The Private Practice Success Podcast

15. What is the Best Platform for Recruiting Clinicians?

• Gerda Muller • Episode 15

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In this episode of the Private Practice Success Podcast, Gerda answers the frequently asked question: What is the best platform to use when recruiting clinicians?

Join Gerda as she unpacks the critical elements that go into selecting the best platforms for reaching top-tier candidates. If you’ve been wondering how to enhance your recruitment process and attract the right talent, this episode is your go-to guide.

In this Episode, you'll learn (amongst others):

  • Why the platform choice matters less than the quality of your job ad.
  • How to choose between SEEK, Indeed, and other platforms for your recruitment needs.
  • The role of social media platforms in your recruitment process. 
  • The importance of continuous refinement and testing in recruitment strategies.

Special Bonus:
If you are ready to optimise your recruitment results then you most certainly want to access Gerda's in-depth training on "Becoming an Employer of Choice" which she is making available for FREE to you as a listener of Episode 15. You can get that HERE.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Practice owners looking to attract quality clinicians to their team.
  • Business owners eager to optimise their recruitment outcomes.

Join Gerda as she shares insights and practical advice on mastering the recruitment process by selecting the most appropriate platform for your job ad. As always, this episode provides valuable guidance to help you build a thriving practice. 

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

Well, hello, there amazing private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 15. 

Today, I want to answer a question that I am asked really often, and that is, “What is the best platform to use when recruiting clinicians?” Now, before I tell you, and I'm certainly going to answer this question for you. I need to do my job, and my job is to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

And that is that the answer to this question, actually doesn't matter, if what it is that you're going to put on that platform hasn't been done properly. So you can throw money at each and every platform there. So you can make sure that your job ad is on all the paid platforms and even on all the unpaid platforms - such as social media, and you will get zero quality applications, if you don't have what I like to refer to as a Killer Job Ad. 

That is really what is going to make all the difference. What it is that you put on the platform, not the platform itself, although it does help, it most certainly helps. But the choice of platform is just that one piece of the puzzle. And that is the issue, and this is why people struggle very often when it comes to recruitment, because there's a lot of moving parts within your recruitment process. 

There's actually nine steps that you need to follow, and that you need to get right in order to successfully recruit. And when I mean successfully recruit, I mean, having more than one, at least a few quality applicants.

Ensuring Quality Applicants

It's not hard getting people to apply, but very often, it's inappropriate people that are applying. A lot of people just, you know, randomly apply for jobs out there and they've got zero qualifications in our profession, zero experience, zero skills. And sometimes I think like, why did you even bother, right?

But it happens all the time because people that I talk to tell me this. So if you want choice, and you want choice in terms of people applying. And choice, even when it comes to who am I going to shortlist and then who am I going to interview. And then have choice after the interview process in terms of choosing a really great quality clinician that's going to come on board, be an amazing cultural fit - and who's going to stick around because you've ensured that they are aligned to the vision, mission, and values of your business. 

Because let's face it, you do not want to recruit every six months or even 12 months or even 18 months because it costs money, time and effort in order to have that level of quality clinician coming into your business, and joining your team, because it's so important to have that team fit, right. You need to follow all those nine steps. And you need to get it right most of the time. 

So if you are interested in knowing what those nine steps are, lucky for you, I've already done a podcast episode on that. So if you go and you find episode number two, yes, it was number two, because it's freaking important. Episode number two was called the Nine Steps To Recruitment Success Within Allied Health. Go and listen to it because it will really help you to identify the gaps potentially that you have in your recruitment system.

Becoming an Employer of Choice

In that podcast I also shared a free training. which I will also share again in today's show notes, just for ease of finding it for you. It is called Becoming An Employer Of Choice. It is a recorded video training with slides, you can get it for free. And it will talk you through those nine steps and it will help you identify the gaps in your process.

And the part that is really relevant to today's topic, of what is the best platform to use is the Killer Job Ad. Because before you make a choice about what is the best platform, you need to make sure that you have a Killer Job Ad. 

Now a Killer Job Ad addresses 11 important elements. Now, that might sound like a lot, but I'm not talking about writing a book in your job ad. There's nothing more boring than a job ad that goes on like forever and ever. You can be really succinct, and you should be really succinct in your job ad, but if you fluff around with stuff that's not one of those 11 things - again - you are just wasting people's time and you are wasting important real estate space on your job ad.

