The Two Types of Recruiters

In-House

Employees

In-house recruiters operate just as they are labeled – they work within a healthcare facility as employees. Some larger health organizations have scores of recruitment teams that they pay to seek out the best physician talent

These are often the first people you will talk to if you reach out directly to an organization about employment opportunities.

Set Wage

Recruiters that work in-house are usually paid a set wage, either salary or hourly, with little of their compensation being contingent on the volume of physicians they recruit. This dynamic allows in-house recruiters to connect physicians with openings without the high-pressured sales tactics that third-party recruiters will use.

Proximity

Working within an organization means that in-house recruiters most likely live as part of the community where their healthcare facility is located. This means that they have a better understanding of what it may be like for a physician to live and work there.

Third-party

Contingency Pay

Third-party recruiters are contracted by healthcare organizations and paid a fee for ultimately placing physicians. On the surface, this may seem like a fair way to compensate a contracted recruiter, but unfortunately, it can inspire some overly-persuasive and aggressive behavior. Third-party recruiters have a sales focus, and that is very evident in the language and tone they use when selling physicians jobs.

Payment Source

The biggest problem that arises with using third-party recruiters is often completely hidden from physicians. The money that is used to pay recruiters’ fees comes out of the physician’s salary. This amount can be up to 30% of a physician’s starting salary. So for a physician that was originally going to be offered $300,000, after accounting for the 30% fee, they now only receive a starting salary of $210,000.

This is a scenario at the higher end of the fee spectrum, but even a 20% fee ends up costing the physician $60,000 out of what they should have been offered.

Simplistic Sales Pitch

Part of third-party recruiters’ sales focus is to catch physician’s attention without revealing too much about a position. Just by sampling some of the job postings that come from third-party recruiters, a physician can see that the posts are both vague and filled with far too many glowing descriptors. This is usually a sign that the position they are offering is in an undesirable location or has some other less appealing complications.

Set Lists

This is one area where in-house recruiters and third-party recruiters do not differ. They are both limited by the organizations they work for to place physicians within one of the organization’s healthcare facilities.

For large organizations, they can provide a much larger employment target than small to midsize organizations can. However, a physician will be limiting their job search by sticking with just one organization’s recruiters, whether in-house or third-party.

Private Practices Look Elsewhere

A high percentage of private practices refuse to work with third-party recruiters as they can come with a high cost for a small-scale business. If a physician is seeking only private practice opportunities, they will not find nearly the amount of opportunities with recruiters as they would through other methods.