Selling Yourself in a Tough Health Care Market. (The Evolving Role of the Physician Executive)‪.‬

WHEN RETAINED SEARCH people meet, one of their favorite topics is not the perfect candidate that got away, but the hordes of candidates they sort through who have skills but no smarts, are visibly damaged goods, or who have other fundamental personality defects that divert attention from their technical and managerial skills. Career Strategies, Inc. in Wilmette, Illinois, recently ran a series of focus groups composed of health care recruiters and researchers (the people who actually find specific candidates) to find out what makes one candidate attractive and another, with identical--or even better--paper credentials, anathema. The recruiters we learned the most from are the ones who screen the most candidates. Their experience is based on a sample of hundreds, not the ten or 20 that many hospital and HMO CEOs have seen. Here are the top items on their checklists.