What Physicians Actually Look For in Your Job Ad

We read physician job ads all day, and we talk to the physicians reading them. The gap between what employers emphasise and what candidates actually want to know is remarkably consistent.

The four questions every physician asks first

Before compensation, before community photographs, a physician evaluating your ad is trying to answer four questions. If your posting does not answer them, they will assume the worst and move on.

1. What will my days actually look like? Patient volume, panel size, appointment length, scope, and the mix of clinic, hospital, and administrative time.
2. What is the call commitment? Frequency, group size, whether it is home or in-house, and what a heavy week looks like. Silence here is read as bad news.
3. Who else is on the team? Other physicians, nursing, allied health, admin support, and the EMR in use. A physician joining a solo practice wants to know that up front.
4. Why is this position open? Growth, retirement, expansion, or turnover. Every candidate wonders; the ads that answer it honestly stand out immediately.

What to say about compensation

Vagueness costs you candidates. “Competitive compensation” tells a physician nothing, and experienced candidates read it as a signal that the number is below market. You do not need to publish an exact figure — state the model (fee-for-service, salaried, sessional, alternative arrangement), the overhead split if applicable, and a realistic range or a comparable benchmark. If incentives, relocation support, or loan assistance exist, name them specifically.

Write about the community like an adult

Physicians are not persuaded by generic phrases about friendly people and four seasons. What actually moves the decision is concrete and checkable: distance and drive time to the nearest major airport and tertiary centre, school options, housing cost with a real example, whether a spouse can find work in their field, and what people genuinely do on a weekend. Specificity reads as honesty; brochure language reads as concealment.

The best-performing ads we see are the ones that mention a drawback. Naming the thing candidates will discover anyway buys enormous credibility for everything else you claim.

What to leave out

• Long institutional history. Two sentences, not five paragraphs.
• Boilerplate requirements. Every candidate knows they need a licence; use the space for something useful.
• Superlatives without evidence. “Award-winning” and “state-of-the-art” are invisible. A named EMR and a specific waiting-room renovation are not.
• An anonymous contact. A named person with a direct email materially increases replies.

A workable structure

Position title and type; two sentences on the practice; the four questions above answered plainly; compensation model with a real range or benchmark; three concrete community facts; supports and incentives; a named contact. That is enough. Ads that run much longer tend to get skimmed rather than read.

Try it on our board

Posting an opening on our job board is free, and there is no fee if it leads to a hire. If you would like a candid read on your posting before it goes out, send it to us — we will tell you what a physician will actually think when they read it.