Recruiters

Hi,

Has anyone's medical spouse has used a recruiter to find a job? We get a million mailings from recruiters, and some of the jobs look really good and are ones we are considering pursuing. I'd like to hear from people with experience in this area...I got my very first job through a recruiter so I know a little bit, but I'm wondering what medical recruiters are like.

Thanks!

[mommax3]

Hi Jill,

My husband has registered at a couple of recruiter websites, but so far he has not had any conversations with any recruiters. He is trying to find a job through word-of-mouth and through responses to the C.V.s he sent out to areas we are interested in.

Six months from now if he has no real job options in front of him, he will probably get in contact with a recruiter, but right now his feeling is that instead of a potential employer paying a recruiter to recruit him, he would rather skip the middle man and perhaps get the money they would have spent on the recruiter added to his employment package. Also, it seems to us that a recruiter's main objective is to put a person in a job.....they are not working for the job-seeker and don't have their best interests in mind.

Right now we have three viable job prospects and DH is going to be doing some interviewing in May. However, all three of these could fall through by next fall and then we will look more at using a recruiter. If you guys start working with one, let me know how it goes!

Sally

Mike and I had great luck with a recruiter--one of his father's friends had a sister who was a medical recruiter with Cejka, and we found the whole group awesome to work with. We sat down and made a hugely exhaustive list of what we wanted and didn't want in a practice opportunity, area of the country, etc. (everything down to me wanting a university library, fresh produce market and ESL teaching opportunities), and gave it to the recruiter, who used it to screen the opportunities they were looking at. We ended up going with the third possibility we found through them, and we're very happy here. I'd recommend them highly! Their website is http://www.cejkasearch.com.

As with anything, it helps to be prepared going into it, and be careful--one of the recruiters from another company who contacted us directly was awful, and seemed to only want to fill places and collect her commission. She kept sending things our way that were totally wrong--like hospital-based with OB. 8O

I'd definitely use a recruiter as part of any job search, because, after all, you're looking for the best all-around fit, of which money is only a part, and you want access to as many "right" possibilities as you can get. We were looking for small-town/rural, independent practice with a few partners and some very specific parameters, so a recruiter was great for all parties involved. We got what we wanted, and the practices didn't waste time and money interviewing a bunch of candidates who wouldn't be suitable.

[Phoebe]

My husband ended up taking a job that was found through a recruiter. He didn't look specifically into using one. Many contacted him through cold calls. The recruiter interviewed him on the kind of job and community we were looking for and forwarded opportunties that matched our needs. Some of them we weren't interested in. We had been cautioned about using them mostly because the recruiter may get some of your salary or your signing bonus. Once the initial contact was made by the hospital, DH made most of the communication on his own and didn't use the recruiter as the middle man which may have made things less complicated.

His decision came down to two jobs advertized promoted by the recruiting firm. Neither salary or signing bonus was affected by the use of a recruiter. For us using a recruiter turned out to be a positive experience, but I know there are a lot of people out there just to make a commission.

Jennifer

Thanks, ladies. Your info was helpful. We will probably use a recruiter as part of the search. I am so anxious to start looking. DH is trying to figure out what kind of position he would like - hospital consults only, outpatient clinic, a combination, etc. plus doing general ID, all HIV, no HIV, etc. I want him to figure it out soon!

[mommax3]

Because of the positive things about recruiters that were posted in this thread, my husband did go ahead and register with the National Association of Physician Recruiters (http://www.napr.org). He sent in his registration last Wednesday night, and starting at 7:45 Thursday morning, we were getting calls from recruiters. 8O

We have probably gotten 20 calls and 10 emails. The first recruiter that called gave us some good advice.....DH had posted his CV at the site and she advised us that although it is unethical, many recruiters will print a copy of a CV off and send it to an employer without consulting the physician. If an employer gets 3 identical CVs from 3 different recruiters, they won't hire that person even if he/she looks great on paper, because they won't want to pay finder's fees to three different recruiters. That was definitely good advice for us, and I was able to go back to the site and take his CV off without any trouble, so it isn't "floating" around out there anymore. About two days later, I went back to the site and took our phone number off the listing as well......it won't let you submit if you leave the phone number field empty, but I just typed "contact using email address" in the field.

SO, I just thought I would thank those of you who posted earlier and let you know of our experiences so far.

Sally

[Amiens]

Sally-

I hear you on the amount of phone calls from recruiters. I think Matt gets at least 1-2 calls a night. The funny thing is we haven't submitted his information on any websites. Whenever, Matt gets a call or a piece of recruitment mail, he says "Oh well it looks like another person has discovered I am graduating next summer."

