Recruiting for Moms and Dads and the Importance of Making Time for New Ideas

As a Christian, Easter is my favorite holiday as it is the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection and His purpose.  Our family takes the time to reflect on that, and during such times I think about family. Easter promotes thoughts of my father, who died January 6, 2000.  His death was motivation for what I do today.  He died due to a mistake made during a routine after-surgery procedure in a hospital.  I left a successful consulting career to start a medical recruiting firm to make sure that my tragedy wasn’t repeated with someone else’s parent.  Today my recently-patented invention, Online Job Tour®, which was developed and motivated by my passion to do what I do, is a new recruiting product to reach today’s online jobseekers and support healthcare recruiting.  You can learn about it at www.onlinejobtour.com  

On this Easter I have a sincere wish for all internal recruiters – those of you who work for a hospital or their corporation and recruit new physicians and employees: Consider you Recruit for Moms and Dads and always be open to getting better for their sake. 

Since I started my new career in 2000 with sorrow driving me regarding my father death, I have realized what I am doing makes a difference in the lives of other peoples’ parents.  Isn’t that an awesome thing? As an internal recruiter, you deal with prospective employees who will meet, touch, care for, save, console, and impact the lives of the people you serve, and their parents.

My hope is that you stay mindful of the importance of your job that you also remain motivated to be the best recruiter you can be, which includes constantly searching for the best practices and tools – like any top professional or pro athlete, being great requires constantly pushing the limit, never being content, and always looking for the best training regimen and equipment.

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Ok, so you understand the need to constantly improve and continually seek to get better, but when is the right time to consider new ideas?

I recently had a staff member here express some disappointment that he had been in contact with a hospital regarding Online Job Tour and the internal recruiter he talked to was rude.  We had mailed a package and made a courtesy follow up call to ensure its delivery and to seek a way to discuss Online Job Tour with a policymaker.  Naturally, this wasn’t a personal call and the internal recruiter likely deals with many solicitations.  I understand the call may have been an interruption - but it was in response to an email by someone who gave no title on an email to our company, so our staff called to learn who it was. Hopefully we reached this person on a bad day.

·         When you are aware that your work impacts lives and recruiting is extremely competitive, time should always be made to consider new and better ideas and products, right?

You can’t hold it against salespeople that they are enthusiastically promoting their products.  They are the delivery mechanism for new ideas as well as every product you use today, which was either sold to you or to your boss for you to use.

Maybe not today, but all internal recruiters need to be allowed by their employers the autonomy to investigate new practices and recruiting tools.  Dedicate a week to it. So when solicitors call, instead of a blow off of a potentially great product because of your initial irritation, accept their information and inform them of the time you have dedicated to seeking ways to improve by reviewing new products and services.  They can call back then.

If you are not the person who makes the decisions, then save everyone time by pointing out the right person – because any good sales pro is going to root that out with multiple calls; so save your employer the time of getting more calls than it needs to receive.

By reserving a specific time period to evaluate new ideas, you don’t have to be rude, and at the same time you can look forward to taking an important break to see what has been offered to you from the wonderful world of inventions, ideas and generally well-meaning people with legitimate references, who are outside of your box.

The best recruiters in healthcare are motivated by their almost-daily conscious awareness of the importance of what they do and that their work impacts lives – this motivates them to be great and to actively welcome new ideas as well as seek them out.

Consider being one of them for the benefit of the moms and dads whom you serve.  Speaking from my personal experience, their children will appreciate you for it!

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2 Lessons for Recruiters from “March Madness”

I think about recruiting a lot.  I invented Online Job Tour after the death of my father due to a mistake made during a medical procedure so it’s a real passion – I suppose there are worse things to be obsessed about!

As I watched in amazement one upset after the next in this year’s NCAA College Basketball tournament, commonly referred to by sports fans as "March Madness," including the upset of my beloved Florida Gators by the Butler Bulldogs, I kept thinking about the analogies used in sports and how they apply to life, and certainly in business – and recruiting, too.

Here are a two things from this year’s tournament that I hope inspire you on your quest to be a great recruiter for your employer.

1)  It’s about match ups – you may not be the better than every team in the tournament, but that doesn’t matter; you only have to be better than the team you’re playing.  For more than six years now, a huge issue I have noticed with my employer clients is how self deprecating they are about their hospital and service area – the focus is generally making excuses for what they lack vs. exalting what they have.  This is likely a combination of being told negative things but I think it’s a bit of human nature to want what you don’t have and to think “the grass is greener….” 

First of all, recruiting is not about what you don’t have as much as how you compare against the other employers that your candidates are considering. For instance, if you are a smaller hospital in a relatively smaller and non-urban area, then at the point when they start getting serious, your prospective candidates have generally already decided this kind of environment and lifestyle is what they prefer.  So you aren’t competing against New York City, but you need to find out what hospitals and communities the prospect is also serious about besides you – and from there you have to start considering where you stand. This makes things manageable.  It’s about match ups, and how you fare against the 6 other employers of your prospect, and not against the world.

From this point, you need to break down the career opportunity regarding the job itself and how it relates to what the prospect wants, and then your facilities, but also your community and what it offers: recreation, entertainment, Arts, access to travel, Schools, the local economy, Real Estate prices, shopping, etc.

Design a protocol that is easy for you to replicate.  Consider using Online Job Tour – our tool that gives your prospects a better onsite visit than the real trip.  Seek to understand the needs and preferences in order, what are most important to your prospects.  And then seek out and compare all these factors with your competitors.  You may not come out ahead in all areas, but you don’t need to win the game 100-0 – you only need to win by a point. 

I believe coming across to your prospects as an expert, and then helping them refine their considerations, will not only help you in discerning and comparing which candidates are most favorable, but also when you focus on trying to close your top choice you can be an advocate to helping them understand the positives of your employer and service area to their other options. 

You need to know what their biggest issues are.  You need to know your competitors to influence the outcome – you only need to be better than your direct competitors in these area.

2)  On Believing in being great – you can accomplish almost anything with the right attitude and it starts with believing in what you represent:  your employer and where you live.

Some of the teams who have pulled off upsets in this year’s championships had no business winning on paper.  I am particularly fond of VCU, who many pundits screamed should never have been selected to be in the tournament, which keeps winning and recently beat top-seeded Kansas to reach the Final Four.

During the test market of Online Job Tour it was my intent to introduce it to rural hospitals in communities which are generally off of the Internet radar or overshadowed by larger cities nearby, or are misunderstood.  By focusing on telling the story and history of the community and the employer, and focusing our work on the positive aspects of the community – which are far more than initially meet the eye, we started having great success marking these “Norman Rockwell” lives to the right kinds of candidates who were ultimately looking for that work and life situation.  One client increased its closing percentage from 5% to 70% in one year, among many other positives.  Another client in rural Kentucky, over three years, has a 100% retention rate having recruited more than 50 doctors in three years – the town has a beautiful lake, but no major department stores, hotels, or franchise businesses except for a few restaurants. 

