the physician who is applying for the opportunity. Agencies will often omit some important details in their literature, such as the name of the end employer and its exact location. All of these key omissions are designed to force the employment-seeking physician to rely on the Agency for the rest of the information.
Identifying an In-House Recruiter’s marketing piece is relatively simple. The in-house physician recruiter’s marketing piece is normally rife with many details about the employment, the facility, and its location. Most importantly, the marketing piece provides the employment-seeking physician with a DIRECT contact who is associated with the hiring institution.
PHYSICIAN TIP: The End Employer will ALWAYS welcome the opportunity to deal with the interested employment-seeking physician DIRECTLY. Some Agencies will insist that they are the only institution that will accept CV’s for the End Employer; this is simply incorrect. Please note also that once an employment-seeking physician responds to ONE MARKETING PIECE from an unscrupulous agency, that agency now has that particular physician’s vital information and will use it to solicit to them other opportunities, and these opportunities are normally of no interest to the physician.
Email
Email is another essential, but noninvasive technique used to solicit employment opportunities to employment-seeking and non employment-seeking physicians alike. The tactics used for this type of solicitation are very similar to Direct Mail. See the DIRECT MAIL section above.
Job Fairs & Society Meetings
Attending job fairs and society meetings is another effective and noninvasive technique used in soliciting employment-seeking physicians. Both In-House and Agencies use it; but in this case, the Agency has the advantage.
The Agency claims to be representing multiple end-employers in various regions of the country, the end-employer is isolated into one location and is soliciting a very small pool of interested employment-seeking physicians. An end-employer considers one qualified candidate a successful trip; whereas the Agency would consider the trip a complete failure.
The positive side to having both End-Employers and Agencies attend these events is due mainly to the high cost of participation. These fees are used to offset the event’s expenses, but without these monetary offsets the events become more expensive for the physicians to attend.
PHYSICAN TIP: Agencies at Employment Fairs and Society meetings are generally more straightforward and are not as deceptive as some other tactics. Please keep in mind though, that once physicians provide these folks with their personal information, they will be contacted for employment opportunities that you (the physician) may not be interested in.
The important point for physicians to remember is that: In-House Physician Recruiters and Agencies both use some or all of the tactics mentioned above in differing forms. However, in the case of the Agency, it is primarily concerned with acquiring as many employment-seeking physician candidates as possible to add to their databases. They do this in order to solicit current and future employment openings that the physician’s may or may not be interested in. DISCLAIMER: The context in which “Agencies” or “Agency” as mentioned above is intended to represent the “typical” Agency, and is not meant to represent the entire industry. In some circles it is believed that there are credible Agencies in the marketplace.
So How is Docs4Hire Different?
With the different types of physician recruiters defined above, and the tactics they employ exposed, physicians are now free to make a more informed decision as to representation. It is important for employment-seeking physicians to know, regardless of who the physician candidate has chosen to be represented by, that ULTIMATELY the physician candidate will be negotiating with the In-House Physician Recruiter or the End Employer. Third Party Agencies and Headhunters are essentially middlemen who charge someone a large fee in the process.
Docs4Hire is UNIQUE in the industry because we are neither an In-House Physician Recruiter nor a Third-Party Agency. Docs4Hire was conceived with the goal in mind that the many millions of dollars spent each year on physician recruitment fees (not to mention the billions of dollars spent each year on direct mail) would and should be better spent to actually improve the health of our communities. These funds should not be used to reward the unscrupulous tactics of Third-Party Recruiters and Headhunters.
Docs4hire aspires to simplify the physician recruitment process by placing employment-seeking physicians in DIRECT contact with the End Employer, or In-House Physician Recruiters, thereby eliminating (or significantly reducing) the need for a middleman. Docs4Hire simply provides the forum for this exchange to take place. Physicians who respond to advertisements posted on the Docs4Hire website are guaranteed to be put in direct contact with the End Employer, or the In House Physician Recruiter. A Docs4Hire employee will never act as the middleman.