The Early Bird Gets the Physician: Why Recruitment Starts Years Before the Opening
Building physician recruitment relationships years before the position needs to be filled.
I Guess I Really Am an Early Bird
I am what you would call an early bird.
I wake up at 5 a.m., and I like to get to places early. I don't like to rush. There is something comforting about knowing that if something goes wrong—like a train delay, traffic, or whatever else the day decides to throw at me—I have built in enough time to handle it.
This past week was no different.
I had coordinated an ENT resident event at NYU/Bellevue Hospital. Events give me a certain amount of anxiety. In addition to worrying about arriving on time, my mind naturally runs through everything that could potentially go wrong.
- What if the food doesn't arrive?
- What if I can't find the room?
- Or every recruiter's worst event-related fear: What if nobody shows up?
I arrived at Bellevue Hospital two hours early. My host greeted me and escorted me to the conference room where I would be speaking. I arranged the tables, set up my display, and then waited for the food delivery to arrive. Since I had given myself those extra two hours, I had time to think. I started thinking about why I was there.
Yes, I was there to talk about physician opportunities at Capital Health. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the evening represented something much bigger about how I believe physician recruitment should work.
After years in healthcare talent acquisition and physician recruitment, I have come to believe that some of our most important recruiting work happens long before there is a position to fill.
Physician Recruitment Requires a Longer View
Physician recruitment operates on a much longer timeline than many other areas of talent acquisition.
Residents and fellows may be years away from their first permanent position. Experienced physicians may be perfectly happy where they are when you first meet them. In highly competitive specialties like ENT, waiting until you desperately need a physician to start building relationships puts you at a disadvantage. The earlier we begin, the better.
My evening with the NYU residents wasn't simply an opportunity to collect names or résumés. It was an opportunity to introduce future physicians to Capital Health and begin conversations that could continue for years. Some of the residents I met won't complete their training until 2030—and that's okay. Not every conversation needs to result in a candidate today to have value tomorrow.
Stop Treating Training Programs Like Candidate Databases
I also believe health systems should think differently about their relationships with residency and fellowship programs. A training program shouldn't hear from us only when we desperately need one of its graduates. Real partnerships are built over time.
Recruitment teams can attend resident events, provide career education, participate in networking opportunities, develop relationships with program leadership, and stay connected with trainees as their careers evolve.
That requires us to move away from transactional recruiting.
When I meet a resident, I'm not only thinking about the openings I have today. I'm thinking about the physicians my organization may need three, four, or five years from now.
Recruit Before You Need to Recruit
Healthcare organizations spend a lot of time talking about physician shortages, difficult-to-fill specialties, and increasingly competitive markets. We can't always control how many physicians are available in a particular specialty, but we can control when we start building relationships with them.
As I stood in that conference room at Bellevue, two hours early and waiting for dinner to arrive, the connection made me smile.
Maybe my approach to recruitment isn't all that different from my approach to getting somewhere on time. I'd rather prepare early than scramble later. I'd rather build the relationship before I need it. I'd rather start a conversation with a physician in 2026 who might join us in 2030 than wait until 2030 to introduce myself.
I guess I really am an early bird.
