Physician recruitment has changed over the years, from advertisements placed in newspapers to recruiters texting potential candidates. Recruiters have added texting to their arsenal to help accommodate busy physician schedules. With texting becoming a more prevalent form of communication between recruiters and candidates this means that there are some obstacles to avoid.
What obstacles are there?
- Tone of the message. Text messaging, like email, does not easily convey the tone of the message. With a physician recruiter, you want to be careful of the tone that may be conveyed through your message. The message may be an innocent, "Hey when are you going to get back to me?!?!" but can come across as you being irritated based on punctuation. Before sending the message, re-read it just to double-check that the message is not coming across in a negative way due to punctuation or word selection. A good rule of thumb is to treat it the same way that you would treat an email response.
- Being too friendly or too casual with the recruiter. Remember that you are conversing with a potential employer, not your best friend. Avoid using an abundance of emojis, gifs, memes, or "lols" in your conversation. You need to treat this as part of the job interview. Even though you are trying to build a good relationship with the recruiter, you do not want to come across as not taking the opportunity seriously.
- Sending a text message to the wrong person. There have been multiple movies and shows that depict a character sending a message to the wrong person. Make sure that before you send a message to double check the name you are sending it to. Save the recruiter's name and phone number into your contacts so you know who you are texting. Do not just leave their name as a phone number because this can lead to confusion in the future.
- Knowing the appropriate time to text back. Texting is great because unlike a phone call, it does not require you to respond right at that moment. This can lead to not knowing when to respond though. Every physician's schedule is different, but you should make sure that you are responding within 24 hours of the original text. There is no set rule for hours to text a recruiter, but just like with phone calls you should try to stick to normal business hours.
- Not using offensive language. Once again, remember that you are texting a potential employer, not a friend or family member. Even if you are fired up about a topic the recruiter brought up do not use curse words in your conversation with the recruiter. Keep your conversations with the recruiter professional.
Many physicians are starting to list on their CVs that they prefer a text over a phone call. Make sure that you are treating phone calls, emails, and text messages with recruiters or potential employers as part of your interview for the organization. Want more information on working with recruiters? Check out PracticeMatch Career Resources!