The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly changed how physician recruiters are attracting new candidates. Without the ability to conduct on-site visits and in-person interviews, or attend medical conferences to source candidates, it’s more important than ever to shift your focus to online recruitment strategies. Here are a few tips for sourcing and recruiting candidates right now.

1. Conduct virtual meetings and interviews.

Virtual meetings and remote work have become the new norm. Virtual meetings may not be as personal as one-on-one, in-person interviews, but online interviews can still help you discover if a candidate is a good fit. In fact, the format of these interviews may help you assess more candidates than your schedule would normally allow. You may already be using a video tool, but a few examples include: Cisco WebEx, JoinMe, and GoToMeetings. Zoom has also emerged as one of the leading tools to keep businesses up and running and people connected (per Forbes Magazine).

2. Replace site visits with a video that highlights your culture and community.

If you don’t have a video that markets you or your facility, the time to create one is now. A video is the next-best thing to on-site visits and can give you a strong advantage during these tough times. What’s more, there’s actually science behind why videos work: Videos undeniably attract attention, and they're processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text. Humans are also hard-wired to avoid cognitive strain, so video is more enjoyable for viewers because it's easier to absorb information when it's in that format compared to any other (per Vidyard). Need some inspiration? Here’s a great video about the culture at Maple Grove Hospital in Minnesota.

Connecting with the right physicians at the wrong time is NOT a lost opportunity. A candidate may not be interested in a position you have open right now, but if you have another opportunity – or when they’re ready for a new position – you want them to remember you! Relationship recruiting means capturing candidates whether they’re employed or unemployed and continually engaging them until the time and opportunity is right. Circle back and keep engaging with doctors in your pipeline, and it will pay off in the long run. Keep checking in with unresponsive candidates, too. If there’s a job where persistence pays off, it’s recruiting.

4. Consider a candidate in a different specialty.

Because hospitals now have an even greater need for specialized staff, some hospital administrators are training physicians like anesthesiologists, hospitalists, and nurses to help care for patients on ventilators (per Becker’s Hospital Review). So, you might consider exploring candidates in various specialties that you wouldn’t normally recruit for specific positions.

Having difficulty finding candidates to fill long-term contracts? It might be worth offering  locum tenens positions. Locums providers can fill immediate openings and work under short contracts. In fact, Staff Care reports that 94% of healthcare facility managers have reported using locum tenens to help fill open clinical positions.

Doximity Talent Finder is a great resource to access hundreds of thousands of job-seeking candidates. You can communicate directly with 1M+ clinician members using DocMails. DocMails are delivered to candidates via their Doximity inbox, their regular email inbox, and their mobile device. Our click-through rates are high because you’re sending relevant messaging to clinicians on a platform they’re using on a daily basis. So, if you are currently using Doximity’s recruitment tools, make sure you’re using all of your allotted messages in a given cycle - the more messages you send, the higher the likelihood of getting a response.

Doximity Talent Finder is now offering free job posts for COVID-19 specific jobs!

As the COVID-19 pandemic expands across the US, we know there has been an increased demand for short term positions in the healthcare industry, and our goal is to help you fill those immediate needs. You can submit your listings here, and we’ll notify you when they have been posted. 

Despite all of the uncertainty during this pandemic, there’s one thing that’s for certain: your job as a healthcare recruiter is as important now as it’s ever been. The other good news: doctors are digital omnivores, so the best way to connect with them is through technology.

To get more tips, check out our Webinars Calendar to sign up for the many recruitment related webinars we host each month. You can also view past webinar recordings from the same page.