What is a Healthcare Recruiting Firm?

What’s a healthcare recruiting firm? What's a staffing company? And how is a healthcare recruiting service different from a staffing company?

The simple definition is, a recruiting firm or healthcare recruiting service is a company that focuses on helping you get hired permanently. A staffing company is a company that helps workers with contract, temporary, or interim jobs. So basically the recruiting firm works long-term hire and the staffing companies give short term positions. You can have staffing companies that specialize in one industry like just in healthcare that do short term contract basis or temporary basis. E- Health Jobs does both. We place people in both interim and long term permanent positions in healthcare and all healthcare related jobs.

If you are in between jobs you can look for a company that does staffing if you just want some money coming in while you look for something more permanent. Come to us when you are ready to be more strategic with your job hunt. In the meantime here are the most asked questions:

When does it make sense for me to use a recruiting firm? If I am newly graduated, can I use your services?

There is no one answer that fits every person, situation or job. But you should always be open to a recruiting service in addition to what you are doing on your own when it comes to looking for a job. Some companies can help new grads, some cannot. But being open to taking help always increases your chances of getting a good position and at the same time you are making contacts in the industry that you may be able to use down the road. Your career is a very long road and it is a really small world so start out with good habits and know what is out there for you to take advantage of. People don’t realize what a good quality recruiter can do for them. Many times recruiters have jobs that you cannot get access to because they are confidential. There is no one website that you can go to find every job that is out there. But you can increase your chances of hearing about jobs that no one else is hearing about by using a recruiter. At its most basic, anyone who is short on time can use a recruiting company.

So many recruiting companies don’t get back to people after they get their resumes. What is going on in this industry?

Yea, like everything else, there are good players and bad ones. Don’t let the bad ones dissuade you from finding someone trustworthy to work with. Some people just don’t give good service whatever their industry. If you are going to let someone represent you, you need to trust them. Use your judgement. How long have they been in business? Do they give you good advice? Prepare you for your interviews? Recruiting just means someone who is finding the perfect person for an open position. To the job seeker, we are just a supplement to their search, giving access to an employer that they may not be able to get to access to on their own.

So I’ve been applying to jobs, submitting my resume to some job boards, hospital website, etc and I’ve been doing it for a few weeks without hearing anything back. I know the position is still open. Then I go to a recruiter and all of a sudden I get an interview. What’s going on with that?

Yea that’s a great question and we should talk about that at another time in more depth. But basically for certain jobs, you can either apply on your own or work with a recruiter instead. Because the recruiter is just assisting the employer with the hiring process but not taking over the process, so the job may be on the hospital website, but the hospital HR department is so busy, no one contacts you. But the HR department has a working relationship with me, the recruiter, so I am able to get people into interviews while people who apply on their own might get lost in the black hole of HR, (a real thing which we’ll talk about another time). Basically, it means no one ever sees your resume and you never get a call even if you are perfect for the job. Using a recruiting firm like us, you are getting your resume directly in front of the hiring manager and you wont fall into that black hole because they give us feedback for each person we send them.

Recruiters are paid by the employer, not the job seeker. Employers can hire recruiters for either contingent basis or a retained basis. If it is contingent, whoever finds the best candidate first gets paid. The employer might be looking for people and also let several recruiters look for people too. On a retained job, the entire hiring process is outsourced to the recruiter, so if you’ve applied to a job on your own that is a retained search, you just won’t hear back from them. And unfortunately you will never know which jobs are retained where you can only get your foot in the door through a recruiter. That is why recruiters should always be a supplement to your job search.

How do I get in touch with a recruiter?

Typically they will reach out to you if you have applied to a job they represent. Or you can talk to people and find out who they work with. Most of the jobs on job boards are placed there by recruiters so they should get in touch with you if you are looking.

I’ve heard about people getting upset when they apply for a job and their resume “ends up in the hands of a recruiter”. Why would they be upset?

Yea, people do deal with bad actors and may have gotten burned by a recruiter in the past.

A bad recruiter might have lied about the salary, the culture or the environment. They may not have been forthcoming with some of the terms of the job. This is short sighted greed and that recruiter will not be around long term if they cannot be trusted. I’ve spoken to people that say point blank “ I dont work with recruiters”. And it’s due to a bad experience in the past. But don’t let that dissuade you from trusting another recruiter because they might be looking to fill a job that is great for you and that you would never find on your own. So I understand the hesitancy sometimes, but learn to trust again for your own benefit. Don’t paint us all with the same brush. That won’t help you in the end.