Tag Archive for: physician recruiting

Recruiting Leaders: Elsayyad Medical Group

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Lamin Sonko is changing the world of healthcare. The young Millennial is medical school-bound, does endocrinology research at Johns Hopkins University, and is COO of Elsayyad Medical Group, LLC, a bold new company that’s taking the physician recruiting world by storm—and all this at just twenty-two years old.

EMG_Logo (1)

During his downtime, Sonko shoots hoops with his business-savvy best friend, Ahmed Elsayyad—EMG’s CEO and founder. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Elsayyad plans on starting Medical School at Mt. Sinai in New York this fall. He’s also a Berman Institute of Bioethics intern at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“Ahmed is really entrepreneurial,” says Sonko. “He’s always looking for the next big idea.”

He seems to have found it in EMG. In its first year, the new company has been successfully sourcing physicians in all specialties across the nation. EMG also offers its clients pharmaceutical procurement, medical supplies, and management consulting.

“Both Ahmed and I are from Johns Hopkins University, and that has really given us a lot of excellent connections,” says Sonko, “We’ve been able to utilize a lot of our relationships with the Hopkins physicians and medical community in our recruitment processes, and that’s a rare thing that we have to offer our clients.”

Drive, Dedication, and Grit

Connections are fine and good, but there’s more to the story than that. Clearly, these are two very hardworking young men. Sonko credits their Hopkins background with the company’s success.

“Hopkins really instilled in us a lot of drive, dedication, and grit,” he says. “Both the volume of work and the level of difficulty in the science background we come from really instilled in us a solid work ethic. I think that dedication really shows in our recruiting practices.”

What’s really fascinating about EMG is that its managers have one foot in the field of physician recruiting, and one in the field of medicine itself. Knowing the equation from both sides means that Sonko and Elsayyad can empathize with all parties involved.

“I think it’s really new in the recruitment field to have recruitment done by actual physicians, or aspiring physicians,” says Sonko. “A lot of times, the work is done by post-grads or masters students in some other field.”

Tomorrow’s Physicians Recruiting Today’s Top Talent

So far, this unique model seems to be paying off. The company has been very profitable, and its managers also reap the personal satisfaction that comes from the work itself.

“Personally, I love the challenge of recruiting,” Sonko says, “I love working closely with people. I’m trained as a science investigator, and there’s not a whole lot of personal contact there. I’m a social person by nature, so I love the fact that recruiting relies on your ability to communicate effectively with others.”

Sonko also loves the challenge of acquiring new clients, building strong connections with physicians, and guiding them through the recruitment process. He works hard to advocate for physicians, and with good reason; one day, he’ll be in their shoes as a physician himself.

A Passion for Recruiting with Compassion

Ahmed Elsayyad

Ahmed Elsayyad, CEO of Elsayyad Medical Group.

“We have genuine compassion for the individuals that we’re reaching out to,” says Sonko. “EMG is primarily run by future doctors, and we really look out for the physicians that we help to recruit. We want to place them where their talents will be used and they’ll be most fulfilled.”

It’s not always easy, though.

“One of the greatest challenges is connecting with those really well-qualified physicians,” says Sonko. “The field is very saturated, and a lot of the well-qualified candidates have already been contacted by other recruiting agencies.”

That’s where, he says, companies like PhysEmp come in handy.

“A little while ago, we had a client urgently looking for an ob-gyn physician and we had very few connections with ob-gyn fellowship programs. Luckily, we posted our ad on PhysEmp and received three candidates within a week.”

Sonko says PhysEmp has been a crucial tool in the company’s growth.

“We started using PhysEmp because it has one of the largest, if not the largest, physician databases, which we used to sample the area of the fields that we were recruiting for. But over time, we really came to love the user interface and the ad services as well—which are really unmatched by any other recruiting services we’ve seen so far. We’ve had experience with other databases in the past but, overall, PhysEmp offers us the most for the value.”

Complex Problems, Simple Solutions

When asked if he had any insider advice or suggestions to offer other recruiters using PhysEmp’s recruiting tools, Sonko was quick to answer.