So you need to have a Killer Job Ad. Once you are confident that you've got that, then the next piece of this recruitment puzzle is what is the best platform to use? And that's what we're going to talk about now. 

So let's look at what is the best platform to use once you have your Killer Job Ad. 

Choosing the Right Platform for Your Job Ad

Within Australia, there are really two main players within the recruitment space. I'm sure you've heard of them, SEEK and Indeed. And I believe that if I'm an allied health professional and I want to look for a job, I'm probably going to go to SEEK first and then Indeed.

Of course, there are also other platforms that are more discipline specific. So as a psychologist, if I'm looking for a job, I might also check out Psych Exchange, which is a platform that belongs to the Australian Psychological Society. And if I'm a psychologist, I will probably also check out the AAPI job platform, which is the Australian Association of Psychologists Incorporated.

If you are a different type of health professional, you might seek out your professional organization if they also offer job platforms. But I do think that people will probably go to SEEK and Indeed first, just because they have a greater brand awareness when it comes to recruitment.  So which is the best between SEEK and Indeed?

Well, it depends. I can tell you that I have spoken to a lot of group practice owners over the years, and I will speak to one, and that person would swear by SEEK. And then I would speak to another one just the very next day, and they will swear indeed is the best. And then I will speak to somebody else the next day, and they will say no, definitely Psyche Exchange. And it's like, okay and then I think, okay, this is really interesting because people have different experiences across different platforms. And you know, sometimes I think it's just all about timing, honestly, it's all about timing. But it's also all about that Killer Job Ad.

And yes, I'm going to be annoying. I'm going to continuously remind you about that Killer Job Ad. You know why? Because it's fricking important and that's me doing my job. So I do think sometimes it's just about the timing. But if I'm going to try and be really objective here as a group practice owner myself, who has done a lot of freaking recruitment as a business consultant to multiple and Australia wide allied health and mental health professionals. I would say my first choice would be SEEK. 

Seek.com.au

Now SEEK is the more expensive option. So if money is an issue for you right now, and you don't have the budget to put towards recruitment, then I would do Indeed. And I will tell you why Indeed for that purpose. But if I had the cash available and I had the budget for recruitment, I will most certainly use SEEK.

I like SEEK because there are options. You can do a basic ad, you can do a standout ad, you can do an ad where your job ad gets pinned to the top of page one for seven days. And obviously all of that's going to cost you extra money, which is why I said, you will do SEEK if you've got the budget for it. But I am happy to pay for that, which means that generally last I checked, it's probably going to cost you around about just under a thousand dollars if you want all the bells and whistles for your job ad.

And again, if you are serious about recruitment, I will put the money towards that, but only when I have that Killer Job Ad, otherwise you will be throwing money into the water - guaranteed, if you haven't sorted out your job ad - the actual wording of it. But I would do that because the thing is within our current job market and this job market has been like this for quite a number of years, there is way more demand, then there is supply of potential candidates. It just is what it is, right? Which means that you want to make sure that your job ad stands out. 

And if you pop a job ad on today, by tomorrow, you're going to be on page two. The day after that, you're probably going to be on page four because every day people are putting job ads on there. So I would rather pay for my job ad to be pinned on page one and pay extra money for that. So that I know that it's going to be on there for longer. So that's the one thing I like about SEEK. SEEK also has a really great dashboard that you can use to track all your applicants. There's a lot of automation in there, which I love because it saves us a lot of time.

What I also love about SEEK, which you don't get on Indeed, is that you can embed a video within your job ad. And I can tell you if you've got a good video, it makes all the difference. Now, I want to just be clear here, when I mean good, I'm not talking about a professionally recorded video of a team day or anything like that. This could be you as the practice owner sitting in front of your iPhone talking for 30 seconds saying, “Hey, this is who I am I’m the owner here at this practice. We are looking for this team member. If this is you, please reach out”.  It can be really short and simple, but it's going to be authentic because it's going to be you. It's going to contribute so much to building trust. 

I can't tell you how many times of the years when we've recruited and we asked during the interview process, you know, “Why did you apply with the psych professionals?” 9 out of 10 times, they will say, “Well, I watched the video and.” And then they will tell us what really spoke to them or what felt aligned to them or what it is that they liked. So that can go a really long way. 

