UO Magazine > Mistakes Physicians Make

Oops Did I Do That? continued...

You should be aware, however, that a list of 20 states you would consider can be a deterrent to in-house recruiters. Stajduhar, who has experience in both the search firm and in-house recruiter arenas, differs from many of his former colleagues on this point. “I disagree with the thinking of many in-house recruiters who ignore candidates whose profile shows ‘open’ in the geographic preference field, but it’s a fact of life that some recruiters assume that a physician who will look at any opportunity, anywhere, is not likely to stay long once recruited.”

Proofread and spell check. Now that all of your correspondence is saved in one record, all correspondence is contributing to that digital footprint. The beautifully crafted CV and cover e-mail in October is tempered by the first 3 am cryptic note, “snd more info. Do u know $$?”

Use the spell-check option included in every e-mail system. This is especially critical if you just weren’t born with the spelling gene, or if English is not your first language. Misspellings and grammatical errors detract from your message and raise concerns about your written communication skills. Every recruiter and practice administrator reading your e-mails is cognizant of the liability issues associated with poor communication skills. Medical malpractice carriers have drilled it into recruiters’ heads that physicians who can’t communicate in writing are prone to malpractice suits. If you aren’t a good writer, hit “save” instead of “send,” then enlist the help of a partner or colleague to wordsmith important communications before they go out.

A relatively new problem recently is the “track changes” option on Word. If you use this tool for editing, make sure that you take it off before sending and save your CV again. If you don’t, your CV can open with all of the edits showing. Sandy Barrett, a physician recruiter at the Medical Center of Aurora in Colorado says, “We may let you know the first time, but if you keep resending it like this, it’s going out to the practices that way. The way you present yourself on the CV and cover letter is interpreted as a reflection of your detail orientation.”

Phone etiquette 101

Once a potential fit is confirmed via e-mail and CV review, a phone conversation with the recruiter is typically the “next step.”

Don’t talk if you shouldn’t. It’s really fun to talk to people after a second glass of wine, but don’t answer the phone if you don’t recognize the caller’s number. You can lose an interview invitation or say things you’ll have to unravel later if you’re too relaxed. Likewise, let your voice-mail screen your calls if you’re groggy from sleep deprivation. Nobody makes their best impression when exhausted, and even good reasons (like busy call) don’t fully offset that flat affect and slow uptake. Lastly, don’t take the call if you have a 2-year-old just winding up a tantrum and it’s your first conversation with the recruiter. If the dog is projectile vomiting, wait until you’re able to focus.

Leave a good voice-mail. Speak clearly and spell your last name. Mention your specialty and refer to the ad that prompted your call. Reference the job location or ad header rather than an identification number. Recruiters have as many as 100 ads running on different sites at any time, and every site has a different numbering system. Nobody references them internally by number, but mention “five-physician ob/gyn group in horse country suburb” in your voice-mail and I’ll have all the stats and details at my fingertips when I call you back.

Jason Shenefield, a physician recruiter at Edward Hospital in Naperville, Illinois, points out that a mumbled, cryptic message without an intelligible phone number will simply be deleted by the recruiter. Even if the phone number is retrievable, the opportunity to make a strong first impression is lost. “I can’t help but wonder,” says Shenefield, “if that candidate can’t pull himself together and communicate clearly in a 30-second voice-mail, what is he going to be like with the hospital’s patients at the end of a hard day?”

Know your geography. If you don’t recognize a city name or don’t know the area, Google before you talk to the recruiter. If your reason for responding to the ad is grounded in faulty geography, you’re wasting both your time and the recruiter’s.

In Denver, we get calls from candidates with family in Salt Lake City looking for jobs in the city so they can be “close to family.” That’s a 16-hour round-trip drive across some of the most demanding mountain highways in the country. Not exactly a weekend visit for young families. If that’s the only reason for living in Denver, we know from experience that it will not be a sustainable fit.

Chuck Kassis, the vice president of business development at Regional Medical Center in San Jose, California, has a similar issue. “I’ll get physicians who look great on paper and sound great on the phone until they start telling me how much they want to be in southern California. The ad specifically states that the hospital and the job are in San Jose—not southern California in anybody’s book.”

Paint a verbal picture. Early in your job search, come up with a brief explanation of who you are and what you want. It should mirror your standard CV cover e-mail text and it should be so internalized that you can deliver it in your sleep. The more succinctly you can give us what we need to know, the faster we can let you off the phone and get things moving. Here’s an example:

“My name is Samantha Marsh, I’m a third-year internal medicine resident at St. Vincent’s in Cleveland. I’m looking for an outpatient-only practice in North Atlanta because my siblings and parents have all settled there and we want to start our family there. My husband is in IT and works on a virtual team—all he needs is an airport. Ideally, I’d like a group of four or more, but I would look at anything with two or more physicians. I’ll sit for my boards in August and we plan to travel a bit before my start date, so I’m available 9/1/2008. I’m looking for typical scope of internal medicine with potential for special interest in bariatric medicine. I have a clean record, no claims.”

