This is the first article in a two-part series on developing an effective digital recruitment strategy.
Is your organization finding it harder to recruit physicians to fill your vacancies? Is the physician shortage costing your organization time and money due to turnover and hard-to-fill specialties? If so, then it is time to modernize your physician recruitment strategy by going digital. Increasing your social and digital marketing has become a critical component of any successful recruitment plan because it allows you to reach and engage the most physicians.
Let’s examine why a digital recruitment strategy works in today’s physician jobs market.
Only 11% of physicians are actively looking for a new job, and those will be the candidates that every recruiter is targeting. The key demographic is the 76% of physicians who are receptive to new opportunities but are NOT proactively searching. Finding out who these physicians are and how you can engage with them may not be as difficult as it seems because each of these potential candidates are active on social and digital media sites.
These passive candidates can be targeted and engaged with on sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Doximity. A smart digital recruitment strategy may include sponsored ads on these social channels and be uniquely targeted using specific characteristics like specialty, behavioral metrics, and even demographics. If you need further convincing, consider that 94% of all physicians use their smartphones for professional reasons, while 87.9% are using social media.
Components of a Successful Digital Recruitment Strategy
Now that you have a clear understanding of why you need a digital recruitment strategy let’s get into what it entails. A digital recruitment strategy is more than periodically posting content on social media sites. To use social and digital media effectively, you need to invest in several key components.
Things you need to BUY
Creating a digital recruiting strategy is a major investment. Since we know that most physicians are using their smartphones for their personal and professional life, your website should be optimized for mobile viewing. We also know that 91% of physicians prefer to receive job opportunities via email, making an Email Marketing System a wise investment. Investing in subscriptions to several top job boards will also help you reach more physician candidates.
Things you need to TEACH
An important part of your digital recruitment strategy is understanding how to create and enhance your digital networking. Having key team members learn more about how they can expand their digital footprint also serves to build your organization’s brand. It is also critical that your team utilize effective communication techniques to ensure that your messaging and content is consistent and engaging. There is no shortage of communication experts who can provide your team with the best practices and keys to more effective communications.
Things you need to BUILD
As you learn more about effective communications in a digital landscape, you can utilize that knowledge to build more effective and engaging job ads. Passive candidates need a reason to “click through” to learn more about an opportunity. Another important component to work on is growing your social media network and your digital presence. Your organizational brand and corporate values should play a prominent role in your digital presence enabling you to connect with physicians who are in alignment with those values and are predisposed to being a cultural fit.
Obviously, developing an effective digital recruitment strategy contains a lot of up-front costs and will require some key decisions to prioritize what you can invest in and when. In the next article on developing a digital recruitment strategy, we will take an in-depth look at candidate sourcing and effective digital recruiting activities that you can put into practice immediately.
For more information about developing a digital recruitment strategy or to secure a recruitment partner that understands the digital landscape, contact Jackson Physician Search today.
