In today’s healthcare employment landscape, physicians interested in finding a new opportunity don’t have to look too far to find out what jobs are available. In fact, most physicians receive between 20 and 40 job opportunities each month. Throughout this series on digital recruitment strategies, we outlined how to successfully recruit physicians using social media and effective email marketing. However, to remain competitive in the mad rush to recruit physicians, it is vital that you promote your jobs using every tool available. In this article, we’ll discuss how to broaden your outreach to potential candidates using online job boards.
Are Online Physician Job Boards Effective?
While 97% of physicians prefer to receive job opportunities by email, it’s not easy to build a large, engaged email list. Because the physician shortage requires recruiters to cast a wide net, job boards are a great way to gain visibility for your facility and open positions. In fact, when it comes to the different methods that physicians use to look for new job opportunities, job boards rank in their top half. When candidates apply for your open positions via job boards, be sure to ask if you can email them about new positions in the future. This way, you’re actively building your email subscriber list, too.
Keep in mind that posting your open physician jobs on just one job board may not be enough. Ideally, you should post your open positions on at least five job boards, if not more. Also, if you’re not receiving a steady flow of candidates and you’re certain the position is competitive in the market, review your job description and headline. Perhaps it’s been relegated to the end of the list because it lacks important keywords. Another determining factor is touching on the key points in your headline. Physicians are more likely to click through to read the entire job ad when compensation, location, and facility names are included.
Let’s examine how to determine which job boards to use for physician recruitment.
4 Ways to Grade Physician Job Boards
First, it is always a good idea to use the job boards available for the specific physician specialty you’re looking to fill.
Here are several measures to determine which others to use:
- Job board website traffic. You want a lot of candidates to find your physician job description, so it can be very valuable for the online job site to tell you how many unique visitors they get on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, etc. If you have a history with one or two job boards, compare the traffic of any new sites you are considering to the numbers you have experienced in the past. When the data is comparable, it is probably worth exploring further.
- Availability of candidate demographics. Having traffic data is a great start, but it isn’t the only factor you should take into account – especially for online sites that don’t only cater to physicians. High traffic volume on a job board isn’t going to be helpful if the majority of the visitors are Registered Nurses. If you can’t get specialty-specific granularity with the data, you may want to move on to another option.
- Access to resumes. It is vital to know what is included with the cost of posting on a job board. When you are recruiting physicians, CV access is especially helpful so you can initiate contact with a potential candidate if necessary. Another piece of data to obtain is the number of physician resumes that are uploaded every month. If access to the CVs is an added cost, that information can help you determine the return on your investment. While we are on the topic of ROI, make it a priority to track which job boards produce the most placements for your organization.
- Bells and whistles. Most job boards allow corporate branding of the job description. Because culture and fit are so important to physicians, you want to show off your organization’s culture whenever possible. Some sites even allow you to include slide decks and short videos, both of which have a positive impact on a candidate’s decision to apply.
Top Job Boards for Sourcing Physicians
There are many healthcare-specific job boards available online. Here is a collection of physician-centric job boards to help you get started:
- Doximity – Doximity is the largest networking site for medical professionals, and over 80% of physicians in the United States have an account. The platform’s filtering tool is one of the best available and allows you to search for candidates by specialty, experience level, and geographical location. Jackson Physician Search is the only physician recruitment firm where every recruiter has a Doximity license and we have successfully placed many physicians using the tool. Read our latest Doximity success story here.
- Health eCareers – While Health eCareers caters to more than just physician candidates, its main focus is physicians, surgeons, and advanced practice providers. Health eCareers also includes a network of other sites where your job posting can also be featured. If you are looking to include extensive branding and other techniques to help your post stand out, this site has a suite of tools to help you accomplish your recruiting goals.
- DocCafe.com – DocCafe.com is a top platform focused on physicians and physician assistants. The job board distributes physician jobs to thousands of healthcare specialty sites, offers email templates, and a video interview platform. The tool also features a dashboard so that you can see how your open positions are performing.
- MDSearch.com – MDSearch.com only targets physicians. The platform represents all specialties, has a significant database, and allows you direct access to candidates via their messaging center.
- NEJM Career Center – Another physician-exclusive job board, NEJM Career Center offers tiered packages to promote your open physician positions. All of the packages include resume download credits and the top package includes branding capabilities.
- PracticeLink – PracticeLink has robust product offerings including a job bank, candidate database, virtual career fairs, and branding opportunities. The job board caters to physicians and advanced practitioners and it represents all types of healthcare organizations.
Online job boards are an incredibly effective asset in your digital recruitment strategy tool belt. If you aren’t using them, you are missing out on a fantastic opportunity to find ideal physician candidates.
Takeaways for Physician Recruiting Via Job Boards
- Do your homework to find the key data points that will help your physician job description be successful and seen by the most candidates.
- Use corporate branding effectively to attract physicians who fit with your workplace culture.
- In addition to specialty-specific job boards, try a variety of other physician-centric sites to determine which ones can be the most successful for you.
- Monitor your placements and the job boards that they come from. Some may work better for your organization than others.
Contact Jackson Physician Search today and learn how our team of physician recruitment professionals can turbocharge your candidate sourcing. We have the technology and digital search tools to help you find physicians for any specialty across all practice settings.