These clients out-recruited many other bigger, flashier hospitals, by using good recruiting tools and making solid offers, but it started with their sincere belief that they offered a great place to work and live.

Enthusiasm and genuine sincere excitement is infectious, and it reaches people emotionally.  It doesn’t make the sale but it without question can help close it.  In fact, there’s really nothing more important than believing in who you are and what you do.  Just ask VCU!

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The Easiest Thing an Employer Recruiter can do to bring real value to the recruiting process without spending a dime – “Be an Advocate, not an Assistant.”

All successful sales professionals set up an “evaluation system” to determine their effectiveness, their personal income prospects, and value to their employers. But in our test market of hospitals and physician-owned practices over the last six years, rarely did I find an employer recruiter – called an “Internal Recruiter,” who does the same thing to monitor their efficiency, costs, closing percentages, and retention, among other important statistics, in the same manner. 

Although our business currently is with hospitals, my experience is that for many employers in all industries, their recruiting protocols lack basic professional selling tenets. In fact, many internal “recruiters” are NOT really salespeople but “assistants” who almost aimlessly follow their candidates.

Hospital recruiting is at a high cost (not just financial) and many have not taken a serious look at their recruiting process despite the Internet changing career search completely.  But some are starting to see their shortcomings – and understand the need to better market and sell themselves, and fill jobs faster, more competitively, and less expensively – plus focus on harnessing technology.

But a great deal of recruiting losses and shortcomings can be eradicated by internal recruiters incorporating basic sales tenets that cost nothing to implement.

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Off the bat, the easiest and perhaps most important thing an internal recruiter can do to improve upon their results is to “stop following” candidates around and instead have the focus to be an Advocate for the candidate, and not the candidate’s “secretary.” 

·         Even if the internal recruiter is not the one who will put together the pro forma or any sophisticated compensation package, nor may not be involved in the “final close,” their responsibility is to “clear the way” or “set the table” for both sides to get to that point.

To ultimately craft a competitive, repeatable, discernable recruiting protocol, becoming their candidates’ advocate is the easy and simply takes a change in approach:

1)     An advocate is expert on what candidates need to know – this knowledge promotes a proactive nature which anticipates needs which gains the candidates’ respect.

2)     An advocate understands the competitive component – they aren’t recruiting in a vacuum, but aware they need to not just sell, but outsell all other options of their candidates.  They provide information for comparison that favors their employer, plus help candidates recognize the more favorable characteristics of their open jobs vs. competitors.

3)     An advocate must have a real commitment to technology. Today’s jobseekers are online and any good internal recruiter insists on having the best tools to exhibit their jobs, as well as to communicate to and with jobseekers/candidates.

1) Be an Expert on what candidates need to know:

If you become a bona fide expert on the issues and subjects your candidates need to know, you will gain a measure of respect with the candidate and ultimately become a confidant.  In fact, your only benefit to them will be what you know and who you know.  You can either be a professional whom they trust and rely on or if they see that the extent of your “help” is helping them pick Holiday Inn or the Sheraton, their “wall” will never come down – you will never have a “peer” relationship where they take you seriously. 

It’s pretty easy to discern the needs of your candidates – especially if they are relocating and your service area.  A relocating candidate should want to know about your area’s economy and lifestyle issues (higher-end earners will want to know about the Arts, Country Clubs, private schools, shopping, high-end real estate, etc.).  Many will want to know about civic groups or have interests in investing in the community. 

For example, if your candidates express that they have middle school children who are high achievers, don’t just drive past a school and drop an awful cliché like your competitors such as “our schools are great and highly-rated,” but be an expert on the details, such as how the International Baccalaureate (IB) program was founded, then set up a meeting with its director, then tour its facilities.  Talk about the new middle school being built and arrange for a tool to display its technology. Introduce your candidate to the PR person of the school system.  Then make a point to inquire about private schools/academies and then do the same.

If you are in a smaller town, drive past construction sites and point out what is going on.  Discuss in detail projects in the community and arrange for meetings with economic development principals to review floor plans with your candidates.  Introduce candidates to the Director of Economic Development.

Especially in a smaller community, you should remind candidates that they should want to know about the economy so they can project outward their career.

Here are key examples of your showing you have done homework and prepared a visit.  You were proactive.  You have knowledge your competitors don’t.  Your competition didn’t do this, and you are setting yourself apart from competitors’ recruiters as someone who “has the answers.” You are an expert who has anticipated needs, and added real value to your candidates’ job searches. These are memorable things to jobseekers.  Ultimately, knowing you have information and know the right people will promote a unique change in the attitude of your candidates which may open the real doors to learning the major issues needed to close them. 

Regarding a candidate’s expertise – if he is a cardiologist – you don’t need to be able to talk on his or her level, but you should be well-schooled on all the equipment and facilities of your employer – depending on your specific role, you may or may not need to understand the financial opportunity as well as any guarantees or packages your employer with offer.  This is easier than you think, especially if you aren’t the deal maker but just the facilitator to the CFO or the board who will present the offer.

I could give all kinds of examples of being a prepared expert who has done your homework, who is a student of your employer and your service area, who knows the right people – but I think you get my point!  Be an active student of your employer and your service area and be proactive in sharing that information in the form of personal visits or that you know key people.

2) Understand the competitive component:

Too many recruiters forget the candidates they are dealing with – especially if they are doctors, can have as many as 8 different options when they make the commitment to interview.  They speak in clichés that really say nothing and don’t serve to distinguish themselves or their service area from the other options which makes the candidates feel isolated and alone.

Cliché phrases include “our hospital is like one big family” and “our community is small and it’s great for families.” As much as this may be true, these aren’t selling points when your five competitors are repeating these clichés.  Real sales professionals are taught to provide information that leads prospects to the conclusions you want them to reach.  Therefore, your goal should be to present them with information in the form of visits and meetings, so they can determine for themselves these facts. 

And during dialogues, asking open-ended questions such as “how do we compare vs. your other choices” will bring out discussions to give you clues as to what candidates are interested in, as well as any misconceptions or wrong facts they have.

For example, let’s say you learn a candidate enjoys golf and the wife enjoys high end shopping, and although there are two country clubs in your service area but no major malls with top department stores, you might arrange for the couple to visit and have a snack with the Director of a local golf club – and prior to the trip you might speak with the wives of a few members who agree to meet all of you, who can tell the candidate and his wife where they shop.  In this case, the key is acknowledging that there is no Lord & Taylors locally, but the wife had the chance to learn where her future neighbors shop. 

Let’s say your competitor also has golf, but avoids the subject of shopping and chooses to hide from it since they don’t have high end shopping either.  Perhaps your arranging to have your candidates meet local people who discussed it and reassured them, may make the difference.

