Karen Collier, Assistant Director
of Staffing for Bexar County
Medical Society’s Staffing
Services, has always worked hard and
felt a joyful, energetic urge to reach
out to others.
“I’m a people person, so I have
always known that I wanted to work
with people every day,” she says. “I
really enjoy what I do. The people here
are great. It can be very stressful and
demanding, but it’s also very rewarding.
I know that what I do is important,
and that I’m making a difference
in people’s lives on a daily basis.”
Ms. Collier has been making this
difference in the lives of BCMS members
and potential medical employees
going through BCMS Staffing Services
since May 2007. Her background in
Human Resources and employee
recruiting, however, began long
before then.
She worked for four years in
Human Resources at BudCo of San
Antonio. Then her entrepreneurial
spirit drove her to open a retail
store. Along with her husband, she
grew the business to two locations
in two different malls. For five years,
she handled all aspects of the business,
including the recruiting, the
interviewing, the hiring, and the
scheduling for both locations.
If someone could not come in for work, Ms. Collier
had to find a replacement fast, often filling in the
opening herself.
“I was working seven days a week, 72 plus hours a
week,” she says. “Then I decided I wanted to return to a
normal business schedule.”
She and her husband sold the stores, and she went to
see a temporary employment agency. Ms. Collier was hired
at that agency as a recruiter to focus on one major investment
firm. She worked in the staffing industry for several
more years before being hired at BCMS last May.
One of the new projects at BCMS Staffing Services
that Ms. Collier and Director of Staffing JoAnne Santa
Cruz are overseeing is the upgrading of the electronic
database system.
“We have an amazing database,” Ms. Collier says. “It
represents many years of records of medical candidates
ranging in skills from medical assistants to physician assistants,
but it is time to take it to the next level.”
The new electronic system will allow BCMS Staffing
Services to contact large amounts of potential employees
all at once, Ms. Collier says. For example, if there is an
immediate need for a registered nurse, the new system
will allow Staffing Services to run a query and pull up candidates
who match the client’s needs. It also will allow
Staffing Services to determine ahead of time which candidates
are available, so time will not be wasted calling candidates
who would not be available or otherwise unable
to fill the position.
Potential candidates will then receive electronically generated
phone calls, to which they can respond to the
BCMS Staffing Services office. The new database system
also will make it more efficient for Staffing Services to
update information on potential candidates.
“Our goal is to have the most accurate information
and the most complete database in town,” Ms. Collier
says. “We make a lot of phone calls. It is so important
to have an efficient tool to enable us to provide better
customer service.”
When Ms. Collier steps away from her desk, she turns
to her family and pets. Eleven years ago she married
her high school sweetheart, and they have a 10-year-old
son. Her son is involved in several sports, and her
husband coaches.
The family also travels together as often as possible.
One of their favorite activities is to ride four-wheelers
through the mountains in Colorado. In 2004, the family
traveled to the Bahamas, and last April, Karen and her
husband took a cruise to Mexico.
“I love long walks on the beach,” she says. “I just like to
relax and get away.”
But when Ms. Collier is in the office, she is ready to
assist clients and medical employment candidates however
she can. For information about any aspect of BCMS
Staffing Services, from recruiting qualified personnel with
background checks to arranging contract placement, temp-to-hire, or direct hire, phone BCMS Staffing Services at
210-301-4362 or visit www.medjobs.bcms.org.
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