Physician referrals have long been considered the holy grail of physician recruitment. Are you tapping into your organization for referrals? The clinicians at your organization can truly be gold since they know the culture and can identify other clinicians who would be a good fit. What’s more, if they love where they work, they’re often happy to communicate it in various ways. 

We’ve written before about why employer branding is critical for physician recruiters. It’s pertinent here because the goal of employer branding is to present your company as a desirable employer. We can’t think of a better way to do that than for clinicians who work at an organization to refer people they know. When your employees are happy, that’s reflected in your brand as an employer. 

Here are the top 4 reasons referrals are valuable:

Faster to hire: Candidates sourced through referrals are hired 55% faster than those coming in from career websites (per HR Technologist). Physician referrals give you a consistent source of “pre-qualified” candidates, and that makes hiring decisions faster (and easier). Ensuring a stream of these candidates also reduces hiring costs drastically. Something else to think about: the longer your hiring process is, the more you risk losing the talent in your pipeline.

Lower cost-per hire.  Referrals lower the cost-per-hire because fewer HR resources are being used to complete the hire. There are a lot of ways to calculate ROI of a referral program but several studies estimate that an organization can save $3,000 or more per hire for referrals (per TalentLyft).  

Increased retention rates:  Companies who use employee referral programs have an average retention rate of 46%, compared to those who use career sites or job boards alone, according to Undercover Recruiter). Retention is critical in physician recruitment.

The quality of hires is improved + they’re usually a better cultural fit. Your top-performing clinicians are likely to refer peers who are also top performers. After all, most of us socialize with like-minded people who are similar to us. John Hollon of Recruiting Daily, says employee referrals are the best source of new hires:

“If you aren’t getting at least 25-35% of your hires this way, you’re simply hurting your organization and ensuring that your recruiting will be a lot more costly, and time-consuming, in the months and years to come.”

It’s easy to understand why most organizations prefer to hire people who are referrals. The insight your colleagues have about your organization is communicated in numerous ways to referral candidates, and that benefits your recruiting strategy. There are a lot of ways to implement formal employee referral programs, too. The best way to start though, is simply to ask your network. If you work directly with doctors, tell them about your open role and see who they know. Better yet, if you have a candidate that says they aren’t interested, ask if they know anyone who might be a fit for the role. Chances are that candidate knows a lot of others in the same specialty, so odds are good that one of them will be open to a career change.

Have you hired any physician referrals recently? We’d love to hear about them! Email tfdemo@doximity.com to share your story.  

Do you know the ROI of your recruiting? We can help! View our Calculating Your ROI webinar recording for in depth look at how to analyze the value of your various recruitment programs.