“The refresh tool is really invaluable. It enables us to constantly see who is looking at us, who is interested in our field or area. My advice to recruiters is: continuously refresh your ads. I know a lot of people miss that; we missed it for about a week. It’s a small but profound thing.”
medical digital photo
In addition to the challenge of connecting with top physicians, EMG’s other main mission is, of course, connecting with the medical directors who are looking for those well-qualified candidates in the first place. Market saturation is an obvious reason, as well as the fact that the company is still relatively new.

“We’re young, but we really offer the entrepreneurial spirit and drive that comes with youth,” says Sonko. “We also offer a competitive price that other recruiting agencies just can’t match—especially for the quality of the search that we’re offering. We’re working with some of the best physicians out there, and that’s made possible through services like PhysEmp, which are really invaluable to companies like ours, and also our contacts, which are extensive in their own right.”

Competitive pricing is key in the recruiting industry, where there are extensive costs for overhead, candidate searches, and labor. Sonko says EMG tries to keep their physician recruiting fees lower, and in addition, they offer discounts on sourcing nurses, PAs, or medical supplies.

The Future Looks Bright

That formula seems to be working for them. If the proof is in the pudding, the fact that EMG started in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area and quickly became national shows the team is made of good stuff.

“Now we’re across the country and in all specialties,” says Sonko. “We began with a focus on primary care, family medicine, and smaller practices, because of our price point, but now we’re getting mid-range and large practices as well.”

The future looks bright for Lamin Sonko and Ahmed Elsayyad. If this is what they’ve accomplished by twenty-two, we can hardly wait to see where they—and EMG—will be in the next few decades.

Recruiter Rx’s Top Physician Recruiting Blog Posts of 2015

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PhysEmp’s blogs have had a great 2015! After putting together our most popular CareerBeat blog posts of 2015, now we’d like to share the most widely circulated RecruiterRx posts with you. You might have missed them last year, and there are some valuable physician recruiting tips here.

 

 

    • Email Marketing Webinar for Physician Recruiters (35 shares)
      Last year marked the beginning of PhysEmp’s informative webinar series for physician recruiters. Our email marketing webinar—hosted by the amazing Mark H. Cohen of Colloquy Digital, LLC—was widely attended and warmly received, we’re happy to say. Participants learned all about how to integrate email into their existing campaigns, how to use email marketing with integrity, how to use lists, what makes a great email, and other tips and tools. The webinar is now archived, and you’re welcome to watch the replay.

 

    • How to Write Magnetic Ads (31 shares)
      For more than 20 years, physician recruiters across the country have been posting physician job opportunities on physemp.com. In that time, we’ve learned a lot about what kinds of ads appeal to doctors (and, conversely, what turns them off). To help you write ads that catch the attention of quality physicians, we’d like to share some helpful tips.

 

    • 5 Ways to Stress-Proof Your Office Over the Holidays (29 shares)
      Workplace stress is no fun, and it can have a detrimental effect on your work, health, and life in general. But fear not. Here are a few suggestions for keeping spirits bright at your workplace during the holiday season—or any time of year.

 

    • Recruiting in a Digital World (25 shares)
      This was our very first webinar, and it was also hosted by marketing Maven Mark H. Cohen. The fast-paced, interactive webinar offered tips on finding online hotspots where physicians spend time. If you’d like to learn where physicians are spending time online, what they’re doing, and how to leverage that to attract top candidates..

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first year of RecruiterRx blogging, and of course we welcome your feedback and suggestions. What topics would you like us to cover in 2016, whether on this blog or in webinars? We’re all ears!

Why Every Recruiter Needs a Responsive Site

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We recently published a post about PhysEmp’s new, responsive design, and if you haven’t read it yet, it’s well worth your time. The article explains what responsive site design is and why it’s so important to you as a physician recruiter. But if you need a little more convincing, we have some terrific (and fun!) resources for you below. Read more

3 Ways to Use Email Marketing in Physician Recruiting

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Guest blog post by Mark H. Cohen
President of Colloquy Digital, LLC

Is email marketing a key component of your physician recruiting efforts? If not, it should be. Contrary to popular belief, the world of social media hasn’t replaced email; if anything, email marketing is more effective than ever. Here are three ways to leverage email when sourcing new physicians for your practice.

1. Direct Communications

Obviously, you can reach out to prospects directly once you’ve obtained their email address. You can introduce your company and advise potential candidates of physician job opportunities that seem like a good match based on researching their profile, and so on. No doubt you’ve already done plenty of this type of emailing, and you know how crucial it is to research candidates before reaching out.

