Staffing Trends of 2007, my prospective.

Hello to all and happy new years!

2007 went way too fast and with 2008 in front of us all, I thought that I would take a moment to share with you the trends I saw in radiology staffing across the country, and also ask you what you have seen.

Looking back at the work that I have done this past year, I would say that in radiology staffing, approximately 78% of my radiology placements were that of sonographers. This number is huge and I suspect that changes in the market place and changes in educational programs played a key role in this demand for ultrasound personnel. I also had a lot of requests for specialties of Interventional Radiology, Cardiac Sonography, and CT.

I also saw a higher demand for radiology professionals on the east coast in cities like DC, Northern VA, Boston, NY, and other coastal states. States like NC, SC, GA and FL had the least demand for radiology professionals.

One other trend that I saw was a huge change in how one goes about searching for new radiology opportunities and applying for a job.

I think the biggest increase was in the technology to find new job opportunities such as the use of search engines and niche job posting boards such as Radworking and RTJobs more than the traditional job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder... Etc.

Another interesting trend that I saw is the role of travel radiology professionals and working in contract assignments.

I have seen more travel technologists this year than I have seen in my 4 years recruiting, which asks the question, is this travel industry coming back?

Other trends that appeared were the use of social networking sites such as Myspace, and Facebook. These sites, used mainly by younger professionals offer unique opportunities to meet and network with other health care professionals, but BE CAREFUL! These sites statistically hinder your chances to get that job if you are "Found". One statistic states...

"According to a CareerBuilder.com survey, 12% of 1,150 hiring managers said they have used social networking sites to screen potential candidates. Of this 12%, 63% said they did not hire a person based on their profiles." (Careerbuilder.com - Recruiter Tools Article)

My advice? Be careful when using these types of social networking sites. Make sure to keep things highly G rated or just take down your site temporarily or make it private so only your friends can view.

So.... what do you think? What trends did you see as a hiring manager this year? What did you see as a new graduate starting out? What tools do you use when searching for that new opportunity? What horror stories did you have this year? Let me know!