Pros
Merritt Hawkins is great in that it pushes you to your limits in what you can achieve, and provides a great environment to learn a lot about physician recruiting. They are considered the 500 pound gorilla in the physician recruiting world and produce very competitive people. You will travel to meet the CEO's, COO's, and HR representatives that will be the decision makers on the doctor you will be searching for which gives great experience in developing relationships and acting as a consultant to the clients you work for. But the turn over can be toxic to the culture.
Cons
Even though the training can be great because you are thrown into a very competitive environment, Merritt Hawkins a very turn an burn culture. I was the only person out of 4 people that made it through the initial 3-4 month training program. They fly you out to Dallas for a week of training before your training program begins and gives you a glimpse of the company and what you can achieve. What you don't realize is the metrics that are about to come and that you will be thrown into a sink or swim situation that sets up the majority of people for failure after these people have dropped everything to come to work for this company. I saw a review on this site that said only 50% of people make it through the first year. I firmly believe that only about 30% of people make it. This is because of the person you get assigned to for training and the accounts you are given to work on. I have seen many many people get fired for not producing simply because the person training them is horrible and the accounts they are given are horrible. Even if you make it through the training program your success depends on not only your hard work, but the accounts your are given which are doled out on pure favoritism. I was with Merritt Hawkins for two years and because of the high turn over their is a constant stream of people coming in which is always changing the dynamic of your team. In the end I was being fed a continuous steam of bad accounts that prevented me from meeting my metrics. I placed 15 physicians within the last 12 months of my employment and met my metric to get promoted and then had the promotion taken away 4 months later because of a doctor backing out of her contract due to a mistake by the hospital. These people do not care about their employees and will come up with ways to force you out (giving you bad accounts preventing you from making your metrics) and not give it a second thought. This culture is toxic watching so many people get fired and forced out. Their is black cloud of tension hanging over the office because everyone is wondering if they are the next person to get booted. If you want to work in physician recruiting work at a place that values their employees and does everything they can to help you succeed when you work hard then don't work for Merritt Hawkins.
