Healthcare professionals who are looking for a new position or considering taking up travel work will often end up working with healthcare recruiters. Recruiters can play a critical role in your career advancement, helping you learn about jobs that fit with your career goals and guiding you as you pursue new positions.

While a good recruiter can be invaluable, low-quality recruiters can result in you pursuing jobs that are not a fit and can even cause you to end up with a position that does not advance your career. Choosing the right recruiter can optimize your career development opportunities and ensure that you are efficient with your job search efforts.

Understand Your Goals

Before you begin reaching out to any recruiters, it is important to understand what your career goals are. This will ultimately enable you to find the best recruiter for your situation, as well as enable you to better convey your expectations and needs to your new recruiter.

One important consideration is that some recruiters will specialize in specific types of jobs. There are recruiters who will only focus on helping with travel placements, while others will only help find permanent positions. There are also recruiters who specialize in working with physicians, nurses, or healthcare executives, while others may work with a broader selection of positions.

Interview Your Recruiter

Your recruiter will interview you, as his/her reputation with large business clients is at stake when recommending you for a position. You, however, should also interview the recruiter; whomever you choose to work with has the potential to significantly impact your future.

When interviewing your recruiters, an important consideration is how good of a recruiter they actually are. To determine this, you can ask questions about their performance. For recruiters who focus on fixed assignments, you could ask what the long-term retention rate is for positions they fill. For a travel assignment recruiter, you could ask how long it typically takes to find a new assignment once one is completed and what percentage of people placed complete their travel.

There are some red flags that you should look out for when interviewing a recruiter:

• Evasiveness when being asked a direct question
• Lengthy explanations for answers to a question
• Lack of attention or interest in answering your questions

Pay Attention to Personal Rapport

When trying to find the right recruiter, an important consideration is how well you naturally get along with him/her. While many recruiter meetings are over the telephone, you will still find that there are likely some recruiters that you find it easier to get along with and build a personal rapport with than others.

Having a personal rapport with your recruiter is important, as this will help that person to better understand you and what your needs and preferences are. Taking the time to build a personal rapport will also make the recruiter more confident when presenting you as a potential candidate, which will, in turn, affect potential employers’ initial impression of you from your recruiter.

If you are seeking a recruiter to help you with travel assignments, this is especially important, as the relationship you build will likely be a long-term one. Having a good relationship with your recruiter while traveling will help you as you seek new assignments and provide candid feedback on your experiences.

Ensure They Pay Attention to Your Needs

When interacting with recruiters, it is important to understand that they ultimately work for the businesses that will potentially hire you. This can cause your interests to not be fully aligned with the interests of your recruiter. A good recruiter will understand this and will be sure to be attentive to your needs instead of just trying to convince you to take a certain position to fill it.

One way to tell how much of an interest the recruiter actually has in helping you personally is by the questions being asked. If the questions are more focused on when you can start and what it would take to get you to take a position, it is an indicator that the recruiter is more focused on his/her clientele. Questions that focus on your preferences and seek to learn about your career goals and hopes for a new position can indicate that the recruiter is more concerned about finding a position that is a good fit for you personally.

Seek Someone Who Can Mentor

A recruiter is a potential mentor in your future career development. Especially if you are earlier in your career, your recruiter should be someone that you can look to as a potential guide. He/she should be able to help you see the pros and cons of each position, looking at positions in the context of your overall career goals instead of looking at it as simply filling a position and finding you a job.

Experienced recruiters typically have a good feel for who succeeds in particular positions and who doesn’t. They also have the advantage of working with many people at many stages in their careers and developing a good understanding of how career advancement works in different fields. Asking potential recruiters basic career advice can tell you a lot about what type of mentorship they will be likely to offer as you take the next steps in advancing your career.

Taking the time to find the right recruiter may take a little extra effort but can ultimately pay significant dividends in enhancing the next step in your career.