What happens when you register at the recruiter job bank

The following quote is from the "dochunterdiary.com" blog, written by Jim Stone and Bob Collins, two competent and smart recruiters from the search company Medicus Partners, who work in committees of the NAPR as well. It lists in great detail what happens when you, the candidate, registers at the recruiter tool "World Job Bank". Extremely enlightening!

Here is the blog post. I do not like to quote that much, almost a complete post, but this quote is so full of data that it cannot be shortened without loosing impact.

Start quote:

"A World Job Bank Physician Registrant’s Experience

Ever thought about the kinds of contacts our physicians receive when they register on the World Job Bank?

This will give you an insight into one physician registrant’s experience: Dr. X, a female, board certified internist, registered on the World Job Bank. She wanted a traditional, permanent internal medicine position and limited her geographic preference exclusively to New England.

Within hours she received numerous voice mails and e-mails. Over the course of six and one-half months, she received 189 e-mails from recruiters at 35 search firms and 72 voice mails from recruiters at 20 search firms.

The following is a breakdown of the e-mails Dr. X received: She received 66 e-mails with brief practice descriptions from one recruiter. Of the 66 e-mails, three positions were for geriatricians, one was for emergency medicine, one was for a hospitalist position and 60 were for general internal medicine. Sixty-five of the 66 e-mails were for geographic areas in which Dr. X was not interested. Only one of this recruiter’s e-mails was for a position in New England. Dr. X also received 33 generic e-mails containing no practice information (e.g., “Are you still looking for a position?”). Of those 33 e-mails, six had nothing in the subject line and one recruiter sent a questionnaire for the doctor to fill out (requesting her geographic preferences which Dr. X had just listed on the World Job Bank). Another 32 e-mails were from one recruiter. One of his e-mails described a practice opportunity in Dr. X’s desired geographic area, the remainder (31) gave brief practice descriptions for geographic areas in which she was not interested. Fifteen e-mails were received from a second recruiter at the same firm, none were for the geographic area in which Dr. X was interested. Dr. X received another 43 e-mails from other recruiters which contained brief practice descriptions. Seventeen of the 43 e-mails gave brief practice descriptions for geographic areas in which Dr. X was interested, the remaining 26 were of no interest to her.

The following is a breakdown of the 71 voice mails she received: One recruiter left 14 messages asking if Dr. X was “entertaining practice opportunities,” but did not mention any opportunity. Another recruiter from the same search firm left three voice mails which were identical in wording to the first recruiter’s messages. A recruiter from another firm left 14 messages stating he had a practice opportunity but gave no details and stated he would “take her off his list” if she indicated she was not interested. A recruiter from a different firm left three messages about Dr. X’s supposed preference for jobs in the Chicago area (she only wanted New England.). One recruiter gave brief information about a practice opportunity but didn’t provide a state or even a general geographic area where the practice was located. Another recruiter apparently dialed the phone and forgot, or didn’t realize the doctor’s voice mail was recording. No actual message was left but Dr. X got to hear a recording of the person chewing and crunching on what sounded like a carrot! Thirty-three voice mails contained nothing more than the recruiters’ names, phone numbers and infrequently their companies’ names. Only three voice mails gave some information about practices in Dr. X’s desired geographic location.

To summarize: Dr. X received 260 contacts (both e-mail and voice mail). Of the 260 contacts, only 20 contacts provided information about practice opportunities in her specified geographic location that were potentially of interest to her."

End quote.


I am speechless from the shock that a recruiter would actually publish this. I have nothing to add, except that it matches my personal experience exactly! Dr. X, I feel for you! Since I have this representative story, I can postpone counting and examining the statistics of the response that I have received. You may have read it in my previous posts, I have been looking in one particular Desirable City, where recruiters typically just cannot find jobs. We all know why. Who in their right mind would be sitting in a practice or hospital in a fabulous location and pay a recruiter $$$$ to have a position filled, when a simple ad in a few journals, at NTNJobs and eHealthcareers would bring in dozens of applicants?

The other remarkable point is: Recruiters are in such a marketing and selling frenzy that they simply do not pay attention to what candidates want. Right from the start I found this rude and careless. I always wondered why on earth recruiters did not read my profile and kept on sending me positions that were as far away from my desired city as could be.
Now I know that they are just too busy emailing and cold calling and mailing anybody that leaves their contact info within their reach that they cannot think. It is a selling frenzy.
And by the way, no wonder recruiters have "to work so hard" if they waste their time in this fashion. They spin their wheels for nothing, or worse, they get a backlash. I am part of that backlash, by the way.

My humble opinion: I you do not want to be the next victim of time-wasting spam called recruiter advertising, don't bother using recruiter job banks!

Instead, read my blog for better ways to find the great job you want!