Sure, you can interview for new physicians. But how to tell if they’re just a quack or not before signing them on?
The Ailment
Maybe you’re lucky and find an excellent physician just loitering amongst your court flunkies. Otherwise, once a year you can order the minor decision ‘Search for Physician’ (costs you nothing). Then within two weeks you get presented with 2 or 3 candidates. But are they any better than what you’ve already got?
While you can right-click and examine their learning stats and doctoring traits, you can only really guess at their aptitude once they’re in the job. And course, they always ask an outrageous sign-on fee.
The Prescription
I’ve found it’s better to always to flunk them all at interview, but invite one or more to court anyway (done via right-clicking their portrait in the interview screen).
Advantages:
- That way I can see exactly how good they are before re-assigning the position
(you can compare candidates from your court via the change Physician order panel) - If they’re no better than my current Doc, then I haven’t swapped him out-and-back needlessly and got him all cranky about it
- I don’t need to pay any ruinous sign-on fee
- They might be good at court in some altogether different position. I can check their stats during interview for suitability on Council and maybe recruit them for that instead
- In any case, a few extra quacks are still handy to have at Court in reserve
(Caveat: If you’re just starting out a game then it might be less easy to invite them to court).