From the time they start medical school, every medical student thinks about Match Day and where they’ll complete their residency training. The school medical students attend is important, but most physicians believe where you complete your residency training is most impactful on your career. That’s why medical students work hard to get into the best residency programs in their respective specialties, and physician recruiters have an opportunity to help them navigate residency programs. That’s also where Doximity’s Residency Navigator comes into play.

Built to empower medical students to make informed decisions about programs, Residency Navigator was created to help increase transparency in the residency match process. It’s the most comprehensive residency program directory available: 90% of 4th-year medical students used it last year to discover and explore over 4,000 residency programs. “Choosing a residency program is one of the most significant decisions in a young physician’s career,” says Nate Gross, MD, co-founder of Doximity. “Residency Navigator is designed to offer students the insights and data they need to identify the residency programs that best fit their personal and career goals.”

For physician recruiters, it’s crucial to understand how the students entering residency programs now will be trained for positions you’ll recruit for down the line. Offering help during such an important part of their journey is ideal for building relationships before they become candidates for your job opportunities. 

Amanda Xi, MD, MSE, an anesthesiologist and intensivist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), says, “it’s never too early to be thinking about residency.” She authored an in-depth article primer for medical students that helps prepare them for the residency application process. It’s great advice for recruiters to point out to young candidates, including the following pitfalls to avoid:

1. Failing to prepare. To be successful, applicants should read the full instructions for completing ERAS, create a timeline for their submission, and research the programs where they’re applying.
2. Submitting an application with typos. Students should have multiple people review their application before they submit it. 
3. Entering false information on their application. The further students get in their medical training, the smaller the community gets. Program directors talk to one another and have friends at medical schools across the country. Lying on an application will harm a student’s candidacy and legitimacy.
4. Turning your application in late. There are a limited number of interview spots for each medical specialty, so the later an application is submitted, the fewer spots there are likely to be. To maximize the chances of getting into a program, students should submit applications as early as possible. 
5. Having an unprofessional online persona. Most medical students are using social media, and what directors see on social channels may hurt a student’s chances of getting into a program. Some experts advocate closing social accounts, changing the name or handle on their accounts, or making privacy settings such that no one can search them.

Graduating medical residents are always in high demand. Most graduating residents start preparing for their job hunt before the beginning of their final year of residency, so come Spring 2022, it's crunch time for newly minted doctors to decide where they’re going to work. Fresh from medical residency training, these graduates fill open positions created by physician turnover, replace physicians retiring from the medical field, and bring new ideas and the latest medical information. Most importantly, they are a potential solution to alleviate the physician shortage (forecast by the AAMC to be between 7,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034). That’s why physician recruiters like yourself, who help these physicians find the right opportunities, play a vital role in the healthcare space. 

Physician recruiters need industry-leading resources and top-notch advice to make the process of finding great candidates as efficient and effective as possible. That’s why we asked some of our Doximity physician members for advice on recruiting physicians. Here are 5 Tips to Recruit Physicians (from Doximity Physicians).