Andrea Leland, MBA, FASPR is a Physician Recruiter for Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
Andrea has over 15 years of experience in healthcare, including project management, regulatory compliance, physician liaison, budgetary preparation and supervision of staff. She values communication skills and flexibility in devising proactive responses to changing conditions.
1. If someone is in healthcare recruitment right now, what is your advice to them during this virus season?
Be adaptable and flexible! The more you can flex to meet the demands of your customer base (can be internal hiring managers, external candidates, leadership, etc.), the more positive of an experience you will provide and will ultimately help you achieve success during a very unstable time.
2. As someone heavily involved in healthcare recruitment, what are your biggest concerns right now?
My biggest concern right now in healthcare recruitment is the lag in time we will experience in being able to close the deal, especially with travel restrictions and an inability for candidates to see our facilities and our communities, and for our teams to meet candidates in person. It makes it difficult for candidates to sign on without that tangible part of the interview process.
Another concern is that we will lose momentum with our current candidate pipeline because our hiring managers are putting recruitment efforts as a lower priority while they focus on clinic demands related to COVID-19.
3. How do you best make video interviewing replace ‘in person’ interviewing?
Great question and one that our team of 6 full time provider recruiters has been discussing daily! We have found some great resources, such as virtual interview guide that AAPPR released. We are communicating best practices to our interview teams based on those resources, as well as improving the set-up and technical aspects that we experienced issues with our first couple of virtual interview processes.
Thankfully we have already seen success from these endeavors as our Family Medicine team conducted a full virtual interview process with a candidate recently, and that process included involvement from three different practice site locations and a virtual academic lecture. The candidate was extended an official agreement and signed this week. It was a big win all around but especially for our Primary Care recruiter, Juliann Hamblin, and for our team!
4. How do you think healthcare recruitment will change once we are on the other side of this virus season?
I think we will see more willingness to change our standard processes for recruitment, especially if we see success during this unique time. I also hope that we will see a shift in people focusing on what truly matters and an intrinsic value gained from doing what is right and best, regardless of the outcome. I appreciate the caring nature I have seen in many of our colleagues and in our candidates. People are taking the time to check in on the well-being of complete strangers, and I hope that is a change that will stick. It has provided an opportunity to have a much more personal conversation with each other. When I speak with candidates for a phone screen we are now starting and ending our conversations with a true concern for each other’s well-being and that feels good.
NP Now is a search firm for NPs, PAs, MDs, RNs and CRNAs, located in Charleston, South Carolina and serving clients in all 50 states. We recruit for permanent placements in all clinical settings.