Again, I will say the video is just part of the Killer Job Ad. You still need the Killer Job Ad but if you add a video to that, it's like the cherry on top that differentiates you even more because now a potential candidate can go, “Oh, that's the person I'm going to work for. That's the leader. That's the founder. That's the director. Do I like them?”  And it's a great way to establish that trust.  So I like the fact that I can do that on SEEK, which I cannot do on Indeed.  

The other thing I like about SEEK is the talent search option that they have. So every time you pay for a job ad on SEEK, you get a number of credits to use the talent search function. And from memory, that is around about a thousand credits. And I can tell you, it's actually really hard to use up all your credits, but I really gamify stuff like this for myself and I will go, okay, if I've just paid almost a thousand dollars for this job ad, I want to use each and every freaking credit that I have on the talent search option. And when I was still doing this, I would sit in the chair and I will not move until I've used all of it. It was like, I want value for my freaking money. 

So the talent search option is basically where SEEK then looks at the job title that you have and matches it with people's SEEK profiles, and then it will go - hey, these are all the profiles we have on seek, and if you think that this profile matches what it is that you're looking for as an employer, then there's a little button that you can press and SEEK then email this person, An email to say - Hey this employer thought that you might be interested in this job. Did you want to check it out? Which is really cool because this means that your Job ad now lands in that person's inbox, okay. Because if you think about it, if somebody's in the market for a job, they will be actively hopping on to SEEK, Indeed, or whatever other platform and they'll be looking for a job.

But sometimes people aren't actively looking for a job. They might be contemplating looking for a job. Maybe they are unhappy where they're at, but they haven't like taken that first step for whatever reasons. But when your job ad lands there, they might go - I might just check this out. You know, what is this? Maybe this is the universe telling me it's now time to actually start looking, or to see what other opportunities there are.

So when I go through the talent search option, I first look at when last did this person, whose profile is on SEEK, last update their profile. If somebody has updated their profile in the last two, three, four weeks, this tells me that they are in the market for a new job -  because why else would you do it? Right. Who's got time to update your seek job profile if you're not in the market for a new job - so I would prioritize those people first, and then I will just use the rest of my credits for everybody else. And even if somebody has not updated their profile in like 12 months, I feel like that continuum of the spectrum is also ripe for pickings because a lot of times people are - after 12 months, and I know it's crazy to think of the 12 months, but that's just the job market that we're in right now -  that people don't stick around like they used to in the past, especially not the newer generations. Our newer generations are always looking for the next challenge, the next mountain to climb, the next place where they can live their purpose.

And if their employer isn't providing that, they're going to be looking for something else. And I'm determined for that not to be the case at my practice, obviously you need to work on talent retention, which is your team, hey are your talent. And you want to make sure that you give them that purpose, that you help them grow all of that stuff. But a lot of practice owners don't do that, because they are so stuck in the freaking weeds of running their business. They haven't gone through the process of actually learning how to run their practice as a business. And therefore they neglect those things. And that just means that for practice owners that are actually mindful of that, that's your opportunity to potentially go - hey you've had experience at this business, whether that's a private practice, NGO, government, you know, this is who we are and this is what we do better. And this is how we are different. And do you want to jump on this bus with us? Do you want to be part of this journey towards this vision that we have within the mental health space?

So again, those people might be interested in a new challenge. So you want to send your job link to them as well. So that is the most important consideration for using SEEK. The other platform that I mentioned is Indeed.

Indeed.com.au

Now, Indeed is very similar to SEEK, but it's also very different. So with SEEK, when you place a job ad, you pay X amount of money for a full 30 days. So the great thing about Indeed is that you can actually tell Indeed, how much money you want to spend per day and for what period.

So if you are cash strapped and you don't have a really big budget for recruitment, and you know, a lot of practice owners might be in that situation. Then Indeed's going to be your best option because you can write up your Killer Job Ad, you pop it onto the platform, and you can tell Indeed that I want to pay $30 a day for the next three weeks.

And that's what Indeed's going to charge you, and your job ad is going to be live for that period. Now, during that time, you can always look at the applications coming in and you can go - hey, I've changed my mind. I actually want to pay 50 bucks a day. Or you can get to the end of the two weeks and you can go, all right, I want to extend it because I don't have the quality applications that I want as yet, so I'm going to put it on for another week. 

