My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, “I understand that my work directly impacts the lives of people. I commit to take a silent moment of reflection on this fact before I begin work every day. I acknowledge that I am passionate about my career position and this will be my guiding motivator to continually improve – acceptance of the status quo is never acceptable because it is never an excuse for our patients and their families.” . . · You now know the difference between marketing and selling. · You now understand the competitive component – that you must not only sell candidates, but OUTSELL your competitors. · You understand that being efficient carves out tremendous waste, and actually improves your results. Your sincere commitment to be a “pro” will lead to making Foundation commitment #2: .
“I will be a real pro and have a proactive impact on my results. I am competing for candidates vs. other employers. I commit to crafting marketing ideas and a selling protocol that separate my opportunities from others while maximizing time and quality. My process will build my relationship with prospects in ‘steps’ and lead to a conclusion that is best for both sides.” . · There are the same considerations regarding your service area. How do your schools rate in your region? Are you a student of your economy and can you speak intelligently of employers, their plans, as well as government-sponsored growth initiatives? Identify pluses, like having a regional airport, country clubs, and a recreational lake – not all towns your size have these. Have you travelled to the communities of your competitors to evaluate them? · Remember that you have already made career “foundation commitments” now, and you are not a “community welcomer” who can only place a smile on your face, set up interview visits, and speak in clichés (you aren’t a waiter!), but you are committed to being a pro and a real sales professional – this is now the requirement of your position – people’s lives depend on YOU! · Preparing a “report” on your hospital and service area, and “tending to it,” are requisite to your success – because whatever tools or sales presentation you create, it will have to be one that constantly changes in order to be accurate and to keep you in command of the facts. · Eventually you will develop a list of survey questions which you will incorporate into your protocol as a Q/A piece that help you hone your presentation and skills. · Eventually you must craft a list of local professionals and people of influence to incorporate into your presentation, particularly for onsite visits with candidates and their families. Choreographing meetings and prepping these folks from all walks of life in your service area (business owners, teachers, economic development principals) to meet candidates, and practicing with them to “present” a thorough and compelling “sales presentation” while your competitors merely place physicians with a realtor who really has little command of the facts bona fide physician candidates need to know, and try to let the realtor do all the selling. . · Developing a repeatable onsite candidate visit “protocol” that you can generally repeat is essential because it allows for you to judge yourself and measure your success. A repeatable presentation that includes all of the information that jobseekers need allows you to relax and focus on relationship building rather than the “Chinese Fire Drill” of “what comes next,” and allows for improvisation with them and their families – this is advanced level sales where you are creating connections that will help separate you from competition. · Special Note: As a former tech sales professional, sales manager, and sales consultant, as well as 8 years as Founder and President of Online Job Tour®, our team is “the pioneer” regarding reaching online jobseekers and crafting an approach to maximize recruiting medical professionals. I am available to speak to groups and recruiting organizations, as well as consulting with employers to help them craft an ideal recruiting environment. Please contact me through our website at www.onlinejobtour.com . · Today the Internet is no longer something we passively read, like the newspaper on a computer screen. Instead, we now interact with it. But hospitals did not really harness the power of high speed Internet to maximize their recruiting efforts (Our company’s invention fills this void, below). . · Referenced immediately above, many local and regional healthcare recruiting directors are older and look at the Internet as a forum to observe and not participate in; in other words, they look AT the Internet like they read a newspaper. That’s not what the Internet is anymore; instead it is a place where users “interact with web content.” · This leads to their policy development and recruiting that doesn’t really “use” the Internet but merely “advertises on it,” like newspaper classifieds. · The result is the overwhelming majority of hospitals wait until candidates are onsite – after the expense has been committed for the trip, all the time is committed by many people, and regretfully, possible better matches have already been turned down, to begin their selling effort. . · Special Note: Would you like to learn more about Online Job Tour®, see some samples, and get an overview of its benefits? Please visit www.onlinejobtour.com and then give our staff a call if you still have questions. . · The employer can do a great deal more possible BEFORE any visits are planned – these trips take a lot of manpower to put together and at a great expense. And Online Job Tour can be used with ALL prospects to give everyone a very comprehensive virtual visit vs. the very few the hospital can afford to host. · Online Job Tour solves the critical sales conundrum where prospects can’t make a decision simply because they don’t have enough information; in fact, classic sales studies show that “lack of information” is a larger reason consumers don’t buy products. . Carl Brickman |