When you talk to a recruiter, make sure you provide a balanced picture of you as a candidate when you move into more detail about your qualifications and interests. Sometimes physicians dwell on volunteer, leadership, research, or consulting activities because they think it makes them more attractive. When they stop to take a breath, they’ve outlined an individual who doesn’t have much time or energy left for the routine clinical practice job the recruiter is trying to fill.

That mistake can really backfire because the recruiter’s notes go with the CV to the hospital or group. Hugh Tappan, the CEO of Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas, recently passed over a pediatric specialist candidate for his hospital. The CV was flawless, but the candidate seemed far more interested in his entrepreneurial pursuits than in practice. Strike two was a lack of any rationale for interest in the location, and strike three was a vague mention of unspecified needs for time off to wrap up some deals. “As soon as I saw [the recruiter’s] cover notes, I was done with the candidate. I didn’t look at the CV a second time,” he says. According to Tappan, “a candidate can’t get a job just by talking to a recruiter, but a physician can lose a lot of jobs by what they say to recruiters.”

Barrett, at the Medical Center of Aurora, says that candidates sometimes forget that in-house recruiters are asked to look for practice builders, not warm bodies. “Be enthusiastic and curious about my city,” Barrett says. “If getting basic information out of you is like pulling teeth, it’s hard for me to picture you earning word-of-mouth referrals. It’s hard for me to rationalize recommending you to our private practices.”

Finally face-to-face

You may have exchanged dozens of e-mails and voice-mails with your recruiter by the time you meet. Build on that foundation by giving the recruiter a big “why” for championing your candidacy with the decision makers.

Exhibit booth etiquette. Conferences and other events where hospital recruiters are invited to exhibit and entertain prospective candidates are a common first meeting place. It’s a great time to chat and learn more about an opportunity that interests you—as long as there are other recruiters covering the booth. If there is just one person, don’t monopolize the lone representative during busy booth traffic times. We want to talk, but use your peripheral vision to watch for other attendees who may be hovering waiting. Be discreet if discussing an offer in progress and don’t ask your recruiters to babysit your toddler while you and your spouse have lunch.

Be “on” from the moment you land. One of the biggest mistakes candidates make is not realizing that the interview starts the minute they arrive. The hotels report a candidate who has a tiff with the front desk, and the guy at the coffee cart in the lobby will go out of his way to say what he thought of you, and although we love it when our guest aces the interview and gets the offer, the physician recruiter is still part of the interview team rather than your advocate. Anything you say might be reported in the interview summary. Barrett remembers a psychiatrist’s visit where, from the beginning of an interview day, “there was something just ‘off.’” The candidate had a perfect CV for the job and a rock-solid reason for wanting the city, “but she was a little too informal, a little too girl-to-girl chatty, sharing a little too much personal information,” Barrett says. “We realized afterwards that she didn’t realize the interview had already started. She thought the recruiter’s role was to help prep her to put her best foot forward with the decision makers.”

Nobody Ever Became a Recruiting Legend by Ordering Reasonably Priced Wine Put in-house recruiters around a table and eventually you'll hear stories about candidate entertainment expenses. Robin Amos, physician recruiter for the Presbyterian Medical Group in Charlotte, NC was recently given a receipt that included $145 entrees and $132 bottles of wine. "I know it wasn't the candidate's fault" Robin explained, "but this dinner is already a legend with the candidate's name attached to it". The usual budget for a recruitment dinner is $50-60 per person when the hospital is hosting. If somebody is egging you on to get the 24 oz lobster or try the $30 top shelf martini, take the high road and decline. Why? Because you can bet that the group submitting the receipt is going to justify their excess by implying that you picked the wine and ordered the most expensive item on the menu. Nobody is going to question you, because you were the guest. But do you really want to be remembered as "THAT GUY?"

Congratulations, you got the job. Once you’ve successfully run all the gauntlets and settled in the community, there is nobody cheering and singing your praises louder than the hospital recruiter who first introduced you. We stand up a little straighter and prouder the first time we hear “our” recruit paged overhead in the hospital. Your happy, busy practice is our good outcome. g

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Therese Karsten is a certified medical staff recruiter with over 15 years experience in physician recruiting. She is a senior in-house physician recruiter with HCA. Her email is therese.karsten@hcahealthcare.com.