When it comes time for residents and fellows to start looking for their first physician jobs, they’ll find the most success with just a few sources, research shows. The data, culled from thousands of physician hires, reveals that job seekers will want to keep in touch with professional connections for referrals, scour internet job boards and check the websites of the health care organizations where they are interested in working.
“Residents are going online, and they want to look at the landscape of what their options are,” said Carey Goryl, CEO of the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR), a professional organization of internal physician and health care provider recruitment professionals.
Once they complete their training, residents and fellows will be in high demand. In a 2023 survey of final-year residents by recruiter AMN Healthcare Physician Solutions, 56% said they had received 100 or more job solicitations during their training.
But data tells the tale of where physicians are most likely to find their jobs. The 2025 AAPPR Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report: Search Dynamics and Trends includes information from 128 organizations that participated in the annual research study and includes details from more than 15,000 searches, 61% of which were for physicians.
According to the AAPPR data, here were the top 10 most common ways that health care organizations found a physician for an open position:
- Internet job boards—21.7%.
- Referrals—18.7%.
- Health care organization website—12.3%.
- Residency and fellowship programs—6.9%.
- Internal transfer (nonresident or fellow)—6.8%.
- Internal trainees—5.1%.
- Email—4%.
- Medical journal advertisements—3.9%.
- Former employee—2.9%.
- Search firms (contingency)—2.8%, or (retained)—2.4%.
There were a handful of other ways that organizations found the doctors they were looking for, each accounting for less than 2% of placements. These included converting physicians working in casual, locum tenens or per diem arrangements into permanently employed doctors, as well as cold-calling, medical association meetings, direct mail, job fairs and social media.
Meanwhile, virtual job fairs and other virtual events were the least likely to lead to filling the position, resulting in no hires, according to the report.
The AAPPR report said that since 2019, the top three sourcing types for physicians have consistently been referrals, internet job boards and the health care organization’s website, though the order has shuffled around.
“It's not necessarily where the most money is spent by an organization,” Goryl said. “There are certainly many other sourcing tactics being used.”
Nearly 80% of health care organizations used a search firm in 2024, according to the AAPPR report, and of those using a search firm, more than half used both contingent and retained firms.
Physician job seekers should explore the JAMA Career Center®, which presents physician career opportunities, news and information relevant to the full spectrum of medical practice. Search for physician jobs by specialty and location or browse all of the physician jobs by specialty.
Connections and digital culture markers
According to Goryl, research shows that residents, fellows and other physicians prefer to do their initial exploration of an employer before they get in touch.
“Sometimes they want to be anonymous, like: Let me look and I'll let you know if I want you to contact me,” she said. “Because we know that the solicitation, once you get on a list, can be intense.”
For that reason, tools such as job boards, which put control in the physician’s hands, can be fruitful in finding that ideal first role. Health care employer websites are also a common starting point, where a job seeker can find information about the practice setting and organizational priorities. Residents and fellows also often know where they want to live after training and begin their search among health care organizations and medical groups in that area.
“We find that residents and physicians are going to [the website of] the organization in the community that they want to live in,” Goryl said. “The onus really becomes on the resident or fellow to do those reach-outs. If you know where you want to work, going to that website is really important.”
Goryl said that for that reason, the AAPPR counsels recruiters to work on making their organization’s websites physician-friendly so that job seekers are finding the information they need.
“The marketing teams love to make their websites about patient acquisition and making it great for the patient, but some of them can be dismal when it comes to: How do I find what jobs are available and who do I reach out to without making it this long, extended online form?” she said.
If you’re searching for your first physician job after residency, get your cheat sheet from the AMA now.
