Information overload is overwhelming an already stretched physician workforce. Along with heightened demand and growing caseloads, physicians are also tasked with the challenge of lifelong learning. To better understand how physicians prefer to engage with medical news and educational information, Doximity recently released its Physician Learning Preferences Report. The findings suggest a continued need for more effective communication strategies that recognize just how busy physicians are. Here’s how you can implement the lessons learned into your communication and recruitment tactics. 

Lesson #1: Physicians prefer personalization and relevance

Effective communication with physician candidates is about personalization, listening, being informed about your candidates, paying attention to details, and ensuring your information is relevant to them and their needs. Half of the physicians surveyed report feeling frustrated when they receive medical news or educational information that is irrelevant or not specific to their individual practice. The same goes for job postings and recruitment messages.  

Before you write a job post, email, or DocMail, our Client Success Managers recommend focusing on three core pillars: Relevance, Specificity, and Brevity. Ask yourself:

1. Who am I writing for?
2. What makes this opportunity stand out from others?
3. What essential information do they need to know?

Lesson #2: Physicians prefer mobile

With busy clinical schedules and an abundance of information to keep up with, the importance of digital, mobile-friendly content continues to grow among physicians. Findings from our report show the majority of physicians surveyed (over 77%) believe content optimized for mobile devices is efficient. These findings are consistent with Doximity usage data, which shows that in the past 12 months (September 2021 to September 2022), 83% of physician engagement on our newsfeed was conducted using a mobile device.

Instead of reading every word from left to right, most email recipients are text scanners – their eyes go over the copy and images in an “F” shape, according to Campaign Monitor. The majority of people also often go straight to bold words, bright-colored CTAs, or the part of the email they find most interesting. When you optimize content for mobile, it’s easier to navigate. It’s also easier for physicians to read and interact on the go. You can make messages easy to read by bolding keywords, using bullet points to format, and separating sections into short paragraphs. Check any email on your smartphone or tablet right now. Is the content laid out, so it’s easy to read and scroll through? Can you easily click on CTAs? If not, it’s not mobile-optimized.

Lesson #3: Brevity is key to efficiency and productivity

There’s no doubt about it – physicians are very busy. Time is of the essence, and physicians want to spend quality time with their patients. To provide guideline-recommended care for patients, primary care physicians would need to do nearly 27 hours of clinical work per day, according to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Findings from the Doximity report suggest a focus on brevity could help promote greater physician productivity. For recruiters, using fewer words and getting right to the point is the best way to get a candidate’s attention. Brevity should pertain to meetings, phone calls, interviews, and in-person meetings. Focus on the most important, relevant information physicians need to know and deliver it in a way that can easily be consumed during the workday. 

How do you get a brief message across and still be succinct while growing a relationship? “Finding that balance is truly an art,” says Javed Laher in a Forbes article about the Art of Brevity. He offers a few guiding principles that apply:

1. Respect people's time by showing up on time and prepping for any meetings or calls
2. See customers as partners and have their business at heart by not overwhelming them with too much data or bombarding them with follow-ups (this is important for physician candidates: relevance and specificity)
   
3. Listen! It can play a huge part in understanding what customers want and need
   
   

Lesson #4:  Meet physician candidates where they are

The pandemic opened the door to new technologies, and a new hybrid theme emerged: virtual meetings. Even despite some “Zoom fatigue,” people value convenience, and virtual interviews and meetings are here to stay.

As part of the report, Doximity surveyed physicians about their preferences for meetings with outside sales representatives. Nearly three in four physicians surveyed (74%) reported they prefer to engage outside of the traditional in-person model (i.e., virtually; a hybrid of in-person and virtually; or as-needed via phone, email, or text). Notably, women physicians, oncologists, and neurologists trended even higher – with 80% preferring alternative options to traditional in-person meetings. 

These findings suggest physician recruiters can benefit from more flexible meeting modalities that allow physicians to have more control over their busy schedules and prioritize patient care. Here are two features from Doximity that can help:

• We added the ability to include a scheduling link via Talent Finder this year. Instead of trying to coordinate a date and time to speak with a physician through back-and-forth messages, they can now schedule a day and time that works best for them directly from your scheduling link. 

• If a doctor is hesitant to share their phone number with you – something that's very common given their busy schedules and workload – Doximty's Proxy Lines allow recruiters to connect more easily by keeping physicians' contact information private.

The amount of information physicians have to keep up with is expanding at an unprecedented rate, which likely includes recruitment messages. With more physician jobs in high demand and physicians in shorter supply (the U.S. faces a shortage of between 37,800 to 124,000 physicians within 12 years), paying attention to physician preferences can significantly impact how you connect and engage with candidates.

Are you using Doximity Talent Finder to recruit and communicate with qualified candidates? If the answer is no, request a demo, and our team will show you how the most powerful search in healthcare delivers your job posts to the right candidates at the right time.