Or if another competitor doesn’t have a private club (who says you can’t do your homework and compare these other places?) – you not only have the advantage but you made a point to visit one of yours.

Thus, if you have a good working relationship with the candidate, as you get to closing them you have this “ammunition” to use in your favor while you help them compare their career options vs. being a secretary they would never confide in.

Another example might be in your economy, which may be more diversified than other options of your candidate, which may be looking at a one industry town.  I think it’s a good thing to ask your candidate to consider how it would affect their career if the furniture manufacturer in that other town they are considering closes.

The bottom line here is open-ended questions.  Talking to candidates in terms of being an expert on what they need to understand to reach real decisions for their career, and taking time to help them compare your opportunity vs. others, pays off.

3. Commit to Technology:

It’s clear that jobseekers have moved to the Internet.  We have also seen a huge rise in the use of smart phones and the iconic iPad among the high-end medical jobseekers whom we assist our clients in recruiting.  The facts are that high-speed Internet is 10 years old now and by 2012 that will mean 3 generations of college graduates will have graduated – the point being that the college grad will have “grown up online.”

Internal recruiters need smart phones – I personally highly recommend the iPhone (Our group made the first web-based recruiting product in 2002 but we made a “micro” product for smart phones in 2006 – well before the iPhone).  Many professionals prefer to text, especially if they are busy.  It may sound a little silly to text your candidates, but not so much if you remember points #1 and #2 – you want to show you have knowledge, you are at least tech-competent, and your competitors may not be doing it.

·         Use an iPhone.  Use it to communicate with your candidates.  The iPhone is an iconic tool that you will grow to love through its applications and ease of use.  It’s a “hip” technology product and I think it’s the trendsetter in mobile communications.  It will send a good message to candidates.  And if you can afford it – get an iPad.  I believe in this product so much that our work is oriented toward our video content being fully viewable on it.

And as the Internet is so broad and open now, the days of merely referring your candidates to a handful of websites as the sum total of your using the Internet to “recruit” them shows badly and can lead to disaster. 

For instance, imagine merely providing a candidate a link to your local paper – and on today’s headline is news of a drug bust at the local high school, or worse, a double-homicide.  And reconsider merely providing jobseekers with the school district’s website – most all of the content has nothing to do with what the jobseeker needs or wants to know – and they can find that by themselves so you really did nothing for them.

Our company is the maker of Online Job Tour®, which is a patented invention and a great recruiting tool that “brings the onsite interview experience to the jobseeker” – here are some samples:  www.onlinejobtour.com/samples.php.

·         While our product is the premier tool to both communicate as well as sell careers – living in your area and working in your company, consider anything besides throwing jobseekers a handful of websites for them to ferret through to “sell yourself.”  That’s obviously not proactive selling.

If not Online Job Tour, at least provide candidates with web articles that present fair information and news on subjects which are important – at least you did some homework for them vs. your competitors which really don’t do anything to help.  While I believe it is far better to “reach” them with our invention/product, a streaming video with testimonials, even if relatively cheaply made, is better.  DVDs are older but a delivery system for streaming videos or some kind of visual presentation.  Although paper of any kind is pretty much dead to today’s jobseekers, a clean marketing slick or high-quality brochure – maybe with the DVD in it, is better than being passive and hoping.

• Our product and these other options cost money.  If you can’t get your senior executive to call me to negotiate some kind of deal for us to craft an Online Job Tour for your employer, then at least start collecting timely Internet pieces – and be sure to put them in categories that are relevant to your prospects.  It takes your time, but they would be more appreciated by your candidates.

I hope this blog entry has convinced you that changing your approach, and a few modifications to becoming a bona fide advocate for the needs of your candidates, will impact your results in a big way.

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New Year's Resolution Fizzling Already? Resolve to be a Pawn Star