Sometimes, a simple, direct email is all it takes to pique a physician’s interest. But more often than not, you’ll need something a little more in-depth… which leads us to point number two.

2. Drip Campaigns

When I work on lead generation campaigns for clients, my philosophy is that once we’ve spent the time and money to generate a lead, we want to hold onto that lead until he or she buys or leaves. This is where drip campaigns come in.

Drip campaigns are typically done by sending emails with information and offers on a regular basis—drip by drip—to your lists. (And a point about lists here; make sure you’re sending to people who want to hear from you! They’ve either opted into your list or given you their contact info.) Drip campaigns are meant to continue the conversation you started with your initial outreach. You can create and schedule these emails in advance and pretty much “set them and forget them.”

Use drip campaigns to lead the prospect through the recruiting journey, to stay top of mind, and to provide additional opportunities for targeted communications via email, social media, or phone. In time, this regular contact may develop into a relationship that could lead to an employment contract.

3. Newsletters

As reputable as you, your organization, and the jobs you have may be, it’s almost impossible to stay relevant with your prospects, given the amount of communications they’re likely bombarded with. Let’s face it: it’s a physician’s market out there! You have a lot of competition for their attention.

When you have a perfect match for a candidate, things tend to take on their own momentum. But if you reach out to a physician and there isn’t a match, how do you stay top of mind until there is? As we just discussed, drip campaigns are one way of doing that. Another proven method is through email newsletters.

In this case, rather than sending a generic, text-laden email focused on one or more job opportunities, you’ll want to send something more compelling. Put together a visually appealing email based on industry topics, your candidates’ interests, and content along those lines. Offer information, tips, and additional job opportunities, and send it on a regular basis. What this does is keep your name and opportunities in front of physicians, so that when they are ready to make a move, they think of you. Or at the very least, when you call, they remember who you are!

More Tips: Email Marketing Webinar

Interested in learning more about how email marketing can assist you in your physician recruiting endeavors? I recently hosted a Email Marketing Essentials for Physician Recruiters webinar for PhysEmp. You are welcome to watch the replay if you like.

And, of course, if you have any thoughts on this post or the webinar, I invite you to share them in the comments below. I’ll be happy to answer your questions!

mark

Mark H. Cohen has gone from the mailroom of an NYC ad agency to running digital agencies and global marketing teams. Currently residing in Fairfield, IA, Mark consults with companies around the globe via his company, Colloquy Digital, LLC.

Oct 20: Email Marketing Webinar for Physician Recruiters

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NOTE: This webinar is now over and has been archived. You are welcome to watch the replay if you like.

Email marketing is probably part of your physician recruitment strategy, but are you giving it enough attention? If not, you should be. Data from the 2015 State of Marketing Report shows that email marketing is as effective as ever, across all industries. Today, 73% of marketers agree that email marketing is core to their business. Why? Simply put: it works. Read more

5 Reasons Active Candidates Are Better Candidates

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Somewhere in your years of recruiting, you probably heard it said that passive physician candidates are better than active candidates. If a doctor’s worth hiring, they’re already happily employed, right?

Not necessarily. Just because a physician is looking for work doesn’t mean they are desperate or incompetent. There are many reasons why highly skilled, conscientious doctors search for new opportunities—and many reasons you should pursue them. Read more

Slow Summer? Start Recruiting Next Year’s Graduating Residents

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Summertime, and the recruiting ain’t easy? Maybe it’s time to change your tune. A lot of physician recruiters tend to think residents have been offered their dream jobs by summer, and are therefore not looking for work. That may be true for this year’s graduating residents, but there’s still a tremendous recruiting opportunity with the next wave. Read more

SEPRA’s Recruiting in a Digital World: Webinar, July 16

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We’re delighted to announce that SEPRA, the Southeast Physician Recruiters Association and a chapter of ASPR, has invited PhysEmp to sponsor a physician recruiting webinar! Join us from 12-1PM Central Time on Thursday, July 16, for Recruiting in a Digital World. Read more

How to Write Magnetic Physician Recruiting Ads

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For more than 20 years, physician recruiters across the country have been posting physician job opportunities on physemp.com. In that time, we’ve learned a lot about what kinds of ads appeal to doctors (and, conversely, what turns them off). To help you write ads that catch the attention of quality physicians, we’d like to share a helpful tip: remember to use AIDA. Read more

Why We Don’t Allow Mass Email. (Plus Some Email Tips.)