So it's a really great way to manage your budget, if that is an issue for you. As I said earlier, the thing about Indeed is that you can't embed a video on there. So Indeed doesn't like any outside links, they want people to stay on the platform.

The great thing about Indeed is that once you've told it, hey, I want to pay X amount of dollars for Y amount of time, it will actually give you a prediction. And it would say, hey, given these parameters, we expect that you will get three applicants. Now, the thing they don't tell you is that that doesn't mean that's going to be quality applicants - it's just applicants. All right, so there is a bit of a risk there, but I do think that if somebody is in the market for a job, they will probably check out seek and indeed those two are very close when it comes to brand awareness within the marketplace, although SEEK is still slightly ahead of Indeed.

Similar to SEEK, indeed also has a dashboard that you as the employer can use to track your applications, and to manage those. I still prefer the SEEK one though, it's just a bit more user friendly, but you know, it indeed is still perfectly fine, and fit for purpose if that is the platform that you choose to use. So those are the two main job platforms within Australia.

PsychExchange & the AAPi

Now, as a psychologist myself, as a psychology group practice owner, I have of course also checked out Psych Exchange in the past, as well as the AAPI job platform. I have not used Psyche Exchange for many years. I did use the AAPI platform. We did that probably in the last two years because it's still fairly new, and I'd like to test drive everything. And I must say I do prefer the AAPI one to the Psyche Exchange one, if I had to compare those two, which is really interesting because there's a lot more jobs listed on Psyche Exchange than on the AAPI job listing website. But the Psyche Exchange landing page is like, I feel like it's stuck in the year 2000, and they really need to update it, whereas the AAPI platform is way more modern and therefore way more user friendly.

That being said, again, I said, I'm going to share with you the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. At my practice our first choice is SEEK, and our second choice is Indeed. My third choice will be the AAPI website, and won't use Psych Exchange. So those are the paid platforms that we use. 

Of course, there are also free platforms that you can use. If you're really tight for money, you might need to use those. But generally what happens is if you're going to use the free platforms, i.e. get organic reach of your job ad, you also need to know that that's probably going to take a bit longer and it's going to need a lot more time investment.

So what am I talking about when I talk about free platforms?

Social Media Platforms

Well, that is your website and your social media pages and or profiles. So the social media platforms generally for private practice are an Instagram page or a Facebook page. So those two normally target clients, but you can also use that for team, and very importantly your LinkedIn profile - not page - LinkedIn profile as the practice owner - you need to use that profile for branding for team. So this is where you are going to show people who you are as a business, as a practice owner, and why they should come and work for you and your practice. 

So you can obviously write your Killer Job Ad. You can either put the whole thing, depending on the character limits for your various platforms, you can put the whole thing on your social media platform, you can put snippets of it on there with an image and a link and an email to reach out to you to apply. I would definitely recommend having a join our team tab on your practice website. So if you do a post, let's say on your Facebook page or your LinkedIn profile that you could go, “Hey, find out more about this opportunity here.” And then you pop the link to your join our team page, into that post. And then, of course, you want to make sure that that page has all the necessary information and also tell people how to apply. 

It's really important to tell people how to apply for this job, or who to email for more information, all of those things. The thing is that you need to spend time on branding for team in order for that to work. Because if you think about it, unless somebody specifically wants to come and work for your practice, they're not going to seek out your website. 

We find that that generally happens when people are moving interstate. So if somebody's moving from, let's say Melbourne, Victoria to Brisbane, and they've decided to live in Cleveland, which is a suburb in Brisbane, they might start then researching what private practices are in Cleveland in Brisbane. And then they might come across my Cleveland practice, and then they will reach out. So that is when people have an incentive to actually search for a location specific practice. 

That is generally why people will proactively come to the website, unless you have put in the time and the effort to be consistent across your social media - in other words, you have built up your followers, you've built up your connections on LinkedIn. You've been consistent in posting branding for team content on there. And then if somebody goes, hey, I've seen a lot of this practice. I'm finally ready to move on from my current employer. Now they're going to headhunt your practice as a result of the branding for team social media content that you have been putting out there. But that takes time and it takes consistency, but I can tell you it works.

Join our Team Page 

We get so many expressions of interest via our join our team page, and it's all as a result of our branding for team content across social media. So it most certainly works. But if you are in the market for a clinician, like now, I wouldn't recommend that option, then I will rather put money towards it. 

