How much does a recruiter make on me?

[bbc586]

PGY4 resident getting ready to sign contract in Ohio with SDG. I'm now getting ads from "St Johns Associates" for this job. Anyone have a rough estimation of how much the SDG will save by not going through the recruiter to get me? Is using the recruiter a sign that they are desperate and therefore I can negotiate more?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[southerndoc]

I've heard numbers from 5-50k per signing depending on how long of a contract the doc signs. We use in-house recruiters instead of outsourcing.

 

[bbc586]

I've heard numbers from 5-50k per signing depending on how long of a contract the doc signs. We use in-house recruiters instead of outsourcing.

Decent amount. Sounds like it may be a worthwhile extra reminder in negotiation as I am saving them money...

 

[link2swim06]

Decent amount. Sounds like it may be a worthwhile extra reminder in negotiation as I am saving them money...

No, you are saving yourself money. The recruiter would just take your signing bonus. And you wouldn't have even known it was an option.

 

[Angry Birds]

Although it is true that the recruiter will often be taking a cut from what could have been given to you, it's not always true that this is the case. Sometimes the hospital would just be willing to pay a recruiter an additional fee, but not be interested in giving that amount to you. This may not be logical, but it may just be how the hospital operates. Sometimes you can even get a better rate going through a recruiter than directly through the hospital on your own...although this is likely a rare happenstance.

Hospitals don't always act in their best interest or intelligently. At my hospital, they seem quite willing to pay locums people top dollar instead of paying just a bit extra to their own staff, which would of course improve retention and decrease the need for locums people.

 

[BoardingDoc]

Sometimes you can even get a better rate going through a recruiter than directly through the hospital on your own...although this is likely a rare happenstance.

This certainly happens when looking for locums. I'm sure it's possible to negotiate better rates with a hospital by going to them directly, but I will say that as a new attending I had a locums company offering 270/hr with paid travel, medmal, hotel etc for a job. I figured out where it was based on the ad and called the hospital directly. They offered 225/hr with no benefits. When I told them about the locums offer, they raised it to 250/hr, again without any of the perks offered by the locums company. And, now that I had called the hospital directly, I couldn't go through the locums agency. Needless to say, I don't work there. As an aside, this was an EMCare hospital whom I've learned are notoriously parsimonious.

 

[DeadCactus]

It's rare that a lone physician will have the same bargaining power as a recruiting or locums agency that is going to have an ongoing relationship with the entire hospital or hospital system.