Sometimes I don't want to deal with the recruiters, so I turn the internet on (like now ), and then they leave a message and Matt has to follow up with them.

Crystal

I'm a little late in joining in here, but my husband will be done with residency in June and just finished his job search a couple months ago. He worked with a few recruiters, but wasn't really impressed with the jobs they presented. The jobs paid well, but were in not so great areas. I think we were being a little picky too. Luckily we didn't have too many recruiters pestering us. It sounds like you have a ton calling you!

My dh actually landed a job that was advertised in one of the Emergency Medicine journals. We had heard that most of the jobs that were advertised in these journals were either low paying or located in undesireable areas, so when he applied, we didn't really get our hopes up. It actually turned out to be a great opportunity and we couldn't be happier with the group.

Sally, I'm not sure if what the first recruiter told you was correct. I work for a pharm sales recruiter and the way recruiters work in most industries is that if 3 different recruiters submit your resume for the same position, the fee goes to the 1st recruiter who submitted your resume. And if this happens, it won't negatively affect the candidate. It could be different with physician recruiting, but I think this recruiter was trying to scare your husband so that he would work exclusively with her so she can get her commission. If you do work with more than 1 recruiter, it's always good to keep the recruiters in the loop as far as what positions the other is submitting your resume for. There are those recruiters who will send your resume out to a client before running the position by you first, though, but this never happened to my husband. Most recruiters, or at least the good ones, want to make sure you're interested in the position before sending off your resume because if they send it to their client, and it turns out you aren't interested, it makes the recruiter look bad in front of their client because they didn't do their research.

Sally, when will your husband be starting his new job? My husband's residency is over in June and he went on his job interview in January and was hired in January. I think he first started looking for jobs in the fall, but that was too soon for most places to know if they would have an opening in the summer for my husband. But that was in emergency medicine...I'm not sure what the interview timeframe is like in your husband's field. Best of luck with your job search! Keep us posted!!

Oops, one more thought...a lot of people think that if you go through a recruiter, their commission will come out of your salary, but this USUALLY isn't the case. Sometimes recruiters can even help you to negotiate a higher salary.

Very interesting information. EdWife, your comment on waiting until January caught my attention. My DH will be done in June 2005 and I was thinking we should start looking as soon as he is done with his first year of fellowship (July) but maybe this is too early? We are planning on sending out a bunch of cover letters/CVs to practices in areas we are considering, as well as answering journal ads and possibly registering with a few recruiters. Anyone else have thoughts on the timing of a job search? I am just so anxious to get his job/buying a house etc. all settled but maybe we're jumping the gun? TIA.

[mommax3]

Thanks for your thoughts, EDWife. I actually thought the same thing regarding the recruiters sending out CVs without our knowledge.....how could that penalize US and not them, since they are the ones acting unethically in that situation......but, knowing nothing about the process and having learned that things don't often "make sense" in the medical profession, I took her at her word. DH and I were uncomfortable having his CV just floating out there in cyberspace anyway, so we were glad to take it off the site.

As far as the timing of looking for jobs.....I think you have a good point. Since DH is not a resident, we don't have recruiters cold-calling us or sending us stuff in the mail. That did happen at the end of residency, but we had to tell them he wasn't going to be looking at jobs at that point because of his military committment. He has been an attending physician for almost 3 years in the Air Force, and is board certified, and there is nothing demographically about him that indicates to recruiters that he will be getting out in 2005....so we felt like we had to make the effort to get his name "out there".

Additionally, because he did a military residency, he has no real contacts in the areas that we want to live.....his residency companions are either obligated for longer than we are, or have located in parts of the country that we aren't interested in living.

One of the docs my husband works with will get out this fall, about a year before we will get out, so DH has just basically copied his approach.....this guy signed a contract just after Christmas for a job that starts in October, 2004. Most of the OB/Gyns coming out of the military seem to know where they are going about 9 months to a year ahead of time.

One other factor for us......the military gives bonuses each October for physicians, and the amount is specialty-dependent....OBs get one of the higher bonus amounts. The only catch is that if you take the bonus, you are obligated to remain in the military for the next calendar year, regardless of the separation date on your original contract. So DH's separation date is in early June, 2005, but if he takes the bonus (which we pretty much need.....it equals slightly less than a fourth of our yearly income! 8O ) he won't be able to get out until the end of September, 2005. Soooo, obviously if there is a signing bonus involved in a job, he would like to sign a contract and get the signing bonus next fall, refuse the military bonus, and get out in June. So that is another reason for our "hurry".

