A CIO’s Guide to Recruiting

The need for qualified IT talent in healthcare is driving many new openings in health systems.  What are some of the methods you can use to recruit health IT workers to your health system?  CIOs and HR officers need to be careful in their process of hiring health IT talent. What can you do to prevent any missteps?  The goal is to recruit the most qualified IT person who will stay and commit to the organization.

Here are seven methods, which may help you form a recruiting strategy to find IT talent.

Ads: Posting ads in healthcare IT trade associations like HIMSS JobMine, ANIA-CARING – Nursing Informatics JobBank, or healthcare IT websites are ways to get the word out to active candidates looking for jobs.  Using social media such as LinkedIn is another avenue to post IT jobs.  The success rate will vary, and the HR department could be flooded with unqualified candidate resumes.

Internal talent: CIOs should look around their own organizations for potential internal IT talent.  There may be hidden IT talent in some departments or offices which can be trained and developed.  This can be an effective way to retain staff because they see that you promote from within.  The internal employees are already adjusted to the culture and don’t have to relocate.

Job Fairs: Although common for hiring nurses and other allied healthcare workers, job fairs are rare for finding healthcare IT talent.  Some adventurous health systems are exploring this method.  Sparrow Health System (MI) just held a job fair last week.  Depending on their success, this could be a good way to reach talent locally, especially in large metro areas.

Networking events: A great way to find IT talent could be by attending healthcare conferences like HIMSS, ACHE, etc., either in person or even as a virtual attendee as at HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo.  The conference will give you a chance to meet potential hires and interview them.  Talking to peers and other CIOs may give you leads on top IT talent looking for new opportunities.

Outside recruiters: Retained search consultants work to find top-notch IT talent, and can pursue the sought after “passive” candidates.  Contingency firms are an option for recruiting certain mid to lower level IT positions.  Check out the directory of healthcare recruiters.

Referrals: It is worth asking for referrals from colleagues, staff and industry friends.  Let staff know you are looking for IT talent.  They might know of someone whom they worked with before or even a neighbor with health IT talent.  You might want to offer a referral fee to the employee, if you should wind up hiring their recommendation.

Unsolicited resumes: Some IT candidates may send their resume directly to the CIO or hiring manager.  This unsolicited resume method is not always successful, but may occasionally offer a valuable candidate.  Perhaps by luck, an extraordinary “star” IT player has relocated to the area and reaches out directly to the health system CIO to ask about openings.  It might be worthwhile talking to the person or even having a short meeting.

In any search process, the candidates need to be carefully evaluated and, hopefully, compared to one or two others.  Many times when resumes come in and the hiring manager is desperate, shortcuts and incomplete screening can lead to a bumpy start or even a bad hire.  Choose your recruiting methods carefully and be willing to try others if your first attempts fall short.