HRMO: Driving qualified health care candidates to VA

VHA maintains a first-class, competitive recruitment and retention program with a methodology that is integrated and strategic in filling shortages of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other health care occupations. VHA’s Healthcare Recruitment and Marketing Office (HRMO) has two components to drive qualified health care candidates to VA.

One is the National Recruitment Program (NRP) division, which is made up of 21 national, dedicated health care recruiters targeting physician and specialty health care occupations. These recruiters also understand the unique needs of Veterans because each is a Veteran. The other division is Healthcare Recruitment and Marketing (HR&M), which administers through its VA Careers program several initiatives to enhance the recruitment of highly qualified health care professionals.

These initiatives include implementing VA national media marketing strategies; maintaining our careers website (VAcareers.va.gov) and the VHA Healthcare Recruiters’ Toolkit; promoting job openings on health care websites and social networking sites; and producing public service announcements and TV commercials. The goal of all campaigns is to promote VA career opportunities to top health care professionals–ultimately allowing VA to better fulfill its mission of caring for our nation’s Veterans.

You may have seen our latest public service announcement, “My Reason to Serve,” which launched on Veterans Day 2014 and has aired on television stations across the country, including ABC, FOX and NBC.

In March, the VA Careers blog series will feature testimonials from the leadership of NRP and HRMO, as well as several of the NRP consultants who will share their observations and advice on successful job search and application techniques for qualified health care candidates interested in providing proactive, personalized patient-driven health care for our Veterans.