Saturday, July 24, 2010
My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, Part III
Sunday, June 13, 2010
My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, Part II: On being a “Pro” and incorporating marketing and selling skills
. Employer medical recruiters and their efforts directly impact the lives of their patients and communities. It’s an incredible responsibility. Because of this, it there is a solemn and moral responsibility to be dedicated to continual improvement and professional growth. This four part series is focused on the four core components required for employer medical recruiters to fulfill this responsibility and excel. . In Part I, I pulled no punches regarding “commitment” to one’s position as an employer recruiter in healthcare. You get no credit for claiming to “love” your community and going to church with, and knowing people in your service area, showing up for work every day, and eventually filling open jobs. I have met hundreds of employer recruiters – all who claim these “feel good” abstract descriptions of their positions, almost as a defense for mediocre results – none of these pay any bills. More important, none are an excuse to provide a grief stricken family member of a patient just lost due to a mistake made by a practitioner. I love my spouse and my Lord – the bank to whom I owe my mortgage doesn’t give a hoot. . Here is the only characteristic I care about and on it I can take a new recruiter of any talent level and make them “elite” with their results in short order: you need to acknowledge and embrace that your work directly impacts lives because if you hold this in your heart, then it will drive you to continually push yourself by growing your knowledge and skills – necessities in this dynamic market where there is intense competition. You are never good enough, and you must improve. Welcome to “tough love” recruiting excellence. You must have this “solemn commitment [Foundation Commitment #1].” . · What is a “Pro?:” A professional employer medical recruiter is a highly motivated professional with sales and marketing skills, who uses competitive, advanced tools, and understands the entire spectrum of the recruiting process, and brings value to his position with improved outcomes. · My father, a former corporate executive, used to say a refrain many times through my upbringing which I never forgot: “There is a big difference between someone with ten years of experience and another with one year of experience for ten years in a row.” The message here is 75% of the employer medical recruiters I have met learned how to do their job in a mediocre fashion with no prior sales experience and little or no professional training – then learned their “job” and have done it for 5 and even 10 years the same way. The result is mediocrity. This happens when you have recruiters without the solid foundation commitment and with no professional sales experience or training. · It’s difficult to get any recruiter in this position to admit they need any improvement – they are caustically defensive when new ideas or tools are suggested to them. Imagine this person and that mentality recruiting YOUR physician or pediatrician for your children. . · I was once in a meeting with a hospital senior executive team and one of them said “I don’t like to sell, and physicians looking to work at our hospital, if they ask me for information I will give them what I can, but they are responsible for choosing where they want to practice. After they choose us, then my job is to work with them to make the transition.” . · The #1 mistake I see almost all hospitals make is they forget they are competing – (this is due to the fact that those dictating the policy of recruitment generally have no professional sales experience) that is, they not only have to attract and then sell jobseekers, but they must “out market” and “out sell” many other employers vying for the same professional. You must evaluate how jobs are advertised and how you are selling and closing candidates. In a competitive arena where everyone seems to be doing it the same way, your lack of originality in your tools and efforts to distinguish yourself from competitors is a sure way to have mediocre results and hire the mediocre candidates. (The “dead giveaway” that I am dealing with an untrained recruiter is when, for example, a community hospital recruiters or their CEOs break into the “Our community is great for raising a family,” and “we are close to big city amenities but away from their overcrowding,” “we have great schools,” and more nonsense. While these may be true statements, every community hospital says this, so it’s a waste of time and doesn’t help the jobseeker, who heard the same mantras from 6 other employers.
