Entry-level candidates are one thing, but finding a high-level executive to fill a role at the helm of a healthcare organization takes some finesse. There are secrets to doing this work, particularly when the job market has a low unemployment rate.
Today, it can feel like everyone is employed, particularly if you’re seeking a high-level clinician such as a doctor or nurse manager, or a CEO of a healthcare organization. While we won’t share all our secrets to finding key knowledge workers for healthcare teams, we’ll share some of the hidden tools and tactics we use to succeed in our efforts to recruit these executives.
Tip #1 – Mine Deeply Who You Know
Every recruiter knows it’s important to reach out to your existing network to find talent. It’s easy to touch the surface of these connections, but finding the best highly credentialed executives means digging down farther and mining below your own personal network.
The question is – whom do your first-level connections know? Once you’ve mined your own first-level connections, try working below that surface. For example, ask your existing leadership team if it’s okay to use their connections to share details about the role that’s open. Make sure they realize they’re not doing any of the work, but instead, are just allowing you to mention the networking connection in an email.
A crucial step in this process of reaching out to your internal executive employees is sharing why the role you’re hiring for is important to the organization. Everyone is busy, with competing priorities clamoring for their time. This is especially true in the unpredictable world of healthcare. So, make sure you engage your internal teams in your efforts to help the organization by letting them know why the position is important. Once you have buy-in, it will be easier to ask them if you can reach out to their networks.
Tip #2 – Do the Work Yourself
Keep in mind the reality that you may never convince a vice president or COO to go through their 500 LinkedIn connections to find you a solid candidate. Instead, ask if you can have 24 hours to make their network public so you can go through their network, take notes on the top potential candidates, and then set LinkedIn back to private. Tell them you will reach out professionally and show them how you are planning to contact their network. You’ll have to “sell” this to a doctor or other higher-level executive, but once you have their consent, this approach can be very fruitful.
Tip #3 – Target Smartly
Once you’ve found a few of what appear to be perfect candidates, try creating a user persona to fit the job search. What search teams did you find in their resume that got your attention? What is it about their profile that makes them a good potential fit? Was it their job title, past companies or the number of years of experience they have? Write down the Boolean search strings that make sense; then use the strings to search for more candidates that fit your user persona.
Once you have a list of targets, go back to the internal executive who opened their network to you. Show them the handful of candidates you’ve narrowed your search down to and find out if they have contact information from these candidates. Your goal is to see if you can have the executive send a personal email to their connection and invite them to have a conversation with you. You can provide your executive with a template, meaning it will take them a matter of minutes to reach out on your behalf. Using a personal email to contact targets tends to be more successful than emailing via LinkedIn.
UHC Finds Top Talent
While these are just three tips, our UHC Solutions have many more up their sleeves. We are the best staffing agency for finding top talent in the FQHC market. Contact us to find out more.