 So it's generally one of two resources or a combination of it. And this applies not only to recruitment, but a lot of things in business. So it's either you need to invest time, or you need to invest money, or some combination of the two. And depending on where your practice is at, you might have more time or you might have more money. And you know those balances will shift. It will shift based on how big your practice is. It will shift based on your personal circumstances and your personal constraints. And it's about going, you know, what is that for me right now?

Am I at the stage where I need to invest more time, or can I actually invest more money towards this? And how soon do I need this? What is the timeline? But again, you can put a lot of time and money towards recruitment, but if you have not done a bit of a gap check, okay, I just came up with that term, a gap check in terms of these are the nine steps that I need to do for successful recruitment. Where are my gaps, okay, then you're going to waste your time and your money. 

Refine, Test, Repeat

So, I hope that I've answered your question in terms of the platforms that I prefer. Why I prefer them, and therefore what I would recommend. But also emphasizing that you need a Killer Job Ad. And again, that is one of nine steps that you need to get right, in order to recruit successfully. 

Now, please don't be discouraged. You know, how many people I talk to that tell me, “Hey, Gerda, I'm really in need of a clinician. I've been trying everything. I've used all the platforms and it's just crickets, nothing.” And I've now learned that I need to ask this question and I will ask them, “So when last did you try recruiting?” And they tell me, “Oh, 12 months ago.” I go, “12 months ago.”  “Yes.” “So it's been 12 months since you've tried recruiting?” “Yes.” Like you can't tell me you're not finding anything. If it's been 12 months. Okay. You can tell me you're not finding anything if it's been four weeks. 

And that's the thing, there was a time many years ago, where you would pop out just any freaking job ad, and you would get like 10 amazing people applying, even more. Those days are long gone, and you need to check your ego in terms of going, you know what? It's not a personal rejection. If somebody doesn't apply for my job, it's just the job market. It's not that they don't want to come work for me or for my practice. That's not what this is. 

So as a business owner, it is okay to have a job ad out there this month and next month and the next month. A lot of people are too proud for that to happen. And I was there, once upon a time. I can put my hand up. I know how that feels because it feels like everybody's watching. They know that I had a job ad out there last month. And my job ad is again out this month. So they must be thinking, nobody wants to work with me. Guess what? Nobody's thinking that. Nobody's watching your job ads like that. I would be very surprised if they do.  Who's got time for that shit? People aren't watching every step that you are doing. 

So even if you've had a job ad out there last month and you didn't get the quality applications that you want - because it's your job to only recruit quality talent - then you need to have another job ad out this month. And you need to look at last month you need to go, “What do I need to tweak? What do I need to review? Is there maybe two sentences in my job ad that I’m going to change and improve, and let's review that and let's see whether I have a better outcome. What do I need to change?” People give up too easily these days. People also throw out the baby with the bath water.

It's not always about doing something brand new. It's about doing something. Doing it again and again and refining it. Optimizing it. Reviewing it. Tweaking it. Until you get it right. And it's that determination and that consistency that will get you to a place where you've created a business asset. 

So your Killer Job Ad is a business asset. It's an asset that when you are in the market to recruit, you can take off the shelf and you can pop it on, because you've done the hard yards. You've done the testing, the tweaking, reviewing it again. The testing, the tweaking, the reviewing it again. You've done all of those hard yards, and then it's very slight little things that you might need to change based on the needs of your business when you take that business asset and you use it again. But people give up too quickly.

So it's also my encouragement to go, you know, this is the nature of business that we need to test, tweak and review. And it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong. It just means that you are refining. Because that is how you build excellence in business. You already know how to build excellence in your clinical work. This is how we build excellence in business. 

The Time to Recruit is Now

So I also want to leave you today with the knowing, that if you've not recruited within the last month and you are in need of a clinician - start today, okay. And start by listening to my Becoming An Employer Of Choice training. 

Find out what the gaps are, and approach this one step at a time. One step at a time, making sure you tick off all those things, you get it right, and you start recruiting. Because that is how you're going to build and expand your business. And that is how you can allow yourself to help more people in better and more effective ways. Because the more clinicians you have, the more clients can be helped. And that's why we're in this business, we're in this business to help more people in better and more effective ways. 

Alrighty, I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you so very much for listening. Be sure to check out that training in the show notes, and remember as always, I am here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about 😊

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