Talking with recruiters

[ResidentAnonymous001]

Hello all,

I am graduating residency next summer and I have been on the job hunt for attending positions.

I am scheduled to talk with an in-house recruiter for a position I am interested in next week.. not sure what the formalities of these calls are. Are they considered a pre-screen for the job? Curious if this an appropriate avenue to discuss compensation expectations? Please help! Thank you

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[Sushirolls]

They are very informal.
Sometimes they might stop and pause and pull out a sheet of paper with standard questions "they must ask." But that's rare. And usual fluff questions you should be normal enough to get thru.

Basically grill them with the questions you want to know about the job and position. Most they'll be like "I don't know" the dept head, chair, real doctors will know those. Some times they don't talk money sometimes they do. I'm grizzled enough now, that I will press for some idea of compensation, in part, knowing some idea up front will help you to not waste theirs and more importantly your time. Some will budge and give you a possible range, others won't. Do you have to supervise midlevels? What's the clinical hours of this job? The call frequency? Ask the questions you want to know.

This serves for both parties to look for read flags in first pass easy review.

 

[Cath Up]

Maybe it is because I am a resident but in-house recruiters I have interacted with are SO flaky and slow. External recruiters have been faster.

 

[ObsequiousAplomb]

Maybe it is because I am a resident but in-house recruiters I have interacted with are SO flaky and slow. External recruiters have been faster.

Well, yeah. If the in-house recruiters actually hire people for all the positions, then the recruiters lose job security.

 

[Candidate2017]

Hospital recruiters don't know much. They usually know about pay and benefits (vacation, CME, insurance, etc.) and some broad generalities about the work. Just be aware they are wrong many times about the actual work.

The actual doctors will be able to speak to you about the work (call, pay, patient cap, other work requirements, non-competes, staff competency, systemic problems), and usually candidly. By doctors, I mean the people who practice medicine fulltime, rather than the med director. Med directors are slick and oily business people.

 

[Candidate2017]

Maybe it is because I am a resident but in-house recruiters I have interacted with are SO flaky and slow. External recruiters have been faster.

Inhouse recruiter = 9-5 HR person.
External recruiter = head hunter = hustler pimp who gets paid only if they turn you out

 

[comp1]

The OP's question needs more detail. At least tell us the job type. We can be much more helpful if you tell us if this is a big or small private practice, an inpatient position with UHS, an academic position, VA, etc.

 

[Merovinge]

Hospital recruiters don't know much. They usually know about pay and benefits (vacation, CME, insurance, etc.) and some broad generalities about the work. Just be aware they are wrong many times about the actual work.

The actual doctors will be able to speak to you about the work (call, pay, patient cap, other work requirements, non-competes, staff competency, systemic problems), and usually candidly. By doctors, I mean the people who practice medicine fulltime, rather than the med director. Med directors are slick and oily business people.

There's a huge range in medical directors from the folks who practice zero clinical medicine and fell into that work because they were bad clinicians to folks like myself who are 0.8 clinical and see 20% less patients to help supervisor junior attendings and make the program work. I would certainly recommend talking to the med director and seeing what their role is clinically to understand where along the spectrum they are likely to fall.

 

[comp1]

Omph, I missed that about medical directors. Not every psych hospital is run by a for profit company. Obviously I'm biased as I am one, but if medical directors are "business people," we tend to be very bad at it. Most hospital medical directors are a heck of a lot more concerned about meeting regulations and site visit requirements than keeping a business profitable. There are (non-MD) MBAs for that. This might be a bit different outpatient.

 

[aquatic ape]

Hello all,

I am graduating residency next summer and I have been on the job hunt for attending positions.

I am scheduled to talk with an in-house recruiter for a position I am interested in next week.. not sure what the formalities of these calls are. Are they considered a pre-screen for the job? Curious if this an appropriate avenue to discuss compensation expectations? Please help! Thank you

They are probably doing a very basic screening to make sure you aren’t overtly rude or unable to communicate or other big red flags. Recruiters won’t be in the room discussing your contracts or if they should hire you, but they can veto.

Most of them don’t really understand what our jobs are, or even the jobs they are advertising. They will know intricacies about the benefits package that aren’t relevant. Ask them anything you want, but take everything with a grain of salt. If they don’t give you any salary number it means that it’s low. Some will say that they shoot for average marker value or something like that, and it’s fair to ask what they they view as average marker value imo.

 

[psychaccount101]

They are probably doing a very basic screening to make sure you aren’t overtly rude or unable to communicate or other big red flags. Recruiters won’t be in the room discussing your contracts or if they should hire you, but they can veto.

Most of them don’t really understand what our jobs are, or even the jobs they are advertising. They will know intricacies about the benefits package that aren’t relevant. Ask them anything you want, but take everything with a grain of salt. If they don’t give you any salary number it means that it’s low. Some will say that they shoot for average marker value or something like that, and it’s fair to ask what they they view as average marker value imo.

What should we say if they ask us about what our salary goals are?

 

[Merovinge]

What should we say if they ask us about what our salary goals are?

"I am exploring all my options at this time" is one option (I think I said something similar coming out of fellowship).

If you do have a defined range and aren't willing to consider anything else I think it would be reasonable to discuss the floor you are looking at. Typically you want to them to make the first offer but also understand that your time is limited and in many metros you might have multiple dozens of places that you could be inquiring at so it depends on how much patience for cat and mouse you have. Truthfully the PTO, healthcare insurance, retirement plans and ancillary benefits can move the needle by ten's of thousands, so I would not just be looking at the salary alone.

 

[Sushirolls]

What should we say if they ask us about what our salary goals are?

"above MGMA median"

 

[Stagg737]

"above MGMA median"

I'd be more specific and blunt. Where I'm at the first year base is the "75th percentile for MGMA in similar positions", but that means 75th percentile for academic positions, so nowhere near $300k. All sorts of fun ways to twist those numbers when you're not specific.

 

[alina_s]

Most of them don’t really understand what our jobs are, or even the jobs they are advertising. They will know intricacies about the benefits package that aren’t relevant. Ask them anything you want, but take everything with a grain of salt.

As someone now involved in recruiting, I strongly second that. We have in-house and use an agency and there’s been turnover in both. Even besides the turnover and even if they were focused only on psychiatry (they’re not), they can’t understand the job. Often not even whether the credentials qualify. Talk to HR so that they can connect you with someone in the department. Weirdly, it is HR that calculates a very precise salary offer, but we can push back.