Resolve to be a Pawn Star – Employer Recruiters can begin to build a hugely successful recruiting protocol by studying the shrewd negotiating skills of these owners of a highly successful Las Vegas pawn shop.  Although I haven’t checked into the figures, I wonder every year how many New Year’s Resolutions fizzle out by February.  My guess is that it’s a pretty high percentage, and among many reasons could be that people tend to set their goals too unrealistically.  Well, if you are an employer recruiter and your resolution is on the ropes or already kaput, I have a simple and powerful “resolution solution” that can last all year and pay dividends: Resolve to be a Pawn Star. There is a show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars which chronicles the everyday life of a family who has run a successful pawn shop in Las Vegas for years.  I imagine people from all over bring in goods such as old cars to a book once owned by Isaac Newton, from a circa 1700 musket to a vintage boom box.  I want you to quickly get past the fact that this is a pawn shop, but an extremely successful BUSINESS.  And there is a very simple reason for it that experienced salespeople and sales trainers (and great recruiters) quickly recognize – the principals at the pawn shop not only win virtually every negotiation with customers who bring in their goods, but they also almost never lose. How would you like to have a simple process that cuts to the quick virtually every time with jobseeker prospects, that drastically improves your results – from closing percentage, getting the appropriate terms your employer is pressing for with the newly hired employee, and improve your retention numbers while getting a sincere “win-win” where both you and the new employee are totally satisfied?  I’m going to recommend that you, in a general sense, model your recruiting approach around how these pawn shop owners negotiate so focus on how they do it. The Advantages of the Pawn Stars: Experience:  The first thing to recognize is the pawn shop owners have an incredible advantage – they negotiate dozens of deals every day vs. the person off the street who has perhaps never tried to pawn or sell anything they have owned before – this is no different than the advantage an employer-recruiter has over prospective candidates from physicians to specialty nurses. Exclusivity:   The next factor is the pawn shop owners have money – in other words, they have what these people want for the goods they are pawning.  Sure, we don’t know the motivations of the people – for instance, they may be desperate for cash or just curious to see what the item they have may be worth. The point is it doesn’t really matter because the pawn shop owner is going to set the terms.  These customers came through the door.  Similarly, your jobseeker prospects are at least casually interested in you;  after all, you have an open job and they are at least sniffing around about it.  They are coming to you. Knowledge and Expertise:  These pawn shop owners must be masters of the goods and products over which they are negotiating – because they must turn around and sell anything they buy at what they want to be a considerable profit.  Much of the things people bring in, from jewelry to guns, they already know what their store’s selling price is going to be based on market conditions.  The more unusual the product the better – the pawn guys will simply leverage an expert to come into the store for them in front of the customer and provide an assessment of the value of the product.   The experts seem to have good credentials, and talk intelligently, they have a reputation to uphold – but they clearly favor the pawn shop owners; nonetheless, they usually provide a “retail value” of the product.  Even with a starting price from which to negotiate, the pawn shop owner has the process to win the deal while promoting a deal that will either satisfy the customer or there will be no deal. This is similar to recruiting, is it not?  A jobseeker will come in with an expected salary and compensation range while to employer recruiter needs to promote a win-win that first benefits the employer, or be smart enough to drop pursuit of a jobseeker with unrealistic expectations or who isn’t sincerely interested. Emotion: People buy on emotion.  All good salesmen and recruiters know this.  An emotional attachment to a product or a job can be used against the customer or jobseeker, respectively, just as the emotional attachment to a product by a Pawn Star or to any particular candidate by an employer, can cut into the bottom line of the businesses.  To keep this blog entry more brief and focus on my orientation of developing a “process,” let’s agree for this post that because the Pawn Star and the employer-recruiter have always done this, they should have a clear advantage on this subject and have an awareness (gut . feeling) when emotion is playing too big of a role in their considerations.  Clearly, an employer-recruiter needs to be consciously aware of attempting to generate a number of emotional responses from jobseeker-prospects – it helps to out-recruit other employers as well as in the negotiations; will a candidate accept lower terms for a job and a community they have fallen in love with? You bet! The Negotiating process:  What all great sales professionals have in common, as do great recruiters, is they have a “sales process” or “presentation” which is refined and improved as they gain experience into which they incorporate their experience and exclusivity, which can turn style and recite in their sleep. While this is a multi-step thing to evaluate, you’ll be amazed how simple it is and how the pawn store owners operate so smoothly that what comes off as a normal conversation is a big victory almost every time for them, and equally importantly, the customer leaves the negotiation satisfied – a “win-win;” this is what employer-recruiters also hope to achieve, and it’s clear that an established, expert process gets to the bottom line expeditiously – which is also important as unfilled jobs cost money. The Two Negotiations – as I review these negotiations with you keep in mind that the customer is totally oblivious to almost all these factors and their brain isn’t wired to pay attention and understand they are involved in an almost totally orchestrated sales process that is a great disadvantage to them.  But also understand the end result is either going to be a perceived “win-win” – the customer is not going to accept an offer they don’t want, or they will part company for the best. A)    Without a third-party expert providing a price from which to start: From the get-go, understand the pawn store owner isn’t going to start any negotiation unless they already know the value of the product being offered by the customer, and what they perceive they will get for it.  With the orientation toward being able to sell the product at the highest re-sale possible as well as knowing the most they can pay, they also start the negotiations. The pawn store owner will naturally give a low offer with the customer generally not even understanding it is a low ball offer: Pawn Star:  “I’ll give you $200 for it.”   (This is the lowest the Pawn Star thinks the customer may accept and he also already knows he will only pay $275 at the most, and he thinks he can resell the item for $600) Customer:  “Well, geez, I was hoping to get at least $500.”  (Generally speaking, the customer has a ballpark figure of what they hope to get for their merchandise, but it is often not really based on any facts or knowledge about the product; often they have had the product laying around the house for years and they have no reference point such as their own purchase price – all conditions which the Pawn Star knows is likely the issue) Pawn Star:  “You need to understand that I need to be able to sell this for a profit, but I want to give you a fair price.  The best I can do is $250.”  (Here the Pawn Star introduces a fact that the customer likely did not consider, which promotes a sympathy of sorts and this is a power statement designed to loosed the customer’s hold on any firm price they may insist upon). Customer:  “How about $300?”  (This is far less than the $500 the customer just said he was hoping for, but this is the counter offer that the customer is saying he will accept) Pawn Star:  Long power pause…head shake no (that’s called a “take away”).  Brow wiped.  Stare at the merchandise.  Look at the customer (all choreographed acts).  Head shake again. “$275 is the best I can do.”  (This is exactly what the Pawn Star hoped would be the number with anything below being “extra gravy” to his bottom line, but is also the firm amount he has concluded will be a fit number where it would be worth it to take the time to turn around and display the merchandise for sale) Special Note:  The Pawn Star will never speak again after making the offer.  It’s a selling tenant that “the one who speaks after the offer loses.” ·         Let’s say the customer does not accept this number, keeping in mind that the customer himself offered $300 – which is $25 less: Customer:  “I just can’t do it.” Usually this would not be the response because many customers who get this far do not have an absolute firm price or a need to have one. Pawn Star:  “Well, if you want to spend the money to open your own pawn shop, advertise, pay the light bill, insurance for the business, and deal with all the hassles, maybe you can sell it for $275.  I’m sorry, I can’t do better than that.”  (This is called a “rebuttal” and the Pawn Star follows that with the close again at $275. ·         Let’s say the customer tries again to jiggle the price: Customer:  “Are you sure you can’t do any better?” Pawn Star:  (Firmly now) “$275 is the best I can do. (This is an absolute statement made to promote the close.  We really don’t know if the store owner will go higher but that’s not the point.  This is the art of negotiating.)  I want you to come away satisfied and come back again to me in the future. That’s the best I can do.”  (Another rebuttal promoting good feelings and prospective future business, which has no value to this deal, which the Pawn Star knows, but his intention is to get leverage, and then back to his close) Customer:  “Ok, I can do $275.” Pawn Star:  (Will immediately offer a handshake to consummate the agreement – this is a sales tactic, and repeat the agreed upon price) “$275 it is. Let’s write you up for the sale.” ·         It is important to also understand that the Pawn Star was operating with a large profit margin on the negotiation, so he had flexibility to make adjustments based on the variety of factors – from the customer’s knowledge of the product to any insistence on a specific price.  Also remember that even if the customer turns down the final offer, if there is truly a remaining profit to be had, the Pawn Star has that 40 feet from “No” until the from door to change that “final offer.” B)    With a third-party expert’s retain price estimate: The only difference between this negotiation, when one of the pawn store owner’s “experts” is brought in to provide a retail price from which any negotiation (which is up to the Pawn Star to start, if at all), is that there is a literal starting price point that will be established by the expert. Expert:  “Considering other products like this that are in the market, the demand for it, and it’s condition, I would say the retail prince of this widget is $1,200.” Now, regardless of what price is offered, including the Pawn Star’s experience to quickly be able to discern how easily he may be able to re-sell it and previous demand for a product like this, if any – which are obvious considerations he quickly needs to incorporate, there is going to be a percentage the Pawn Star always works from for this negotiation.  Let’s say it’s 40%.  That would be the best he would go – that’s $480. But the Pawn Star is not going to throw the number out there because the customer may be willing to settle for less.  So here’s the question: Pawn Star:  “How much do you want for it?” From here, the negotiation, based entirely on the $480 mark, is going to be run by the Pawn Star in the same manner as before (the expert knows he is supposed to leave after giving the quote so as not to interrupt the Pawn Star’s deal – he was sent away with a hearty thanks and handshake by the Pawn Star). Review:  Promising that I would keep your resolution easy to follow throughout the year, these are the basic tenants I want you to come away with: Watch the show – it’s actually the same song and dance, over and over, with the pawn store racking in money with satisfied customers leaving.  The biggest thing you can learn from this is the efficiency and discipline Pawn Stars have. ·         They have a specific routine.  They make customers feel like it is a natural and normal process when the entire thing is choreographed without the customer knowing it.  Your dealings and onsite interview visits should feel this way to your jobseeker prospects. ·         Pawn Stars run the process and the negotiation; in fact, they already know the outcome of the deal – which will be terms THEY can accept, or no deal.  The customer (or in our case, the jobseeker) never runs anything but are steered to choices they think they have or directions they feel they are choosing.  A big criticism of employer recruiters is they allow the candidates to run things.  When you start to see this happening, it’s almost a certainty that you will lose the deal or be forced into poor terms for the long run. ·         Exclusivity and Firm Offers:  Desperation also kills.  You’ll never see emotion or desperation shown by a Pawn Star.  For the employer recruiter to remember they have the desired job and stand firm in their dealings may be the most important factors – which garner first the respect from the candidate, but also a basis for credibility and real negotiating.  In the end, it is far better to know your best offer and be willing to walk away from the deal. So for the rest of 2011, if your New Year’s Resolution isn’t doing anything for you, follow these basics and you will begin to craft an improved recruiting platform. Remember, “Be a Pawn Star!” The show Pawn Stars is on The History Channel and you can learn more about it and when it airs on the website http://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars

