Kate Quinlan spoke to Joe Hughes, BDJ Classified Advertising Team Leader, to find out what recruiters can do in a challenging jobs market to find the best possible candidate for their vacancy.

The recruitment crisis

'The last few years have seen growing issues with associate recruitment that have spread from localised problems to a national crisis,' wrote Tom King, BDA Policy Adviser, in a BDJ editorial published in November 2019.1 Mr King discusses the long-term decline in the number of practice owners: in 2006, about 40% of GDPs were practice owners and the rest associates. In 2019 only around 15% of GDPs were practice owners and 85% were associates.

Despite the increasing proportion of associates in the workplace however, said Mr King, this does not mean that practices are finding it easier to recruit one.

The British Dental Association (BDA) worked with BDJ Jobs - 'the job board for dentists and dental care professionals' - in 2019 to produce a comprehensive report on the state of the UK dental recruitment market to help guide associates and practice owners.2

'In 2017-18, 70% of practice owners who had tried to recruit an associate reported difficulties doing so. The problems are even worse for practice owners with high levels of NHS commitment trying to recruit; with 82% experiencing issues.'1

With over 40,000 dentists registered with the General Dental Council, the problems with associate recruitment do not seem to be just a shortage of dentists. Mr King reflects that the recruitment issue seems to be that 'too few [dentists] are willing to work on the NHS and, where they are, they don't want to do so full-time'.

BDJ Jobs interview

Joe Hughes is the BDJ Classified Advertising Team Leader for the BDJ Portfolio. He has worked on BDJ Jobs since 2017. Joe works alongside Charley Sheppard and Ross Fisher.

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Joe Hughes

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Charley Sheppard

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Ross Fisher

Can you describe your role?

I manage the BDJ's classified advertising department. We help a wide range of clients with their recruitment needs on a daily basis. These range from independent practices to hospitals and universities. We assist them with their long- and short-term recruitment needs. This can range from one off job ads to annual branding campaigns.

We also run features on BDJjobs.com and come up with ideas on what kind of topics are interesting for the industry.

We call our clients regularly and meet up with them at least twice a year, often at the annual dental shows. We aim to keep clients updated regularly, for example we send dental groups monthly performance reports for their jobs along with an analysis of trends within the market.

We also help universities and specialist course providers promote their postgraduate dental courses, help practice owners sell their practices and financial and legal specialists to promote their services via the BDJ and www.BDJmarketplace.com.

How many jobs are posted on BDJ Jobs each year?

Between February 2018 and February 2020, 124,000 jobs were posted. In the same period, our jobs received over 2 million views and over 2,000 applications.

When BDJ Jobs was relaunched in 2016, the new website was intended to make it 'easier than ever before for dentists to fill vacancies in their practices or find their perfect job'. Is this still the case?

Yes, BDJ Jobs is your first port of call if you're looking for work. It is the best place to visit because it is a dedicated site for dental careers. The website is really easy for practices to recruit and for dental professionals to find work.

BDJ Jobs is the UK's biggest resource for jobs and career advice for the dental industry.

The niche nature of BDJ Jobs means that it attracts high quality candidates, many of whom read the BDJ!

What is the breakdown of job roles being advertised on the site?

There are hundreds of associate dentist jobs as well as jobs for dental hygienists and therapists, locums, dental nurses, specialists, other dental team roles and academic/university, community and overseas appointments.

Are printed jobs (in the Journal's Classified section) still popular with some recruiters?

In the last BDJ reader survey, 95% of the BDJ audience stated that they read the recruitment classified section.

A print advert is a great way to attract candidates engaged with the great clinical content within the BDJ.

Every advert published in print also appears online, meaning recruiters reach a wider group of potential applicants.

Do recruiters create their own adverts or do you help with that?

Recruiters can create the advert themselves online or we can help them with it. We are always happy to offer advice over the phone or via email. We have also created 'how to' guides in regards to recruitment adverts and employer profiles. Please contact us if you'd like to receive a copy.

Are you seeing the ongoing crisis in associate recruitment reflected in activity on BDJ Jobs?

It's certainly a buyer's market for jobseekers as employers need to be competitive to attract and retain the best staff.

The most successful job adverts are in private practices in big cities. However, in the current market, associates may wish to consider moving to areas outside of large cities, where a premium is being paid for associates willing to work there.

