The recruitment meeting

by Anthony Blandford, Business Director, Medical Devices, DOCS International UK
 
The key to a successful sales meeting is getting all the right people together for the right purpose at the right time. Anthony Blandford of DOCS International looks at how the same philosophy can be applied to recruitment.

When you are selling any products to a hospital, there is rarely just one person involved in the buying process. You may have convinced the surgeon, but is the theatre manager on board? The nurse may be desperate to start using your product, but what about the divisional manager who holds the budget? This is even before supplies have decided they want to be part of the action.

All together now
In an ideal world, the best solution would be to get all of the parties involved in the process sitting in one room together. This would provide a forum for the various different issues and viewpoints to be discussed. If your product is a good one, it would also lead to a sale, a satisfied customer and a successful sales team. How often does this situation ever occur? As most experienced healthcare sales people will tell you, practically never.
 
One person who has used this approach in his sales technique and achieved great success is Stuart Braggs. Starting life in orthopaedic trauma sales, Stuart would arrange meetings in his accounts involving the orthopaedic surgeons, the theatre nurses, the divisional management and the supplies department. These forums allowed all parties to voice their concerns and for these to be dealt with in a quick and efficient manner. The sales results this generated kick-started Stuart’s career, and led him to positions as Divisional Director at Boston Scientific and Managing Director at Wright Medical. 

While healthcare companies strive to achieve this result when selling, they rarely look to mimic the process when procuring. One of the key areas of procurement for healthcare companies is their staff. A sales team is not going to be successful in the long term with poor-quality recruits. How can the principles of productive selling be applied to the recruiting of staff?

Who decides?
The first step to making a sale is identifying the Decision Making Unit (DMU) within the customer. When you are selling to theatres, the DMU will probably be headed by the surgeon and the nursing team. In most cases it will also include the theatre manager, the divisional manager and maybe the clinical director. In large purchases, it is not inconceivable that the trust board will have an input. There may well be other influencers en route that need attention. 

The flip side of this process when procuring is identifying your own DMU. You can be sure that your suppliers are trying to do this. Who is the manager for the vacancy? What will be the input from the HR team in your organisation? Are there other colleagues who will interact with the new recruit, and should they be seen as influencers in the process? Finally, will the senior management of your organisation want input into the process – and if so, at what point? 

The experience of most recruiters is that their customers do not always know their own DMUs. If they are aware of them, they would still prefer the recruiter to do the legwork of speaking to them all. Which is exactly the situation that they would themselves find frustrating, time-consuming and ultimately less productive for all concerned. If companies were able to create the same environment they seek to achieve with their customers, the whole recruitment process could be shorter and considerably more effective.

The candidate’s needs
It is clear that the ideal recruitment meeting should mirror the ideal medical device sales meeting. If all of the parties needing an input into the recruitment process were to be present at a single meeting, many of the issues and niggles that arise during the process could be ironed out at the beginning. 

A single job description could be agreed, following the input of all parties. The recruitment process, the number of interviews and who will be present at the interviews can also be determined – and, perhaps most importantly, the timescale for the project can be agreed. It is when it comes to timescales that the analogy outlined above gets a bit stretched. When selling products, a salesperson can be sure that the product will not refuse to be sold to an account. This is not the experience of recruiters, however. 

When dealing with candidates, there is every chance that a candidate will say no to a job offer. Often this can be a consequence of how they have been treated during the recruitment process. The current job market is very much candidate-driven. There are more vacancies than there are good candidates, so the best ones are able to pick and choose.
One of the most common frustrations cited by candidates is the length of time taken by employers to interview and decide. When a set timetable is agreed at the beginning, this can reduce delays, frustrations and ultimately the likelihood of candidates withdrawing from the process. It should include specific times set aside for interviews, allowing the candidates to have realistic expectations of the timescale involved. For a timetable to work, there must be input from all parties involved in its implementation. Doing this at the beginning of the process can minimise later disruption and consternation.

Working in partnership
Like many of the issues that arise at work, recruitment should be seen as a process or a project rather than a single event. Time invested at the beginning of the project will lead to greater benefits at the end. Identifying the DMU and getting all the parties together in one meeting means that the process will run more smoothly and lead to better results.
 
Working with a recruitment company should be a partnership, in the same way that healthcare companies strive to build partnerships with their clients. Working together and being open and honest is a two-way street that will benefit both parties as the relationship develops.

Anthony Blandford is Business Director, Medical Devices UK at recruitment consultant DOCS International. For more information, visit www.DOCS-int.com.
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