Author Archive for Alex Gramling
Alex Gramling is the vice president of marketing for Locum Leaders, a national locum tenens staffing firm that matches physicians and CRNAs to temporary job opportunities in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. He directs the company’s social media initiatives, including its blogs and Twitter and Facebook pages, but he won’t let his 11-year old daughter have a Facebook account. So she can stop asking.
Five Reasons Healthcare Recruiters Must Engage in Social Media
As physician shortages worsen, one of the most pressing marketing challenges facing many hospitals today is recruiting top talent. To meet this challenge, in-house recruiters routinely deploy an all-too-familiar marketing mix of job board posts and journal ads, while largely ignoring social media.
But why the snub?
Granted, a job tweet on Twitter doesn’t yet have the same reach or cachet as a recruitment ad in the New England Journal of Medicine. But I do believe social media offers immediacy and relevance that may be more effective than traditional means to connect with a growing segment of healthcare job seekers.
Still skeptical? Here are five reasons your recruiters must actively engage in social media.
Your candidates are already there. If you don’t think your next Chief of Surgery or Head Nurse could possibly be on MySpace or Facebook, think again. Social media is fast becoming mainstream media-and clinicians are embracing it. My company recently surveyed physician and RN job seekers and found that 56% are using or interested in social media and 37% use Facebook. And adoption rates will continue to climb with Facebook adding 600,000 new members a day, the fastest growing segment of which is adults 35 and older.
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