· The belief that you cannot, or you choose not to have a proactive orientation towards your job and its results, violates Foundation Commitment #1 and sets your hospital on the road to mediocrity. . · There are many approaches you can take to advertise your jobs online, during job fairs, in mailers, print advertising, in person, on the phone, or in branding efforts at your hospital in your service area, region, or even nationally. Find out what your competitors are doing. Then do it differently and with a focus on getting attention and getting the first opportunity to present your jobs vs. them. Remember there are not just a limited number of practitioners, but of them, you want to land the top 15% of them. . Carl Brickman |
Monday, May 31, 2010
Raising Dreams and Lives…Together
My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters: Part I . Medical Recruiters are in the business of fulfilling personnel needs for their companies while helping medical professionals establish or grow their careers – which impact their lives and their families. And as opposed to recruiting in other fields, such as engineering, or public relations, or IT, while these are also important and have their challenges and also filled with talented professionals, employer medical recruiters and their efforts directly impact the lives of their patients and communities. It’s an incredible responsibility. Because of this, it there is a solemn and moral responsibility to be dedicated to continual improvement and professional growth. . This four part series is focused on the four core components required for employer medical recruiters to fulfill this responsibility. .
Part I: You must have a sincere passion – because you are answerable to patients, to want to be the very best you can be, and continually push yourself by growing your knowledge and skills. .
While professional selling experience and training would give someone a huge advantage, that background is not a guarantee for success as a medical recruiter; however, you need marketing and selling training skills and a system to track your results – both to monitor your progress as well as to be able to demonstrate your value to your employer. You need the best possible tools to both leverage your personal shortcomings as well as those (perceived by jobseekers as well as any limitations on your facilities, resources, the service area, etc.) of your employer. And you need to be a team player; that is, learn the value of bridging relationships as well as working with others. Claiming you love your employer and your community, and showing up for work every day, and eventually filling your open jobs, IS NOT ENOUGH.
. I got onto medical recruiting after my father died as a result of a mistake made during a routine medical procedure. What does “I love my community” and “the job was filled by a qualified candidate” mean after I ask the medical recruiter if they have done all they could to make sure my father had the best possible physician and staff delivering care to him? My point is that the abstract, impossible-to-measure “I love my community” and “I have been doing my job for years” and “I am doing what my employer asks of me” are acceptable if you drive a bread truck on a 9-5 job. If it were you and your parent died in the same circumstance, these statements would be excuses given by people in “status quo” career positions which they do not seek to positively influence or improve.
. You don’t have to be a faith-based person to be successful as a medical professional. But I am, and my Christian faith and my church members inspire me. Acts 9:36-43 is about a woman named Tabitha who was beloved, and upon her death disciples called the Apostle Peter (Christ had died and been resurrected by this time). When Peter arrived, many of Tabitha’s friends were there weeping. Peter ushered them out of the room.
. “He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up.”
. The reading symbolizes how Christians are asked to continue Christ’s work. I thought about my dad. I thought about how all recruiters have the solemn responsibility to do their very best. Medical recruiting is not the work of an apostle raising the dead, but it is dealing with peoples’ lives in more ways than one.
. So here we are. You are an employer medical recruiter. This scenario above is a real one and could happen to you. What’s more, that patient could be someone you know, or even a friend. .
Passion and Commitment changes your orientation to seek out improvement and better results – without it, your practice slips into “status quo” and mediocrity – with “success” defined in very narrow terms.
. When you are dealing with peoples’ lives and permanent placement recruiting, you should always bring your heart and soul. Recruiters MUST pledge to try their very best and continue to push the limits, and move “out of the box” because of the responsibility of acquiring talented candidates, selling them, and then hiring the very best possible professional while at the same time making a “long-term fit” for both.
. And in the medical profession, employer recruiters absolutely need a conscience to guide them – it cannot be merely about making a placement but seeking to hire the absolute best physician, nurse, or director – even for staff positions researching and marketing to the higher-rated schools and programs.
. This is about having a sincere passion and acute awareness that what you do directly impacts the lives of others – with this mindset you will always have the motivation to understand you have the solemn responsibility to be the best you can be and that you have to keep improving, evolving, growing. This does not have to be a stress-filled orientation but simply a “frame of mind.” Consider that what you can do is simply move yourself onto another “track” that is more efficient and has shorter destinations to the places you want to go. A different mindset can do that for you. . · The truly good employer medical recruiters have this “higher calling” and are conscientious, they constantly evaluate everything, and with the added element of competition, they know they must improve – these are intuitive and born from the acceptance of the job’s responsibilities. . Why must a passion and then commitment beyond “status quo” mentalities, methods and tools exist for the medical recruiter? The real answer is without it, your career and results will be mediocre compared to others.