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Is Facebook® is Worth Pursuing for Employers’ Recruiting Efforts?

As an advocate for employers and with the orientation toward empowering their recruiting efforts, which includes maximizing the Internet, growing their skills, and limiting their requirement to outsource, a number of hospital clients have asked me over the years if they should use Facebook in their attempt to “improve recruiting.”  After delving into this issue and spending a great deal of time on the social networking site in 2010, I have concluded the answer to be no - at least not for now.
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Currently, given the reasons why people access hospital web content, the far better strategy for hospitals is to improve upon their own websites (which prospective employees are certainly going to access), and focus more on better ways to reach and compete for jobseekers online while enhancing their own selling skills and recruiting and protocols.
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Given my decade-long relationships with hospital recruiting, marketing and HR personnel, those hospitals with a Facebook page likely did so due to their initial perception of it being “free.”  Now they have learned it is really not free but requires someone’s time to administer it which pulls them away from other tasks they are paid to do.  Hospital fan pages have few followers, their employees are reluctant to post anything on them and at the end of the day it’s a hospital – the vast majority of people visit websites of hospitals either to a) seek out specific services for themselves or family members, or b) to find a job.
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There may be some merit for Marketing purposes:  From a “branding” perspective, that is, hospitals in competitive markets who are trying to compete for business, perhaps there is some merit to having a Facebook page – but that is not my niche and I am not sure what statistics are out there that may or may not show demonstrable results from having one. 
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Facebook hasn’t changed much – its origins and orientation don’t “fit:” Ultimately we have to remember what Facebook was designed for and that its layout and design haven’t really changed much – it’s still a social networking site that “connects” people and offers them alternate ways to communicate and meet others (although the company’s policies promote networking only among people whom one personally already knows).
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That Facebook has hundreds of millions of users has promoted a “boom” of attempts to profit from using it.  One’s ability to “generate” thousands of “friends” gives account holders a free “bulletin board” or platform from which to market a product or service, or themselves – there seems to be an ever-growing number of “life coaches” and online degrees.
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Again, although it is not my specialty, it appears that a more simple “sale” of a product, like the introduction of a new shoe by NIKE, or a new record by a recording artist – I even learned that one can buy an airline ticket on DELTA’s fan page, has merit.  But for a complicated, multi-faceted career position which for jobseekers have many issues and needs, such  a linear approach would not address the many outstanding questions of those engaged in a career search – especially one that requires a physician relocation of an individual (and their family, if they have one).
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Ultimately a hospital Facebook page is a site which is awkward and at best and used by hospitals to post their events (which seems redundant if they do it on their websites’ “community calendars”).  Stand-alone or regional hospitals are more likely than corporations to have Facebook pages because large companies which usually have a top-down management of their affiliates requires a financial justification to assign someone to do it or pull someone from a traditional job responsibility.
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·         Our work generally deals with higher end jobseekers such as physicians, who are the “revenue drivers” to hospitals; I find it hard to imagine that busy medical practitioners would use Facebook this way but go directly to specific employers with whom they are familiar are interested and access their websites directly. 

·         For organizations who are actually building their business around Facebook – there may be more merit in using Facebook to “recruit” and post open jobs, but even here, it seems that the company should forward them to proprietary web content that is specific to their needs.

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Internet Searches on this Subject show Employers Use Facebook to Screen jobseekers:  Like doing a “social background check,” emerging on the Internet are articles which suggest or state how employers view individuals’ Facebook pages as a form of “screening” them – which I find fascinating for many reasons, but again it is not my immediate niche.
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Recruiting Services and Recruiters are on Facebook:  After a decade of seeing how the recruiting industry has stayed ahead of their hospital clients by better understanding SEO strategies as well as sales and marketing to harvest candidates, the same entities are using Facebook, at least for now, to bullhorn their openings to others, no different than an “email blast.”  Facebook seems like a place for them to attempt to attract the general jobseeker on Facebook and ultimately channel them to their own websites in order to “process” them – a good example of this is Career Builder www.facebook.com/CBforEmployers#!/CBforEmployers?v=wall Ultimately, it’s free advertising and a “portal” to where Career Builder wants jobseekers to go: to their website a la “bait and switch.”  Given how people “network” their ways into career positions and opportunities, I can see how recruiting companies may benefit; but again, I think Facebook is a “square peg” for hospitals given the many other ways they can improve their recruiting.
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Visit www.onlinejobtour.com to learn more about me and our work.

