What is bad, the recruiter or the job they represent?

Kevin,MD, quoted part of my post "avoid recruiters" (Thank you!) and received very good comments that are worth repeating here:

First his quote:
AM"Physician recruiters - An OB waxes negative on the experience:
I now believe that most contingency recruiters just do not care. They sell, sell, sell and sell some more. They go for volume, they go for the numbers. The more emails they send out, the more people they contact, the more chances they may have to get an answer and sell one of their jobs. That is why they remind me of used car salesmen and telemarketers. Their ads are just the nice marketing face, and you have to read them with utmost suspicion." End of quote.

And here are three of the four comments:

1. One problem with recruiters is not with them but the jobs that they are recruiting for. From 20 years of observation in my own specialty, I have found that in general, the good people to work for have no trouble filling the positions by old-fashioned networking. Usually the ones who hire recruiters have to do so because something is wrong with the position. Perhaps it is a very poor payer mix, or the institution's management has a reputation of treating doctors poorly. Sometimes they want a physician compliant with their demands for unethical behavior but the local docs will not go along--and the local program directors knowing their reputation for sleaze will not steer graduating residents to them.

In short, most jobs with a recruiter attached aren't worth having in the first place.
# posted by Anonymous : 12:04 PM

This brings out an excellent and very important point. It's not the recruiter, it's the jobs they represent! Due to my blog I have received emails from very upset recruiters that resent what I say about them. One recruiter emphasized that he believes that recruiters are honest, hardworking, good people, that definitely earn their money. He went so far as to say that they are like a band of brothers. I felt he had a point. Personally I usually was treated well by recruiters, but they still never had the job I wanted. And that turned me off in the end.
And the comment is the perfect explanation: it is often not the recruiter, not the person, but the jobs they represent. Recruiter good, job bad...

Nevertheless, I have a beef with recruiters. None of them told me how to get a job in the area I wanted - in Boston and in Miami proper (NO, not "near", not "easy access to", no, actually IN those cities). None of them did as much as hinted at how to find a job there, nobody said "Hey, just mail all the docs in your chosen city a letter and you will reach all of them". That is my problem with recruiters!

2. Yes, the good jobs and positions don't need to rely on a recruiter. You need to be at the right place at the right time and/or know the right person.

I have always thought about returning to Oregon where I grew up so I scan the recruiting jobs out of curiosity. The exact same jobs have been advertised for the last 10 years. That tells me not to touch those with a ten foot pole
# posted by Anonymous : 1:13 PM

Yes, I have been saying them since post#1, good jobs and positions almost fill by themselves! Recruiters do not get them! But you can get them if you mail a letter to everybody in the area where you want to work....


3. Recruiters cost real money, and those practices willing to spend substantially usually have obstacles to overcome in attracting candidates. Sometimes it is nothing more than a remote location where a generalist or specialist would likely have to practice without much support while taking lots of referrals. Sometimes the location has an undesirable climate or a poor socioeconomic atmosphere.

And sometimes recruiters are the agents of serial abusers or are the pitchmen for institutions that promise much but habitually dishonor those promises and just turn to new hires when their old hires get fed up and leave.

It always pays to call the last doctor who left to get the story.
I have chased some doctors across the country when doing due diligence on practices. I am convinced that there is a lot of valuable information that can be had no other way.
# posted by Anonymous : 2:27 PMMonday, June 18, 2007

Recruiters cost real money. that is handicap number one for recruiters. 20K for filling a position? Employers are willing to do a lot, to try a lot of things before they pay 20K...And only those employers that have a problem may be willing to pay it. This is THE recruiter handicap. How are they going to overcome that? How could they? I have not found a satisfactory answer. Somebody explain it to me! An employer has a choice:
Candidate A is qualified and has mailed his CV in himself. No price tag attached.
Candidate B is equally qualified and comes through a recruiter. 20K price tag attached.
Employer decides for... you get three guesses!

That is the basic, basic, basic problem of recruiters. A problem they cannot over come. They have worked around it by massive advertising on one side and by the naivity and ignorance and lack of knowledge of physicians on the other side. Few physician know how easy it is to reach every and all physicians and employers in any given area, be inside a city or be it out in the country. You mail everybody your cover letter and CV, done. No other help needed! Maximum success.

With direct mail you reach 100% of all physicians in any given, any chosen area. Recruiters can reach a maximum of 20%. You, the single, lonely physician is able to reach 5 times more employers than the best recruiters. How do you like that????
Dear colleagues, you can do it, this blog can help! Click here for details!
And if you want someone to help you with the details, click over to "Thedoctorjob.com", they will write and print the cover letter and CV for you. You sign it and drop it in the mailbox. Done