. Real passion and commitment promotes the moral obligation to seek to hire the best possible professionals and not merely fill a job with any candidate who meets the requirements. All physicians are not alike, nor are all nurses and techs. Lesser practitioners mean less efficient workers and more problems – botched procedures, resulting lawsuits, and worse.
. Intense Competition: The bell curve of the baby boomer population was in 2016 before the retirement age was changed by the government – which is promoting that the curve is being “carried” to 2020. But people are still getting older. Moreover, statistics for certain illnesses, such as diabetes, are growing. There simply are not enough medical practitioners. The need to not only get the best practitioners, but fill all openings and pools to limit short staff problems, is keen and costly if not accomplished.
. Efficiency Models: Not only is it important to fill jobs with the best and most talented professionals, but now there are studies out in abundance regarding the lost revenue of healthcare employers from unfilled jobs – so filling jobs faster is also now a key issue. The Advisory Group Inc., in Washington, DC claims hospitals lose a minimum of $100,000 for every month a physician job is unfilled. It is startling that a hospital can go 9 months before filling a specialty physician job, resulting in an “opportunity loss” of a million dollars and higher. .
. Technology Changes and the New Jobseeker: Anyone except those living under rocks knows the Internet has changed the game. But the better recruiters know it is not just about posting your jobs online. The psychology of how people use the computer, “reaching” people in a new way, and how information can be not just delivered, but in a manner that improves the sale, pre-qualification of candidates, encourages referrals – improves the process for both sides, is requisite for healthcare employers who want to stay ahead of competitors out there for the better and more talented workers – who will make their companies better than the others (and again, offer better treatment to patients – which is what it should really about and motivate medical recruiters). In a future post I will address the new jobseekers and approaches and tools that will promote improved results – even for those without professional selling backgrounds or training.
. Financials and Partnerships: Today the actual negotiation of the career position is a factor for medical employers and hospitals. For instance, physicians now have the option of establishing a private practice, joining an existing practice, they can choose an employed model offered by an individual employer, and there are practice management services which employ doctors and offer them to hospital clients as a “service.” Almost anything is negotiable. Medical Recruiters can impact the candidate’s choice in this regard – in many cases physicians don’t know these options. The “presentation” of career opportunities by the medical professionals, through closing the physician or practitioner while being aware of the options that can be provided, can impact landing that candidate.
. Classic Selling Concepts never get outdated: Are you skilled at asking for referrals? Imagine filling a second opening without repeating a long, expensive search simply by remembering to ask a candidate you have just closed for a peer referral? I will share signature selling tenets that will promote quantum leaps in your approach regarding effectiveness, efficiency, competitiveness, and time savings – but remember we first have to make sure we have you committed to this first feature, because having a sincere passion required to be great promotes seeking to improve.
. The hidden pandemic of Retention: A physician leaving after a great deal of time, effort, money, and uncountable hours of initial set up by many people, are all ruined if after 6 months the newly-recruited physician leaves – and the process has to be stared again. It is also a demoralizing experience. Here is another example of merely “making the placement” isn’t a measure of success – and also suggests you really cannot determine if the placement was successful until much later.
. I laugh at the public statements made by many hospital companies who seem to brag about the amount of money spend on physician recruiting as well as the number of new physicians they recruited – because as a patient, neither would matter to me. “How are you recruiting? Are you being both economical to save money that could be better spent on me, and what are you doing to attract and retain the best talent?” Are these not the questions a patient or hospital board member, or the medical recruiter, should ultimately be asking? .
Are you willing to be great for your patients? Do you accept the solemn responsibility that being an employer medical recruiter affects lives, so you must endeavor to continually improve? . The difference between a .250 hitter and a hall of fame .300 hitter over 550 at bats is just 27 hits. Over a six month season (26 weeks), that's effectively a hit a week. Sure, talent is a big part of it, but I can show you a basic path that is more important than talent to promote a truly fulfilling career. In my next entries I will review the basics you need to fulfill that pledge to yourself, but you must first have the foundation to build on – and it starts with your sincere motivation.
