All Entries in the "Recruiting" Category

Campaign Spotlight: Recruiting Physicians with Photography

Marketers at Geisinger Health System wanted to create a memorable take-away to give to physician candidates, and they wanted something just a little more engaging than a coffee mug. So the Danville, PA, health system teamed with Wilmington, DE, agency Aloysius Butler & Clark to create a coffee table book filled with photography that highlights the organization’s emphasis on first-class medicine and physician work/life balance.

“To recruit to rural northeastern Pennsylvania we wanted to emphasize our theme of clinical excellence and outstanding quality of life,” says Cathy Connolley, associate vice president of marketing. “We have physicians or candidates that were in serious talks with and we wanted a higher-end piece to give them that was very compelling and left them with a feeling of excellence.”

Marketers started giving the book to physician candidates who visited the organization last year. Connolley says it has a shelf life of about three years before they have to redesign it or create something new.

Read more about Geisinger’s recruitment photography book here.

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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Interview Questions You Ask Yourself

In today’s column I wrote about how marketing and HR can partner together to make recruitment efforts more effective. I found the open-ended questions posed by Keith Jennings interesting, so I thought I’d share them with you here. Love to hear your answers:

• Why is there a shortage of healthcare workers?
• What’s driving this shortage?
• Is this shortage affecting patient care?
• Why should a nurse or doctor choose your hospital over their other choices?
• What makes you so special?
• And once with you, why should they stick around?
• How do you make a difference in their lives and those they serve?

By the way, if you’re interested in recruitment issues, there’s an upcoming HealthLeaders Media Webcast on recruiting nurses you might want to check out.