Hiring Health IT Qualifications, Not Talent

In a great LinkedIn discussion that was started in response to the post “Is Healthcare IT Hiring Part of the Problem with Healthcare?“, Alan Baldwin, Senior Consultant at FluidEdge Consulting, offered this fascinating insight into healthcare IT hiring:

It is well known that healthcare IT lags in adopting new technologies, and I think equally as lagging/lacking in hiring practices for IT. As a consultant I’ve worked with various recruiters, HR folks, and hiring manager and one of the issues I see clearly is the deficiencies in recognizing raw talent. All too often they are looking for the exact set of experience/qualifications for a particular role and not the “talent” or caliber of the applicant.

They must learn to consider candidates with multiple relevant certifications, years of technical experience and just because they don’t have xyz EHR or healthcare experience doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get to the hiring manager. HIT needs to attract high caliber talent that can provide fresh perspectives to solutions and not be limited by old school healthcare IT mentality.

It’s apparent to most of us, the days of the old paper chart are gone or going and healthcare leadership needs to revamp their IT mentality. It’s not just desktop support and a network anymore. If they expect to address the increasing demands for data collection, analytics and quality measures then they need to take a more open minded approach in finding good talent.

What a great perspective on one of the major challenges I see in healthcare IT hiring. Plus, I love that this description offers a reason why a recruiter or hiring manager can use to justify the inclusion of someone who’s talented but not necessarily specifically qualified. I hope we can see more talented people hired into healthcare IT and not just people who fit some narrow set of qualifications.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

4 Comments

  • Good post. I will share. Don’t companies use an app that screens the skill set in the resume? If the keywords are lacking, the resume is discarded?

  • Lynn,
    That’s what happens in a lot of organizations, yes! That’s why I’m suggesting that maybe it’s a problem and that we should open our net a little more when filling the funnel.

  • Exactly! I have the drive and clinical experience, but not the specifics most HIT jobs are focusing on. Broaden your hiring vision and reap the rewards of fresh thinkers and dedication.

  • Here is the basic issue right now..and has been for the past 5 or so..The HR budget is winning the war vs the project..as an org they are not willing to pay the salary of the more experienced people yet in the end by not hiring the right people the projects are running over and therefore cost 3-4x as much in the long run… just to save on salary…so IMO no one is looking at the over all costs/projects vs how much did we save by hiring the right person with experience..

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