. Make this Foundation Commitment #1:
“I understand that my work directly impacts the lives of people. I commit to take a silent moment of reflection on this fact before I begin work every day. I acknowledge that I am passionate about my career position and this will be my guiding motivator to continually improve – acceptance of the status quo is never acceptable because it is never an answer for our patients and their families.”
. Carl Brickman For more information about me or to reach me, visit my company’s website at http://www.onlinejobtour.com/ |
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Raising Dreams and Lives…Together: My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters
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Sunday, April 4, 2010
The iPad Problem for Recruiters
The iPad Problem for Recruiters: Because the iPad does not play Flash video, 99 % of today’s recruitment-oriented videos will not play on it. Gulp. Fortunately, Online Job Tour and our clients are already prepared for it. What the iPad is: For what 90% of computer users use the Internet for – surfing the web, email, basic document creation – the iPad lets you do all those things totally portably and with no mouse or keypad, on a “tablet” device with a 9.5” screen that weighs 1.5 pounds. You can purchase books, movies, and music for it. There are thousands of apps for it, which are like “little softwares,” (and of course many more to come) for utilizing the Internet in a whole new way. I strongly encouraged all of my clients to buy the iPhone at its release in 2007 because of these “apps,” which in concert with Apple’s “i-technology” have become world changers. · For most users, the iPad can/should replace their laptop computers. What it does: For video/movie watching, the stunning HD display is a sight to behold, its interface for gaming grades off the charts, for touch-screen Internet browsing, it is special. And the size of the iPad screams down to the iPhone. If the iPad was just for books, it would be revolutionary. And it is. While I don't own a Kindle, I've played with one before, I've even tried Barnes and Nobles' Nook, I've read books on my iPhone, and I've read books the traditional way. It's a whole new reading experience that nothing else comes close to. Limitations: As you have likely read, discerning consumers to “Apple-Geeks” have pointed out what they think are flaws that later generations of the product will correct; for instance, there is no USB port (to me the biggest shortcoming), many are unhappy there is no camera or phone, but I think these are coming in future generations. Soon we will have 10G wireless networks and be walking and talking on portable mini computers – I don’t want to write about what features the iPad currently has or may have, but why it is important. The Future: Tablet computers like the iPad are going to be huge. They’re going to sell in the tens of millions and change the standards of how we interact with each other and with digital media. They will change written and broadcast journalism, and the way we tell stories, present ourselves, and communicate. In future forms they will ultimately will replace our computers. How this will affect recruiting professionals: While many manufacturers will produce a tablet product, certain target jobseeker demographics – including higher professionals such as physicians and high-end practitioners, and a large majority of the +$100,000 career professionals, because Apple has a growing market in certain areas (like medical imaging, for instance) that impact their careers, will buy the iPad. · This poses a compelling problem for almost all corporate and private recruiters of these higher-end jobseekers: because the iPad does not play Flash video, 99 % of the recruitment-oriented videos will not play on the iPad. Although MAC users represent only 12-15% of computer users, iPhone (emphasis on “phone”) users comprise 44% of smart phone users (physicians with an iPhone over 50%). Due to their preference for the iPhone, higher end jobseeker targets who do not have a MAC will likely buy the iPad in much larger numbers as a “bridge” to Apple. [This may end up being a truly masterful move by Apple to penetrate the PC market through a “side door” that costs $499 instead of a relatively expense MAC vs. the PC.] Online Job Tour™’s position has been to build our product to accommodate all browser platforms and for the widest audience possible. As a result, rather than a video platform that uses Adobe/Flash only, our work involves Java Scripting instead, which can host a larger number of video formats and stays away from total reliance on Flash video (a Microsoft-favored tool, which are in PCs, which dominate corporate America).
A revolutionary product, to learn more about patent-pending Online Job Tour ™ check out our website at www.onlinejobtour.com. Contact me if you would like to learn more about it, or about how will help our clients exceed their recruiting goals and challenges.
Sources: http://seekingalpha.com/article/147523-apple-palm-lead-soaring-smart-phone-de... http://gadgetcrave.com/mac-use-up-to-12-percent-users-are-more-wealthy-tech-oriented/3669/ |
