title: Criteria to find qualified candidates--professional personnel recruitment methods adapted to neurosurgery.
abstract: A neurosurgeon has not received any special training in personnel recruitment at the time he becomes chief of a department. Consequently, a suboptimal personnel policy is most probable. Due to the rapid changes in social behaviour and style of leadership in postwar Europe, he might be ill advised to follow only the example of his successful predecessors, apart from the fact, that this would only be possible if the personalities (of the former and new chief) were similar. To save time and energy for optimal patient care, personnel recruitment can be improved and made more reproducible and reliable by adopting modern, professional non-medical principles. A typical stepwise process of personnel recruitment includes an analysis of the position and function, the definition of demands and offers, the choice of advertising and searching methods, the analysis of the application documents, the interview with the candidate including its re-evaluation and the ongoing evaluation process during the training. This election process is not only conducted by the chief of a department, but also by senior staff-members and even young, competing assistants. It aims to find the candidate who fits best in the requirements, who will be trained and educated with the least effort and who has the best potential to succeed in the long run. The only factors seemingly predicting a good development of a candidate are personality, energy (potential, motivation) and intelligence. Therefore, the search should especially aim to discover these-admittedly difficult to detect-qualities.
authors.affiliation: Neurosurgical Department, University of Technology, Aachen Federal Republic of Germany.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gilsbach
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pillong
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D002321:Career Choice; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D006801:Humans; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D009493:Neurosurgery / Q000193:education*; D010551:Personality; D010560:Personnel Selection; D008486:Physician Executives