Why You're Wasting Your Time with Recruiting Firms

Sep 15, 2020

In-house recruiters use recruiting firms. Whether or not you want to admit it, these firms provide a necessary service for healthcare facilities hiring providers. In fact, 65% of in-house recruiters utilize search firms, according to AAPPR’s 2019 Benchmarking Report. But are the results good enough to continue working with them? And is there a modern, improved resource available?

Let’s talk about retained recruiting firms.

You pay them retainer fees for a single search, and they produce a candidate. So why does most of our industry have such bittersweet feelings towards them? Is it the way they handle candidates, the high fees, or something else? Let’s compare the retained recruiters process to The Inline Group’s.

Retained FirmsThe Inline Group
Charge fees per search. With the average search firm charging $20,000 per opening, your recruiting budget will disappear quickly if you have more than one need.Offer a monthly subscription service. Our Platform Essential option allows you to pay a small, custom subscription fee for unlimited hires. We created our service around the reality that many facilities need multiple openings filled and can’t budget for a “per search” pricing model.
Withhold your facility’s information from candidates until late in the search. By keeping candidates in the dark about your facilities name, they guarantee they receive credit for the search. However, this prevents you from building a pipeline of candidates to make future searches more efficient.Our team sources candidates with full transparency. When speaking with our advisors, candidates will learn about your facilities name, location, company culture, and more. We never withhold information because we don’t have to.

But what about contingent firms?
Commonly viewed as the low-risk option, many facilities will work with contingent firms for the security of only paying a placement fee once the search is filled. However, because these firms hold little to no contractual obligation to filling your search, both quality and timeliness can lack. So how do contingent firms compare to Inline?

Contingent FirmsThe Inline Group
Charge per search, at the end of the search. While there is appeal to pay-upon-completion, contingent firms still charge inflated placement fees for every candidate provided.Our Platform Flex provides you with low monthly subscription fees. Our team isn’t paid via placement fees, so you have the peace of mind that they are truly finding the best candidate for your facility.
Don’t provide data or insights from your search. Understanding what does/doesn’t work during a search and knowing how candidates are responding to your job listing helps you work more efficiently in the future. Contingent firms don’t provide this information from their search.Our client portal provides you with live updates to your search. We constantly strive to improve the way we serve you. So we created a portal that provides all of the details of your search. Something’s not working? We’ll fix it. Search has a great response? You’ll know that too.

And then there’s databases/job boards.
Databases work extremely well as a tool in a larger recruiting toolbox. But depending on a database to provide you with everything you need in a candidate search will leave you disappointed. This service simply provides you with an extra web page on which your job is listed. Even if it proves successful, you could end up overwhelmed with applicants who are interested haven’t been vetted for your job requirements. Let’s see how a database compares to Inline’s process.

Database/Job BoardThe Inline Group
List your job but don’t provide screening services. You may gain more exposure through a database/job board but this could make your job more difficult. Without a screening process to go along with the job listing, you’ll be inundated with unqualified candidates.Only provide vetted, qualified candidates. Our team of advisors spend every day speaking with candidates to ensure they meet your search criteria. You’ll be able to focus on the high-level tasks involved in hiring candidates, instead of spending time sorting through CVs.
Only reach candidates who are actively searching. With only 14% of the physician workforce actively searching for work, a database has no way of presenting your opportunity to the 86% of candidates who don’t actively visit job boards.Actively advertises your opportunity to both passive and active candidates. When you partner with Inline, your opportunity isn’t just placed on a website to wait. We market your facility on a regular basis, ensuring you reach as many candidates as possible.

Last, but not least, we have advertising agencies.
Like we pointed out above, marketing is a sure fire way to reach both active and passive candidates. So it’s no surprise that you may work with an advertising agency to help market your search. However, healthcare recruiting is a unique industry. We’ve actually found that most “advertising best practices” don’t apply to our industry at all. So what makes recruitment marketing so unique?

AgenciesThe Inline Group
Won’t provide a screening service. While marketing will allow you to reach a large number of candidates, agencies typically don’t provide the screening service necessary for making your job easier.We’ll screen every single candidate you speak with. As professionals, our most valuable asset is time. By screening every candidate we present to you, we provide you with extra time in your day to complete high-level responsibilities.
Advertisement content will meet industry standards, but not recruitment standards. Selling breakfast cereal takes a different approach than selling a physician on taking a new job. And we all know physician recruiting isn’t an industry you can learn overnight. These agencies simply aren’t equipped with the industry knowledge necessary to successfully fill a search.We operate strictly in physician recruitment marketing and sourcing. Every ad we produce is for a healthcare opportunity. We’ve narrowed down the best headlines and character counts for our recruitment ads so you don’t have to. Then our team of advisors will still screen every candidate who clicks on your ad.

No matter how simple (or complex) your hiring needs are, The Inline Group is dedicated to customizing our service to meet them. And no matter how much your needs will change in the future, we’re ready to adjust. Speak with one of our candidate sourcing experts today and learn more about how our platform works for you. Click here to schedule a call with one of our sourcing experts today!

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