Better Bring Your Recruitment A-Game!

Thursday, March 14, 2013 | Joel Sauer

The competition will be pretty stiff

At our Fall Meeting a couple months ago I gave a presentation on Succession Planning & Leadership Training. It was a break-out session and one of those topics I could see people ignoring as a big yawn. At starting time the room was half empty and I thought I was Nostradamus.  

Five minutes in, however, the room was overflowing and I could sense an electricity in the air. This topic was resonating or probably more accurately was being felt by group leaders all over the country. There’s good reason too.  

According to data from MedAxiom’s latest survey, a whopping 60% of cardiologists are over the age of 50. As you can see on Figure 1 below, better than 1:5 is over 60 years old. With that age distribution there’s no doubt we’ll see some significant turnover in the coming years. Couple this with two high-profile, national studies that found major physician shortages looming* and you have a crisis in the making.  

To flesh this out, I did a survey of our members through our listserve. The results were a bit startling and can be found in Figure 2. Last year respondents lost an average of 1.65 cardiology FTEs, not to competition, but from healthcare altogether. They may have retired, died, taken hospital positions, or just cut back, but the result
was less physician workforce. These same respondents are projecting the loss of another nearly 0.75 FTEs in 2013, so better than 2.5 lost FTEs in just two years.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  On average groups are out recruiting for over 3.0 physician FTEs in 2013 alone. Three FTEs!!  If these data are representative of the broader cardiology universe – and I believe they are – then it’s going
to be a very competitive market in the coming years.  

Given this, smart groups will formalize their workforce development plans and make sure they have rock-solid recruitment
processes.  It’s not as simple as hiring a recruitment firm.  Here are some useful tips:

• Make sure you have clearly identified the type of candidate you need, not just from a clinical standpoint, but for future leadership roles as well
• Know your own demographics; they can be a good predictor of pending turnover
• Use data to determine need, not gestalt (MedAxiom has lots of it)
• With an aging workforce, slowdown is a certainty; deal with it before it becomes personal – and keep in mind a partial physician may be better than no physician
• Hone your recruitment skills; carefully vet third party firms, make sure your candidate visits are meaningful and productive, communicate with candidates promptly and regularly
• Always, always hire consultants!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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