In the early days of the internet, online job boards revolutionized how employers connected with talent. Newspaper ads and direct mail quickly became a thing of the past as job boards took over as the primary way of sharing opportunities with job seekers. Industry-focused job boards quickly emerged, and soon, there were not only healthcare job boards but physician job boards for physicians of every specialty.
Today, physician job boards are sophisticated platforms that offer advanced search features, customized filters, and even AI-powered recommendations, making it easier than ever for physicians to find opportunities that align with their preferences. These boards now serve as a critical resource, streamlining the connection between healthcare employers and physicians seeking permanent, locum tenens, or part-time roles.
Not all job boards are created equal, though, and not all job board strategies will achieve equivalent levels of success. As Vice President of Recruitment for the Eastern Division of Jackson Physician Search, I regularly work with clients who post jobs with little success. When I mention the use of job boards as part of our digital recruitment strategy, I sense their skepticism. At this point, I explain the importance of an aggressive job board strategy. Many organizations use job boards, but without a determined approach, the results are minimal.
How to Implement an Aggressive Physician Job Board Strategy
Why is an aggressive approach so important? Consider that, at best, only 11% of physicians are actively looking for a new job, so you must do everything in your power to ensure your ad reaches 100% of that segment. This means a deliberate physician job board strategy which includes the following:
1. Have a Presence on All Major Job Boards
Physicians have many websites to choose from when looking for jobs. It’s essential to identify the job boards they frequent most often and have a presence on all of them. How do you determine the “major” job boards? Website traffic is perhaps the most significant indicator. However, it’s important to remember that those numbers reflect all types of job seekers. The most popular healthcare job sites will have millions of visitors each month, but only a small percentage of that website traffic is likely to include physicians. Still, posting physician job ads on these major job boards is critical. For many physicians, this is the starting point of a job search.
2. Leverage Specialty-Focused Job Boards
It’s important to have a presence on the big job boards, but specialty physician job boards play a role, too. This includes job boards associated with medical societies or professional associations such as Accelerate for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons or Motion for the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology. While these job sites get fewer visitors, all or most of that traffic is likely to be your target market. So, they are no less critical to an effective job board strategy than the more prominent job boards. Many organizations want to know which type of job board is more important, and my answer is always “both.” An aggressive job board strategy requires a presence on every job board — big and small — that is likely to be visited by the physicians you target.
3. Optimize the Physician Job Ad Regularly
We’ve written at length about what makes a physician job ad attractive, but it’s important to remember that the ad can and should be a work in progress. Go to market with what you believe is the best ad possible, but be prepared to make changes in an effort to improve results. This might be tweaking the verbiage in the headline, highlighting a signing bonus rather than base pay, or changing the focus from compensation to work-life balance, the unique location, or the organization’s mission. Each change has the potential to speak to a different type of candidate and may bring in a fresh crop of applicants. It also signals to the search engines that the job is “fresh,” which improves its visibility. Build these adjustments into the job board strategy and note how each change impacts results.
4. Ads Posted 24 Hours / Seven Days a Week
Many organizations will purchase ad space on a job board and use it to promote multiple jobs. They use a single ad to promote a family medicine job, only to swap it out for an OB-GYN ad a few days later. This method costs considerably less than buying ad space for every job opening. However, it significantly limits the visibility of any given job. When Jackson Physician Search partners with a client, we purchase job ads for each open search and keep the ad running 24 hours a day and seven days a week for the entirety of the search. This can be cost-prohibitive for a smaller healthcare organization to do independently, but our clients benefit from our purchasing power.
5. Skillful Use of Doximity
Though it began as an online physician community, Doximity has become far more than a professional networking site. It now offers job boards, CV reviews, and more. Posting physician job ads on Doximity is imperative for an effective job board strategy, not only for its visibility but also because it opens the door to searching its database of physicians. Not every job poster can do this, however. Recruiters must have a Doximity license to access the database and contact its members. Every Jackson Physician Search recruiter has a Doximity license and participates in ongoing training on how to optimize results with the database. We regularly use this functionality for our clients, and our Doximity success stories have earned us many “Hire of the Quarter” awards from Doximity.
6. Access Resume Databases
Like Doximity, most job sites have a database of resumes that can be accessed for an additional fee. Search functionality varies with each job site, as does the “freshness” of the CVs. However, proactively searching these databases often surfaces candidates who would not have seen the job ad otherwise. Sifting through these databases can be tedious, and many organizations cannot justify the time spent doing so. This is why, once again, it is beneficial to partner with Jackson Physician Search, which has dedicated resources for this purpose.
For a physician job board strategy to be effective, it must incorporate each of these elements: general and niche job boards, 24/7 exposure, an evolving job ad, and access to Doximity and other resume databases. Getting the physician job board strategy right is essential for any physician search, and the efforts must be measured and modified accordingly. We talk a lot about the content of the physician job ad — it must be clear and concise, highlight the differentiators, include compensation details, and paint an attractive picture of the location — but even the best job ad won’t deliver results if it is not marketed effectively as part of an aggressive job board strategy.
The team at Jackson Physician Search is well-equipped to help your organization implement an effective job board strategy that ensures maximum visibility and access to both active and passive candidates. Reach out to our recruitment team today to learn more.
About Neal Waters
Neal Waters brings more than 18 years of experience in retained physician search to his role as Regional Vice President of Recruiting for Jackson Physician Search. He completed his undergraduate studies and played football at Auburn University, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Neal loves physician recruitment and has an extreme passion for bringing healthcare to communities that need it while improving career opportunities and quality of life for physicians.
