Healthcare recruiters with hard to fill positions need to know the most effective ways to both recruit and retain the professions' top talent. While filling difficult healthcare roles may seem challenging, there are physician recruitment strategies you can employ to increase the likelihood of finding a great fit.

The Importance of Incentive-Based Physician Recruitment Strategies

Research evaluating hard to fill healthcare opportunities have exposed some interesting findings that may help you boost your physician recruitment efforts and numbers. An analysis study by Mbemba, Gagnon & Hamelin evaluating influential healthcare recruitment and retention factors suggests that the key to attracting top talent in the healthcare industry is to have a comprehensive approach that includes some of these factors:

• An attractive salary
• Loan repayment incentives
• An equitable and sustainable workload
• Available access to community based colleagues and specialists for consultation
• Community educational opportunities for their children
• Local available opportunities for spousal employment
• Adequate clinical coverage and staffing
• Opportunities for professional development
• Practice autonomy
• Community need and appreciation for its healthcare providers
• Community activities and a more relaxed lifestyle

Your Market Matters: Physician Retention Strategies Must Focus on Your Local Strengths

A professional work environment and a positive work-life balance are very important to retaining physicians in hard-to-fill positions or markets. To no surprise, the primary factors influencing the retention of Healthcare workers is similar to those with recruiting healthcare workers in the first place.

The most important points to focus on when hoping to retain important members of your team include:

• Functional hospital management and infrastructure support
• Access to social and professional networking opportunities
• Community safety
• Easy access to larger cities or attractions

Making the Pitch: Physician Recruiting Tips to Attract Top Talent

Knowing what attracts top healthcare talent to a job can help you craft the most effective pitch for your position whether you're hiring in an urban, suburban or rural setting. Remember to stress the unique features and advantages of your community, as this frequently factors heavily into the decision-making process. To accentuate any community's positive side, consider telling potential hires about:

• City designations (i.e. friendliest city)
• Educational distinctions (gold star schools, national merit scholars, local colleges)
• Low crime rates
• Festivals or Concert Venues
• Sports Teams or sporting venues (golf courses, hunting lands, gyms, skiing, country clubs)
• Historical attractions

A talented physician isn't necessarily tied to getting a job in a specific market, and many are willing to relocate for the right opportunity. Chances are, many of your applicants are unfamiliar with your location, so you must be its biggest ambassador to attract the best talent to work for you. Showcase your environment as a place where the physician can be comfortable outside of the workplace where they can enjoy themselves or grow a family.

Work with PracticeMatch to Find the Nation's Top Healthcare Talent

PracticeMatch is a valuable resource for healthcare recruiters attempting to strategically grow their workforce with the industry's brightest and best physicians. We excel at matching physicians with employers, and offer a wide selection of portfolio and custom sourcing tools, access to interviewed physician profiles and one of the industry's largest online job boards. Whether you are passively or aggressively pursuing new candidates to fill vital roles in your practice, PracticeMatch can help. Get a free, No obligation demo of our recruitment tools. Contact us today.