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Whether or not you use PhysEmp’s services for physician recruiters, you may have heard that we have an excellent Active Physicians Database. Each and every one of these 10,000 physicians has been carefully researched by our team of experts, is actively looking for new opportunities, and has completed—or is completing—a U.S. residency. Great, right? Right!

But often, once a recruiter signs up to use our database, one of the first questions they’ll ask is, “So, how can I send mass emails to everyone here?” The simple answer is: you can’t. Here’s the very important reason why.

Just Say No to Spam

Mmm SPAM. (Photo by Janet Galore.)

Mmm SPAM. (Photo by Janet Galore.)

Just as our recruiter clients mean the world to us, so do the physicians in our database. Over the past two decades, we’ve carefully cultivated relationships with these physicians to help ensure they meet your standards. In turn, we ask that you, as recruiters, approach these candidates on a one-by-one basis. It’s this basic formula that makes our database so valuable and ensures integrity on both sides.

Moreover, this personal approach helps our physician candidates to feel that our service isn’t just about spamming them with empty offers—it’s about helping them to connect with opportunities that match their needs. This is what keeps quality physician candidates coming back to our database, which ultimately benefits you.

One last point on the topic: although you can’t mass email job listings to our Active Physicians Database, you can send individual emails to physicians whose job search specifications don’t exactly match those of your current openings. But if you do so, we do recommend that you explain your thinking to the candidate, e.g. “Dr. Smith, we see you’re looking for otolaryngology jobs in Missouri, but might we interest you in an ENT position at Hospital ABC in sunny Florida, where you’ll enjoy summer year-round?” or “Dr. Smith, I know you’re searching for ENT jobs in Missouri, but I wanted to share an excellent opportunity at the prestigious University of Iowa Hospitals with you.” You get the idea.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Speaking of emailing physicians, we thought we’d share a few examples of the kinds of emails that will catch the attention of quality physician candidates, and the kind that read more like, well, canned pork in a tin container. These examples are inspired by actual emails we’ve seen through our site, but of course they’re not real emails (we respect your privacy, after all).

The Good:

Dear Dr. James Smith,

I hope you are enjoying the summer weather in San Antonio. I’ve reviewed the information you provided on PhysEmp.com and your credentials are an excellent match for a job opening in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s prestigious XYZ Hospital is looking to hire a part-time or full-time permanent Family/Internal Practice physician to join their team. Aside from being located in a beautiful city, this position offers a competitive salary and generous benefits. If you would like to speak with our client, I can pass on your most current CV and ask them to call you directly to give you more information on this opportunity. My contact information is below, and I’ll give you a quick call to see if you’d prefer to discuss this over the phone.

I look forward to your reply. Have a great day!

Sincerely,
Jane Smith
XYZ Recruiters
1234 Saratoga Springs, FL
30355
800.123.4560
jane@xyzrecruiters.com
www.xyzrecruiters.com

The Bad:

I’m in California and have both locum and full-time positions which are you seeking?

Jane Smith
XYZ Recruiters
800.123.4560
jane@xyzrecruiters.com

Another Bad:

Rick, any interest in learning about my job posting?

The Ugly:

HELLO THANKS YOUR YOU’RE INTEREST IN OUR OPPY! I’M GRANT OFFICE MANAGER FOR XYZ HOSPITAL PLEASE EMAIL YOUR CV SO I MAY CALL YOU TO DISCUSS JOB DETAILS. PLEASE CALL 123-456-7890 ANYTIME NIGHT OR DAY.

Give ‘Em Some Meat and Potatoes

As you can see from the examples above, it’s better to avoid short and spammy emails in favor of something more warm, friendly, professional, and substantial. Give them some meat and potatoes: list enough information to entice your prospective candidate, but don’t make it an overwhelming ten-course meal.

And of course, including your contact information and a strong call to action are very important as well. These things might sound pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised how many recruiters leave them out.

With that, we’ll leave you to your recruiting. Questions or comments? Share them below. We’d love to hear from you.