Recruitment and Selection - Medical

Introduction

The organization, Singapore Medical Group (SMG) has plans to expand its business into building a new private hospital in the town area of Singapore, which specializes in cancer treatment and research.

Staffing Need

The human resource department is currently looking into filling vacancies for the following positions:

- Cancer Specialist (Oncologist)

- General Practitioners

- Nurses

- Radiographer

- Clinical Researcher

Staffing Issues

The organizational goal is to become the global leader in cancer treatment and research. In this specialized area of health services, the organization is looking toward recruiting exceptional talents to develop the hospital.

Being in the medical industry for the past 20 years and having established their name as one of the top medical centre groups, SMG has a pool of talent, which is currently available to lead the hospital. The organization is looking to fill middle and lower level positions for the opening of the hospital in 2010.

Staffing Strategy

Different staffing strategy would need to be adopted for the different types of vacancy to be filled. Due to the highly specialized nature of the jobs, there is also a need for person/ job match before a person/ organization match, specific KSAOs and staff with exceptional quality since the organization is looking to become the best in Singapore.

In the 2 years before the official opening of the new hospital, the organization can overstuff to stockpile on talent and to train them before re-deploying them to the various vacancies in the new hospital.

Recruitment Planning

As this is an expansion of the chain of medical centres, it would be better to have in-house recruitment to meet the specific needs of the organization. Centralized recruitment would also be more effective to align policies and also to save on administrative and other cost due to economies of scale.

Recruitment

1. Oncologist (Specialist)

An Oncologist study, diagnose and treat cancer. It usually take 8 years of education and 5 years of medical residency before a doctor will be qualified as an oncologist.

The medical centre has transferred one of the top doctors in surgical oncology to take charge of the cancer department in the new hospital. However, there is a need to hire other oncologists in the different specialties (radiation and gynecologic oncology)

The recruitment strategy would be mainly targeted due to the specific nature and characteristics of the job.

The recruitment sources that are likely to be suitable for recruiting a specialist are:

п‚· Employee Referrals

п‚· Professional Associations

п‚· Advertising in Medical Journals or publications

п‚· Executive search firms

п‚· Alumni Associations

The preferred method to be adopted would be employee referrals and networks. The Singapore Medical Group is an established chain of medical centres with large number of employees in the field. It would be likely that employees would know of specialist in the field of oncology, which might be a good match to the open position. This would allow SMG to reach out to both active and passive candidates at a low cost. However, it would be effective to use other source of recruitment as well to balance the disadvantages of employee referrals.

The communication message in advertising for the position should be attractive and targeted. With the team being lead by a top-notch specialist in the field of Oncology, it would be ideal to use the psychological aspect to appeal and attract well-qualified candidates to join the organization. Furthermore, the position is highly valuable to the organization and SMG could consider a more attractive package to attract suitable candidates for the position especially with the tight healthcare labour market.

2. Radiographer

A Radiographer is required to perform radiographic procedures on patients to produce quality images for radiological interpretation.