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Raising Dreams and Lives...Together: 4/4: Teamwork

Raising Dreams and Lives…Together
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My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, The Final Part Four – It all comes together with Teamwork
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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. By raising the dreams of people to obtain their ideal career choice in the medical profession with your employer, your goal is also to raise the standard of care – and the lives of your patients. This series is focused on the four core components necessary for employer medical recruiters to excel and be great.
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In Part I, I made it clear that claiming “I love my employer” and your community, and showing up for work every day, and eventually filling your open jobs, is not enough! Because your work impacts lives, you owe your employer and its patients the focus on recruiting the best practitioners and not merely filling a job opening – and growing and improving in this dynamic market where there is intense competition is required, or else you are “behind” before you know it.
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Part II: This was acknowledgement that growing your marketing and selling skills and committing to being a real “sales professional” is necessary.
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In Part III I hammered you with exactly what you need to do in order to be your very best:
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You are committed to understand and then identify your “target market,” and then craft your “sales presentation.” As a sales pro you understand you are competing – you present yourself and your employer in a manner that positions you to both sell as well as outsell your competition – you are not recruiting in a vacuum. You are committed to being an expert on issues candidates need to know to promote your expertise so you are perceived as a bona fide advocate by candidates as opposed to merely an interview scheduler – a secretary can do that. You understand the importance of choreographing candidate visits (in a general sense; naturally, candidates will have different or specific needs). You need to develop a Q/A protocol that is incorporated into your position to monitor your success. All great sales pros have a sales tool – you have committed to not settling for anything but the best tool (Naturally, I recommend Online Job Tour® as the optimal approach to harnessing the Internet to achieve success).
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Before we get to Part Four – a note on acquiring/harvesting candidates. I mentioned in Part III that although this is for another blog entry, I am not a believer in the reliance on third party recruiters as the source of candidates. Employers need to understand that all jobseekers now use the Internet and there are ways to brand your employer as well as communicate with local and regional education institutions in order to obtain proprietary candidates (which are far better in most cases than those presented by contingency-based recruiters). The art of recruiting has been lost in the haste of trying to fill jobs and it can and should be focused on again – Promo Web Innovations has many solutions for our clients and is available to offer ideas to you. Nonetheless, I discuss the development of relationships with third party recruiters below.
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Now to Part Four – It all comes together with Teamwork
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Even Michael Jordan needed good teammates and everyone working together in order to win championships. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden, who won an unprecedented 10 national championships at UCLA, needed great players – and it took both years before they reached the pinnacle.
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• This is when I need to stop and remind you that greatness and the “ultimate success” will not happen overnight. Success is also elusive – your market and prospects change. But what you must have is the right motivation and mindset, developed skills, as well as tools and teamwork with others, in order to be a champion employer recruiter. At some point when you become expert, much of your work can either be put on “automatic pilot” or trained upon others.
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With our focus on your becoming a great employer recruiter, similarly, you must a good support system min the form of a staff and outside assistance – the formation of your “team,” if the budget is there, is integral to your success.
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If you are a sole recruiter (and on your own) for your employer:
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Sole employer recruiters need leverage because you are going to be so busy dealing with the logistics of communicating with candidates and your organization’s superiors. Here you need a great sales tool to “do your selling for you” and also save time if the selling tool educates, answers questions, and positions your employer to maximize your marketability and competitiveness – you have to anticipate the obvious questions and needs of your candidates and their families regarding your employer and service area.
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Again, I strongly encourage you consider our patented Online Job Tour – which is a web based system in the form of a recruitment website that does all this automatically, and our test market proves its ability to educate and compel prospective candidates while saving time and effort for both sides while helping our clients compete. Our staff is an excellent source to assist you with technical answers to your challenges up until you design proformas/offers/negotiations with physician and high end practitioners, which will likely be coordinated with your senior administrators (job offers to department directors, mid level and staff positions are often packaged by HR Directors at an employer of your size). The point here is, if your responsibility is from the point of advertising the opening through introducing a legitimate and authentically interested candidate to your employer’s key hiring personnel, then Online Job Tour can be the anchor around which your dealings with jobseekers can be coordinated along with a solidly developed recruitment protocol – which we can also assist you in crafting. For you there would be nothing better than a recruitment process that runs on optimal efficiency that you can “turnstile” easily and effectively.
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It is likely that as a sole employer recruiter you have sources from which you obtain candidates (if you are a smaller operation, then most are primary care practitioners). Due to your limited time, I appreciate your initial impulse may be to immediately turn to outside recruiting sources, but I encourage you to consider developing relationships with residency program directors in your region as well as medical academic programs, and key in on major job fair events – the former prefer to deal with you – an employer, vs. recruiters, and job fair events are great opportunities to develop and leverage relationships, talk to prospects, and get referrals. Saving the $15,000 to $30,000 “recruiter fee” would be welcomed by your employer when filling that key opening. Employers often forget to incentivize their own employees to draft prospective candidates for their open positions.
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If your employer allows for the creation/development of a recruitment team:
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Bring together different talents: Here you are a larger organization with a larger budget that includes staff, so there is the initial challenge for you to have clear responsibilities identified for your team members to promote efficiency while you can leverage what are hopefully different skills among them. For example, you may have a professional designated to deal with outside recruiting sources to help source prospective candidates as well as be responsible for your employer’s branding and proprietary recruiting efforts. You may have someone to assist you in coordinating all interview visits – a laborious task that in volume is expensive but also can be designed shrewdly to get discounts from hoteliers and other local organizations/vendors/even restaurants. Another may be a person at your employer who will work with candidates at the stage they are ready to construct offers/financial packages/incentives/benefits.
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The Selling Tools: Nonetheless, your conundrum is that jobseekers will find your job openings online – their first impression and introduction to you. And with how our culture is online and has a preference to shop there – especially the newer, younger medical jobseekers, I again recommend Online Job Tour to be your anchor tool as your first communication and continual reference point with candidates.
