subject: Healthcare Recruiters Are Not Respected [print this page] Healthcare jobs recruiters perform a very valuable service in healthcare and actually save costs in the long run. So why the snub? Hospitals look at recruiters as a necessary evil that they'd prefer to live without if at all possible. Again, why? It all boils down to the fact that if a company needs to hire a heathcare jobs recruiter it's because they can't find the right candidate for their open positionjob themselves. To some, it's a mark of failure on their part, and the recruiter is a constant reminder of that. Others think that healthcare jobs recruiters charge too high a fee for their services, and they resent that.
Most professions that involve being a "go-between" have this less than ideal image. Because they are not the actual principals involved in a transaction, they are considered leeches of sorts. But, in reality, healthcare jobs recruiters are NOT leeches. They provide a solution to a company's problem and positively effect the company's bottom line.
For instance, a hospital has been trying to fill 2 Nurse Practitioner jobs and 3 Physician Assistant jobs with no success. This search has been going on for 4 months. Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants are not ancillary employees. They actually bill for their services like physicians. If each of the 2 Nurse Practitioners and 3 Physician Assistants had been on the job just one month sooner, and each had seen an average of 24 patients per day at a cost of $100 per patient, that would be a total of $240,000 for that month to the hospital. The labor costs at a rate of $100,000 per year for each practitioner would be just under $42,000 for that month. Benefits at about 20% of salary would be a little over $8,000 for the month.
Healthcare recruiters normally charge a fee of 20% of the first years salary per candidate hired so that is $100,000 for all 5 practitioners. The first month would show a loss of $10,000. but each month thereafter, the hospital has a gain of $90,000. (The amount that healthcare recruiters charge is, in most cases, much less than 20% in this economy).
What if that company doesn't want to use an outside recruiter, and because of that, they don't find a candidate for 8 months. That's a probable loss of $90,000 per month!
Put aside the financial loss/gain from those advanced practice hires. It has been well-documented that patients receiving care from these advanced practitioners create a higher patient satisfaction for the hospital.
This example shows that healthcare jobs recruiters not only do NOT leech from hospitals, but are, in essence, major contributors to these companies' profits.
