The healthcare industry is one of the most rapidly growing in the United States. Consequently, the demand for qualified talent is higher than the supply.
The use of healthcare executive search can be an effective tool for success for healthcare organizations and when competing to attract candidates with high-demand skills.
This is especially true at senior management levels. This is why the use of retained executive search firms is customarily used for these types of roles. By senior levels we mean filling positions at the CXO, VP, Director or high-level roles that require significant domain experience.
With healthcare being more competitive than ever, having among your ranks experienced and effective leaders is crucial. This is particularly so if your company produces complex health technology solutions that are used by hospitals for example. If you offer products or services to the hospitals and health systems space, it’s vital that you have an effectual executive team in place that comprehends the challenges of succeeding in the current post-COVID healthcare market.
If this sounds like your situation, keep reading to learn more.
What Is Healthcare Executive Search?
Executive recruitment has existed for decades. In the past executive search firms were used as an extension of a company’s HR department to handle the process of recruiting and hiring middle and upper management open positions. In the early days of its use, it was common for many recruitment organizations to be generalists. That is, firms would take on search assignments in any of a variety of industries. The differentiation was more about the seniority of the position handled and not by the specific function or industry.
Over the decades the recruitment business has evolved. Now many firms commonly have areas of specialization in an industry or market vertical. This specialization would breed a deeper understanding of the unique aspects of one industry over another. This concentration on a specific market could add more value to their clients by knowing their competition, market dynamics, regulations and global factors that impact their business.
Healthcare executive search, would be an example of just such a specialty. It would be defined by the process of proactively recruiting a senior executive or other high-level manager for a healthcare client. In this way, firms with this capability can bring highly useful insights that help clients navigate the hiring process and select the most productive , “best fit” candidates for their organization.
Most commonly executive recruiting is the hiring of a third-party company to conduct the end-to-end process of delivering to its client a slate of qualified candidates for the specific role to be filled. The end-to-end process can entail:
- Developing a detailed position profile
- Creating a recruitment message that markets the opportunity to prospects
- Thorough mapping of the target marketplace where potential candidates would likely be working
- Performing aggressive outreach to those likely candidates to gain their attention and engage them in a dialog about considering joining their client
- Screening and selection of those candidates who have elected to throw their hat in the ring and enter into the interview process
- Guiding the client through their hiring process when there are multiple candidates in play
- Negotiating with both clients and candidates when the time comes to move forward with an offer
These are a sample of the steps involved.
Executive Search for Complex Healthcare Technology
Present-day healthcare has become highly technical and is ever increasing in its complexity. New and innovative health solutions are being continually developed.
These technologies could include:
- Telehealth
- EMR/EHR solutions
- Artificial intelligence
- Wearable health technology
- IoT remote patient monitoring
- Robotic surgery
- Sensor enabled medical devices
…and others.
Many of these health technology products/solutions are typically purchased by hospitals. The upside growth for those companies producing these solutions can be massive but the barriers to entry and competition can be considerable.
When selling complex health technology solutions, the adoption of the solution by healthcare providers is essential. They have to sanction the use of the product or service to be implemented in their organization.
Typically the transaction involved for these innovations is an enterprise sale. That is, a sales process that involves multiple stakeholders with different agendas. These agendas may be different time requirements, different levels of urgency, different levels of risk, budgetary constraints and other factors. This frustrates the uninitiated who are entering the healthcare market who may be unfamiliar with the need for addressing multiple stakeholders to move their product forward.
The point here is that organizations that want to do business in this space can quickly realize it can be difficult and that it requires specific acquaintance with the process of how new technology is adopted within these health systems.
How Does Healthcare Executive Search Play a Role In This?
Because of the need for specific competence like understanding the strategy and tactics of winning in healthcare, the help of an executive search firm can prove to be essential. Here’s why.
Take as a specific case–a company developing a pioneering software as a service solution used in the emergency room.
If the company producing this platform lacks specific competence among their management in the area of commercializing their solution, then they may need the help of an executive recruiting firm to do highly targeted hiring. The goal would be to shore up a talent gap that may be the lynchpin to the company’s ability to compete and win.
How would this occur?
In the modern era, the process of healthcare executive search involves vigorously identifying, intentionally attracting and winnowing down candidates to fill a specific position or plug the company’s talent gap. Hiring in this manor accesses the widest audience of possible hires that would otherwise not be available via other passive recruitment means.
The efficiency for organizations that use healthcare recruiting firms can be in the time and labor intensity of screening candidates, performing reference checks, and aiding with negotiations. Often a collateral benefit is gathering valuable intel on competitors and other market specific data that can be discovered when investigating candidates.
Top healthcare recruitment firms are able to streamline the hiring process. The streamlining is accomplished by putting their clients in the position of choosing who they want to pursue by targeted outreach to engage highly sought-after skills.
Contrast that with posting ads, canvassing the networks of executives that yield limited results.
What is the ROI for Executive Search?
Like any business decision, what is the benefit to making the investment to engage an outside search partner?
Few organizations have the luxury of a deep bench or mechanism to develop their internal talent. This is especially true for small startups and midsized organizations. Consequently, they are faced with reaching out to the market to find management that already brings to the table the skills required to address a business challenge.
When faced with hiring someone from outside the company for a senior level position, there are multiple ways to solve for this. Internal recruiting utilizing in-house human resources or hiring an external recruitment firm.
For many organizations the in-house capability doesn’t exist to undertake a search campaign that can do outbound communications to strategically targeted executive candidates.
Companies that do have an HR function that can do a search with their internal team, can have constraints put upon them because of competitive issues. For example, it may be prohibited for a company to actively solicit top executives at one of their competitors.
Therefore, it is commonly the case that the use of an outside search organization provides more capability and flexibility.
Search fees are explicit whereas the costs of in-house executive recruiting are embedded and less quantifiable in terms of the time and the salaries of the individuals tasked with performing the project. Then there is the opportunity cost of using internal resources that could be focusing their efforts on core projects that impact the company’s day-to-day operations.
Hidden Costs
Inefficiency can also be a hidden cost. If the project takes longer to complete then there is the opportunity cost of not having a key performer in place producing at the company thus impacting top and bottom-line production.
Take for example a company that had spent 9 months recruiting for a COO candidate for a healthcare technology firm. The internal resources that were expended were considerable as far as time of HR, the company founder and other administrative staff.
Their product platform introduction was stalled for this entire time the search was being performed. This proved to be more costly than if they had engaged an executive search firm from the start.
When they decided to engage a search firm to perform the recruitment for them, a COO was identified within weeks. Hiring the COO put the company back on track to launch the product. Investors could now see progress toward generating new anticipated revenues. Thus, the ROI could be definitively measured in time savings and revenue generation on the basis of the good works, management and results of this executive hire.
Understanding this hiring ROI can be invaluable when it comes time to make decisions about your business strategy and future growth. It’s also beneficial for companies that need to work with an executive recruiter to select one that knows their industry.
When Do You Need A Healthcare Executive Recruiter?
As mentioned, executive search firms have evolved over the years from generalist firms to highly specialized recruiting organizations.
In the area of healthcare technology, there are certain scenarios where the use of a 3rd party recruitment firm offers a strategic advantage. There are also conditions where the use of a professional search firm would not be appropriate.
Some indicators that might trigger the use of a search firm could be: expansion that dictates hiring new skills that are not present in the company; a sudden departure of a key executive; an acquisition of a new business that requires knowledgeable leadership; or the entrance into a new market segment.
These are some of the most common areas that make engaging a search professional a sound choice to consider.
JP Boyle & Associates is a health technology executive search firm serving clients in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