And last of all, this is true for everyone looking for a job, I'm sure, but DH is on call every third night and every third weekend, and in clinic every week day, with very little admin time......factor in all of the military crap (excuse me....exercises ) that he has to do, and the fact that we have three kids, and he has very little time to actually pursue this job search thing, so he wanted to start early and take things slowly.

I am really interested in everyone's experiences in this arena......we don't know anyone "in real life" who is in this process, so please share what you find out! DH has an interview trip coming up.....he will be interviewing with 2, possibly 3, practices in Indiana, and one of the places is paying for his trip which means he can fly out of our small city instead of having to drive to/from Dallas (2.5 hours) which is standard on the trips we pay for!

Sally

Sally & Jill,

The timing of when to start job hunting depends a lot on what field your spouses are in and if they are looking for an academic position or a nonacademic position. We were told that for academic positions, the time to apply is end of summer/early fall and spring for nonacademic positions...but everyone has different advice on time frames! I think with academic jobs, most hospitals or groups know that the doctors will be in the position for x number of months or years, so they know when their next opening will be coming up...sort of like residency I guess. But in nonacademic positions, a doctor can give just a few weeks or months notice so a group doesn't know when a doctor might be planning to quit.

I was totally on my husband's case last October trying to get him to start sending his resume out and he was hesitant, saying it was too early. He finally sent his resume to about 20 recruiters and ER groups late in October. Most of them replied and said that they didn't have any open positions and to check back in Jan/Feb or later in the spring. I was totally bummed about this because there was no way I could wait until the spring to find out where we would be living & if we could afford to buy a house!! There were a few groups that were open to interviewing him even though he wouldn't start till July, but he wasn't interested in most of the positions that they had to offer.

Two groups contacted him at the end of October and wanted to set up interviews. Since we had to travel out of state to NC for the interviews, my husband couldn't schedule the interviews until January when he had a couple weekends off. I was so worried that once they found out he wouldn't be able to interview for another 2-3 months, that they would hire someone in the meantime. But both groups know how crazy residents/doctors schedules are and assumed that it could be awhile before he was able to interview. And both groups he interviewed with had openings because the group was expanding, not because they had to replace someone...so they weren't in too much of a hurry to hire someone.

My husband interviewed at the beginning of January and it took about 2 weeks to hear back from the group he was interested in whether or not they liked him...can you say we were on pins & needles?!?!?! He signed his contract mid Jan & we bought a house at the end of Jan. Finally now that we know where we'll be living we can start making plans for our future again!!

My husband is still being called by some recruiters & hospitals that didn't know that he took another position and I think the number of calls he received seemed to pick up around the end of Jan/beginning of Feb.

For the past year I was so freaked out thinking that my husband was slacking in the job search area, but it turns out he was the first resident in his group to secure a new position. I think most of the others found jobs in Feb & March and a few are still looking.

The groups dh interviewed with both paid for travel costs. One group paid for hotel, airfare, rental car, and meals (except I had to pay for my own airfare) and the other group reimbursed up to $1000, so my airfare was covered so long as we didn't go over the $1000. I think most places cover travel costs...a nice change the residency interview process!!

Sally, it must be tough for your husband to search for jobs with his hectic schedule! My dh moonlights, so he didn't have much time to interview either. What we did was I did a lot of research on the internet and printed the jobs that looked good and made up a list of hospitals and recruiters I thought my husband should contact. Of course, we don't have any kids yet so I had the luxury to spend some time on the internet!!

As far as bonuses, we didn't see too many positions that offered those, but it could be just because of my husband's specialty or the area where he was looking to work. We saw a few positions that offered signing bonuses, but they were in more rural areas. I'm sure there are plenty of groups that offer bonuses, so just keep on looking!!

Job hunting is certainly nervewrecking & stressful, so if you have any questions, let me know and hopefully I can provide some insight!!

One last thing....Marla Spriggs is a recruiter in Lima, Ohio who places physicians. She actually used to be one of my clients before she started her recruiting business. She's only been recruiting for a couple of years so I don't know how tapped in she is, and I've never experienced working with her as a recruiter, but I think she would be an ethical recruiter. Marla's previous career was in medical device sales, so she has a lot of contacts at hospitals. She's a member of NAPR. Her email address is marlaspriggs@wcoil.com and her phone # is listed on http://www.napr.com. Since she's a member of a recruiter network, if she doesn't have any openings that are a fit, she might know someone else in the network who does. She would then put your spouse in touch with the other recruiter who has an opening that's a fit and if your husband is offered a job, both recruiters would split the fee.

Sorry for another looooong post!!!

Erica