I would recommend contacting our team for a copy of our recruitment white paper for more insight into this.2

How can BDJ Jobs help employers with recruitment problems?

The best thing we can do when people call saying they're struggling to fill roles is to give them insight into what's happening in the industry, help them improve the content of their adverts and enhance their employer brand. We have this insight from the white paper.2 So, we are the best people to advise on what to do in the current climate.

As a team my colleagues and I are very happy to help with the wording of adverts and provide statistics on what works best and what doesn't. If someone is struggling to fill a role, we advise them to keep in touch with us, so we can help them get maximum exposure on our platform. If your campaign isn't working for you, we see it as a challenge for us to help you rather than it being just a transactional thing where you pay for an advert and if it's not working you have to pay again. You can call us for a consultation: we have lots of solutions on offer to help you. If you're going to advertise your position on a job board, doing it on a niche dental jobs board like ours with the reputation of the BDJ itself and the affiliation with the BDA, means that it's the best place to go.

What upgrade options are available to make ads more attractive?

There are three packages: Essential, Promoted and Enhanced listings. The Enhanced listing produces the best results because it appears at the top of the search results and is listed for 50 days. In 2019 this product received seven times as many applications as Essential.

If your campaign isn't working for you, we see it as a challenge for us to help you rather than it being just a transactional thing where you pay for an advert and if it's not working you have to pay again.

We can also feature jobs on our homepage meaning more potential candidates will see your role, we can feature employers who have multiple vacancies and we can be really creative with targeted banners on the site and within our newsletters.

We can also help employers make the content of their advert more attractive. For example, at the moment Cornish practices find it hard to recruit; we advise that these recruiters highlight the benefits of the area the practice is located in. Don't just list specifics about the job: 'sell' the area to potential candidates, and the advantages of relocating to it. For example, surfing after work, glorious summers, close to the beach, etc. Talk about the town, the whole package. Transport links, accommodation, whether it's good for families, etc.

We make sure that recruiters know we're on the end of the phone and can help in these situations. We have the platform and the audience but really it is down to the person posting a job to market their brand and reach the right potential candidates.

One advantage of BDJ Jobs is that practices can set up their own profile on the site; is it worthwhile for practices to do this?

It definitely makes sense to set up a profile on BDJ Jobs when posting a job, with full information about the practice and its culture, maybe even a photo of the dental team, to make your advert more appealing and attract candidates. We encourage clients to put all of the useful information about their practice on the BDJ Jobs site so that jobseekers have all the information needed to make a decision to apply, without the need to go away and do their own background research.

How can BDJ Jobs help BDA members in particular?

BDA members receive a discount for recruitment advertising for every package. So any associate, hygienist, locum role gets a discount. The discount is different depending on the package, up to £100 off. Also, BDA members receive dental nurse and practice support role adverts free of charge.

What's your forecast for the dental recruitment industry in the 2020s?

I think things are slowly going to improve. Knowing that Brexit is definitely going ahead will improve things in the short term but I don't think that means that the recruitment crisis will be over. Recruiters are becoming more aware of the ongoing crisis, which helps. Previously, some independent practice owners didn't even know there was a recruitment crisis going on and were in shock, so it's been about educating the industry so that everyone knows it's happening.

I think it will continue to be challenging to fill positions but in my time on BDJ Jobs I have already seen the situation improve slightly. I think the more stability we have post-Brexit the more we will see the recruitment crisis improve.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I enjoy the consultative side of my role the most; I like working with clients and customers, helping them with their short or long term goals. I like the challenge of collaborating with clients and customers and the fact that they come to us for advice and they trust us. I get satisfaction when I build trust with my clients, when they take my advice on board and it provides positive results.

Do you have a message for readers?

I appreciate that the recruitment crisis is going on at the moment and it is very difficult to fill vacancies, but this is going on across the board. The BDJ and the BDA have done a lot of work into finding out why the crisis is happening and get as much data as possible, so if you are looking for work in dentistry I think that BDJ Jobs is definitely the best place to go because of the team's insider knowledge and how hands-on we are with our customers.

We really care about making sure that the industry comes out of this crisis. BDJ Jobs is a platform which only caters to the dental sector, so we are committed to making sure the site is still successful for recruiters and jobseekers alike regardless of the current recruitment climate.