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• Our 2009 Survey showed our clients fill their jobs 19% faster, reduce their need for site visits by 33%, and they also reduce their use of expensive third party recruiters by 1 in 7. Among other benefits, Online Job Tour attracts the better candidates/professionals and has even served to put our hospital clients in a better negotiating position because the candidates are truly motivated and want the job vs. the employer being desperate to land them and feel the need to offer higher bonuses and guarantees.
• As an FYI, there are now studies out there which point specifically to the revenue generated by physicians and specific specialties to hospitals – your ability to fill an open physician job one month sooner can mean as much as $100,000 to your employer. So filling a key job faster with a better employee or physician can have a huge impact on your employer’s bottom line.
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Try to Curb Recruiters and their fees: And if you have a larger volume of recruiting than a 150 bed hospital or less, there should be a meaningful effort to curb third party recruiter fees, which can easily exceed $200,000 annually at your employer. I suggest learning about SEO strategies regarding marketing your openings – be on search results for Google, Yahoo and Bing for key words and phrases your target market will use when looking for jobs – Promo Web innovations has developed successful working prototypes for our clients that we can share with you. Candidates especially from contingency-based recruiters have been shopped to many places and their origins can be dubious. They are also coached in favor of the recruiter making that placement with you or anyone.
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Use the Internet Proactively: With your budget you have a great opportunity to market your employer online. There are many services out there, such as Constant Contact, which can continue dialogues with many different professionals, jobseekers – even those you do not land but may have a chance for in the future, and representatives of services. While most hospitals have a marketing department, it is usually focused on marketing the services of the hospital and there are few professional “closers” or sales pros there. Consider engaging a local PR firm to at minimum glean ideas from them as to how you can use the Internet and any other tools to grow your presence and marketability.
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Consider making vendors like recruiters feel like they are a part of your team: Because it is likely you will need to utilize vendors such as third party recruiters to source candidates, I advocate choosing professionals who demonstrate experience and an expertise that extends beyond sourcing – let’s face it, candidates pretty much come through the internet and so merely providing resumes is not an indicator of anything more than that. A vendor with prior professional selling experience who understands the art of closing a deal, and even a professional who brings skills to the table that include help with putting together offer packages can help to grow your own skills. While you generally should keep your vendors on somewhat of a need to know basis, if you have a good relationship with them and make them feel a part of your team (in a general sense), you will likely get better attention from them as well as more attention to the details of the candidates they provide.
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Your team should be a well-oiled machine where its members understand their roles, so that you can turnstile the process (at least to a reasonable degree) so that every new job opening is not “reinventing the wheel.” Those outside your inner circle (recruiters, PR groups, industry contacts, local professionals who may assist you during interviews, etc.) should be made to feel important and special to you. I am a big believer in customizing interview visits down to routes you drive them around town and people you “coincidentally” run into when out and about.
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A note about Facebook and Social Networking: Hospitals creating a Facebook page has become trendy and I am not totally convinced that the time put into it, and paying an employee to oversee a FB page, does much for recruiting. Branding itself in its service area – if there is competition, may help its business a little bit. Would employees feel obligated to post remarks on it? Probably not. What about potential problems, such as former patients posting nasty or unflattering remarks and the need to erase them, or the conundrum of leaving the posts? These things have not been though about enough; I think the fact that FB is “free” and is a social phenomenon has created this “phase.”
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• The difference with Online Job Tour, among many, with FB is that our clients have 100% control over its content and making changes to it – it cannot be compromised by outside parties.
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A note about “Retention:” I have seen some terrible figures regarding some hospital corporations and their retention numbers with physicians – some with a 50% retention rate after 36 months. With a great deal of experience and feeling as though I understand the entire recruitment spectrum and the many issues for both sides, I am convinced that the reason for poor retention among relocating medical professionals is primarily due to the hospitals focus on closing the deal and focusing on its terms and not as much focus on educating and selling their service areas and the lifestyle that relocating employees can expect – only after they relocate to the professionals learn about the communities they moved to.
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The issue is about these new employees and physicians not being fully committed to the deal – they don’t establish meaningful relationships right away and there is no connection – especially with the spouse.
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If you think about it, the hardest physicians to recruit away are those who are invested in their service areas – who have relationships, partnerships and businesses there. Our Online Job Tour has shown an incredible “transformative impact” on the recruiting process where candidates interviewing for the first time arrive with confidence and excitement vs. anxiety and unprepared – because Online Job Tour is designed to be more comprehensive than the real interview trip, which has time and money limitations, and separates spouses, among a host of other potential problems. With ultimate goal of making an ideal professional and lifestyle fit, our clients are building upon the familiarization promoted with Online Job Tour to immediately establish relationships with those community leaders featured in their Online Job Tours, as a way to start the process of getting the physicians and practitioners committed to a long term career and life with them – please contact us for more information on the work we are doing here.
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A note about Selflessness: Being a great team member or team leader means you also have a willingness to help others, cheer others on, and revel in and applaud their success. Because your job ultimately impacts lives of your patients and their families, it is important to respect all others, including your vendors, by following the “Golden Rule.” Only bad things can result when you mistreat people. I am also a believer in karma. Treat others with sincere kindness and appreciation. If you’re really good and committed, people will know and respect that you are in charge and you are important.
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Your Final Foundation Commitment:
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It’s been a long series, and I apologize for this last one being a little late – the summer and fall have been busy for me. But I am at the end of this important road with you. You are now a better recruiter for your organization.
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Your Final Commitment:.
“I understand that my work and the work of the people I include in my efforts affect lives. I will commit to seeking excellence, experience and talent to not only contribute, but make me better, when constructing a team and vendors for my purpose of being my best. I will treat others with the respect they deserve and they way I would want to be treated, in order to promote an excellent environment to exchange ideas and information, as well as to get these many influences favoring me – after all, I am in a competitive business. My commitment to being great includes how I treat and involve others in my process and thanking them when I achieve success.”
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Thank you for taking this workshop/series with me and you have my sincere best wishes as you move forward with raising lives and dreams of others. Please let me know how you are doing my contacting me through our company’s website at www.onlinejobtour.com

