Hospitals and clinics: why work with a recruitment agency?

Healthcare staffing is a challenge. Some hospitals and GP clinics spend months searching for the ideal candidates to fill their vacancies. Is using a medical recruitment agency the answer?

Medrecruit’s Business Development Manager, Maxine Monroe says it is.

Max says she’s been on the “other side of recruitment agencies” before, when she worked in a different industry and was looking for staff to join her team. She says some businesses in the wider industry give recruitment a bad name, but not all agencies are created equal.

“We’re easy to work with and our team are good quality recruiters – they’re not like recruiters I have worked with in the past,” says Max.

Working with a medical recruitment agency

Medrecruit was founded by Dr Sam Hazledine back in 2006, in response to finding that some of his colleagues were leaving the healthcare industry because they were burnt out and disillusioned with medicine. We’ve since grown into one of the largest medical recruitment agencies in Australasia. Max says this is down to the Medrecruit team’s dedication to both doctors and clients – the hospitals and clinics across New Zealand and Australia.

“One of the issues is that hospitals and clinics are often bombarded with low-calibre presentations,” says Max.

“The presentation itself might be unclear – especially if a hospital has a few vacancies at that time. They might have to go back and forth through the CV, the presentations, and to check if the doctor is available for those dates… it can be a bit of a nightmare. Medrecruit doesn’t do that. We want to earn our fee!”

“First up, I want to make life easy for you. I appreciate what your day looks like. All the presentations I will send are for work-ready doctors. There’s no delay or need to chase paperwork. They’re work-ready and fully credentialed.

“Then – and I know this sounds like a really tiny thing, but I know it makes a difference – every presentation is really clear: the doctors name, what shifts they’re available for, are they a returning doctor… it’s simple, but it’s something we regularly make sure we’re doing because we know it makes a difference for our clients. We want to make it as easy as possible for them.

“Throughout the process, there’s usually only one point of contact with us, to make things simpler for our client.”

A preferred panel provider

Medrecruit is a preferred panel provider, where this system is in place, right across Australia. Max says Medrecruit is among the top recruitment agencies in terms of service to its clients.

We have a large pool of doctors who have been through a strict credentialing process. A Solutions Specialist works with them to ensure that each doctor’s CV is up-to-date, their references are ready, and checks the dates they’re available to work.

“The difference between us and some of the other agencies? It’s the work our Solutions Specialists do – all that work ready stuff. This is where we make a difference up front.

“Before we send a doctor to a client, we’ve done a lot of work. The hospitals pay us so we make sure we earn our fee, we make sure we learn what our clients need and we make sure we’re meeting those expectations.

“Our clients trust us and they know that we have credibility. That’s how we have landed our preferred supplier agreements. They choose us because we do what we’re getting paid to do – we do our due diligence and we don’t cut any corners.”

Making medical recruitment easy for hospitals

Another advantage to clinics and hospitals looking for healthcare recruitment support is Medrecruit’s placement specialist team. It’s their job to ensure that the doctor has everything they need to start work and that the process is smooth.

“Sometimes we are fighting against that reputation of the recruitment industry. We show that we’re so much better than that. We’re not transactional. It’s not simply: ‘here’s a doctor’. We’re so much more.

“We take an enduring look at a relationship, we want to add value wherever we can. We love what we do and we’re here to help.”