My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, Part III

My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters, Part III: On getting the best possible selling tools to complement your efforts. 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 made it clear that claiming you love your employer and your community, and showing up for work every day, and eventually filling your open jobs, is not enough!  Because your work impacts lives, you owe your employer and its patients that you must want to be the very best you can be, and continually push yourself by growing your knowledge and skills – you have to keep growing and improving in this dynamic market where there is intense competition.  You made Foundation Commitment #1 about your career: . “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.” . Part II:  This commitment led to your acknowledgement that growing your marketing and selling skills and committing to being a real “sales professional” is necessary.  . ·         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.” . At this point, you should be motivated and want to have an impact on your job because 1) your work impacts lives – you have a moral responsibility to be your best and never settle, and 2) you have the awareness that you are competing and need to continually develop a “professional marketing and sales process” in order to maximize your results.  . Part III:  Now you must acquire and use the best possible tools to complement your efforts.  All great sales professionals have great selling tools to help promote their message and make their entire sales protocol more efficient and effective – better tools create the competitive advantages you MUST have. Like great athletes, they are always looking to get an advantage, from the equipment they invest in to how they practice and train (and all the great ones do). . What is your “target market” of prospects?  You also clearly need to make sure that you identify your target market of prospects.  If you are in a community of 50,000 residents an hour or more from a big city, then you don’t want to target practitioners who want to live in metro area.  Unless you are in the position to draft a unique cooperative agreement with a group or another provider, that is, if your hospital is seeking a family practice addition, what you are competing against are all the other hospitals and communities like you – on this you build your sales presentation against all of them. . Your First Tool:  What is your sales presentation going to be? . Before you consider any selling tools or approaches, you must first identify your strengths, weaknesses, and what you are representing – from the perspective of other hospitals of your bed size or employers of your size and specialty.  . For instance, are you a level two trauma center while other hospitals your size may be a three?  You may have two Cath Labs while others your size may have one.  You may have a pediatric unit when others may not.  What is your hospital’s reputation?  Do you have stats?  Are you part of a large corporation? Is it publically traded or non-profit?  Or are you a regional hospital in a system?  You need to be able to present the best argument and defense, of any questions regarding these and many other considerations you anticipate jobseekers have. . ·         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. . A great pro is ultimately an advocate for your prospective candidates:  Being in real command of facts about your hospital and service area, and acute knowledge of them and the people involved, will promote your relationship to candidates as a REAL advocate for them, and not merely being their assistant, or a “waiter” who caters to them – where they won’t confide in you; thus, you will never be in the position to close them.  . Although this kind of preparation may seem difficult to do, you have no choice because of your commitments.  Every call you make, and every doctor you are blessed to meet, requires you to be at your best, because you have to answer to families who are trusting you to get them the best possible physicians and practitioners, and not merely to fill open jobs. . ·         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   . On Technology:  I am an admitted geek regarding technology.  My very first blog is worth reading – I posted a piece on how the Internet got started and has grown.  Most people don’t know the Internet’s history.  I remember telling friends and relatives when I was young that someday music would not be on tapes or CDs but on bits of information on computers with no moving parts.  I remember when I saw the first cell phone, which was in a satchel and looked like a briefcase, thinking “they are going to get a lot smaller.”  Five years ago I was telling clients that one day they would be driving down the street and their "handheld computer device of some sort" would beep because it was in "Real Estate mode" – and now we have smart phones. . The Internet:  As high-speed Internet was ushered into our lives through the early to late 2000s, we went from the “screeetch” of the fax sound while accessing the Internet by phone, when it took a number of minutes to download a single image, to now being frustrated when huge pages with rich content don’t load immediately.  As recruiters, we can forget that this 8 year period means today’s new physicians “grew up online.”  . For a variety of reasons not for this blog, hospitals and other healthcare employers, and many of their recruiters, have not kept pace with how the Internet has created a new kind of consumer and jobseeker – with unique behavior and expectations. . ·         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). . Your Sales Tool:  How are you going to “present” your sales presentation? . Clearly, you need to appreciate the Internet as the bullhorn you must use to advertise your career openings – but only a rookie would make the mistake of stopping there.  Because career search has moved to the Internet – it is the “meeting place” where many jobs come together in a competing forum, with the virtual Internet there are ways to better promote your jobs and compete in an industry where there are limited candidates in many areas.  . ·         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.   . Our organization’s unique Invention: The “Recruitment Website:” Online Job Tour®: Patented by the US Department of Patents & Trademarks, I invented the Online Job Tour system – which is a “recruitment website” for employers which harnesses the virtual Internet to allow hospitals and medical employers to present to jobseekers and their families a “onsite interview visit experience” that is more comprehensive than the real trip – allowing for the “marketing/selling” effort to start immediately. . Online Job Tour “brings the onsite visit to all jobseekers” in a phenomenal way that promotes authentic decisions of interest before any expensive interview visits are planned – in fact, your advertising is now not a newspaper ad, but a “virtual immersion experience” that attracts candidates who are already pre-qualified and motivated (unlike mere responders to ads who can only be curious because the ads don’t really provide enough information). . When I invented Online Job Tour, I knew high speed Internet was going to be pervasive – but at the time (2001) just 40-50 million people had broadband (today the estimate is close to 2 billion!).  . Why does Online Job Tour work?  During our multi-year test market with a large variety of hospitals and health employers, Online Job Tour has had a “transformative impact” of the recruitment efficiency and quality model for hospitals, offering the best for both sides: for hospitals, Online Job Tour is the ideal way to give jobseekers a “tour” that is similar to the real interview visit, covering all the “topics” that jobseekers generally need to know about, while also giving the employer the format to give the best possible sales presentation. For jobseekers, what is better than to be able to sit back on their own computer and “visit” a hospital and service area – in 30 minutes and at no real cost or major time commitment, they can learn more than if they visited over a weekend – and the entire family can experience the “virtual visit” as well by simply sharing the website address? . Demonstrable Results:  Our 2009 ROI Survey analyzed the invention’s impact on three factors: time to fill an open physician job, the number of interview visits, and use of third party recruiters.  The result was a savings of $47,000 per placement when Online Job Tour supported the recruitment of the position, as opposed to “status quo” recruiting practiced at other hospitals. . ·         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. . Other Tools are out there – this is basically all of them:  Other tools that have been around since the Internet include streaming videos, DVDs, and some hospitals still mail brochures.  All have significant limitations, such as they generally only scratch the surface of important subject, and they get old and need to be replaced – since Online Job Tour is web-based, it can be updated so it never gets old, and we can offer the best combination of depth of content that really makes jobseekers think they have the information they need to make a decision, along with unlimited photos as well as videos and video testimonials.  While I have seen many recruitment videos, some nicer than others – the biggest issues I have is their depth of meaningful, useful information – many are made by people who don’t understand recruiting and what jobseekers need, they age very fast, and they don’t fit into the Internet anymore – what I mean by this is today’s Internet users are not passive observers who sit back and watch – they want to “interact” with web content and Online Job Tour gives them the “fix” they want, and it is a powerful “test drive” that employers can provide. . What I most disagree with, and I term “quitting,” are the hospitals who merely, passively list a handful (the more the worse) of websites – as though a web-expert physician can’t easily find them anyway, but to rummage through the websites to pick what may be relevant for their needs as a prospective new employee at the hospital.  This “practice” does not promote the hospital doing anything proactive, it leaves the “sale” in the quality and content of someone else’s website and quality standard, and there is no proof doing this is any better than doing nothing.  It would be hard for any professional who has made a sincere commitment to answer to families to accept this unfortunate approach. . ·         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. . Special Note on “using” the Internet:  Whether or not you are in a position to invest in any of these options – you may not be the decision maker at your organization, and REGARDLESS OF YOUR AGE, you MUST find a way to get comfortable with the Internet if you are not: the biggest reason is your prospects remain the same age and get more and more web savvy, while you keep getting older.  Investing in technology tools is an important part of your business, so you really need to ditch the 5 year old cell phone and get a smart phone, and get a laptop or tablet computer – or both. . Summary:  After identifying your target market, you need to have your “sales presentation” that promotes being a real advocate for candidates – you have already committed to being more than merely an “interview scheduler” who speaks in clichés who doesn’t influence the outcome.  You aren’t a waiter. You have committed to being an expert on issues candidates need to know.  You have not only started to think of choreographing candidate visits (in a general sense; naturally, candidates will have different or specific needs), but you have identified hospital and community principals willing to contribute to their efforts and you have begun preparing them to help you.  You need to develop a Q/A protocol that is incorporated into your position with questions to ask candidates and measure your success. . You need a sales tool on which to “present” your presentation – I introduced you to Online Job Tour® as an advancement over other recruiting tools, but my greater message is you must “harness” the Internet by first finding ways to grow your comfort and skills with technology, but also because this is where your target market goes for career search – in order to be competitive in that arena. . Here’s Your Foundation Commitment #3:  “I understand the importance of crafting a ‘sales presentation’ that is competitive and commit to using the best possible tools to complement my efforts and to create efficiency, maximize quality, and continually seek competitive advantages.” . In my last part of this series, I’m going to help you put it all together with Teamwork and how to create an optimal recruiting protocol.  I look forward to sharing it with you! . For more information about me or Online Job Tour®, visit our website at www.onlinejobtour.com or call our offices at 813-855-5185. Carl Brickman

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