Blogging with The Doctor Job

A physician’s job search is only successful if the physician finds the best job available to him or her. In any other situation, whether the physician finds a less-than-ideal job, no job, or decides to remain with the old job, that job search is a failure.

The only way to make sure that the search is a successful one is to (a) be aware of every job available, and (b) take the one that matches your criteria on as many levels as possible.

With physician recruiters telling you that a market is saturated, and only having one or two jobs in a metropolitan area, this might seem impossible. Savvy physicians know that the best jobs are unadvertised. They’re not available through recruiters and rarely posted on any type of forum. The only way to find them is by applying basic marketing principles to your job search.

1. You are a commodity. Your skills and experience make you into a product. Employers who want this product have to negotiate and offer money and benefits in order to enjoy what you have to offer. Many employers will not be aware that you are even available, even if they have a need for your product.

2. Identify your audience. Your audience is very limited. You’re not going to be a product that a grocery store or a hardware store wants. The only audience for you is comprised of single-specialty groups, multi-specialty groups, solo practitioners, hospitals, labs, researchers, and health care organizations.

3. Reach your audience. Imagine a five-person group that has a healthy patient base and is overworked trying to keep up with it. They are not going to run out and place an ad. They are not going to waste $25,000 on a recruiter. They’re just going to continue working, and working hard. This is an audience that does not know that you exist. They don’t know that you’re looking, and they don’t know that they need you. You have to reach them. You can do this with direct mailing, making phone calls, aggressive networking - anything you can. In the end, by using The Doctor Job, you can make sure that your search reaches your entire audience at once.

4. Assess your interest. Marketing is all about numbers. If you are selling a product, you might send out 100,000 flyers and hope for 2,000 orders. Likewise, your job search should be the same. Send out 1500 resumes. If you get a 3% response, that’s 45 possible opportunities in your area. This can be a big city like Chicago or New York, or an area like the DC Metro Area or South Florida. As long as it matches your geographic parameters, this is viable “lead”. Identify which, out of the 45 leads, are the best to you. You should be able to come up with 15-20 that are perfect.

5. Negotiate your success. When you have employers who have only recently been made aware of who you are and what you offer, and they have a need for you and are highly interested in you, use that to your advantage! Do not accept any job until you have tried to negotiate every term of the contract at least once. Only by making sure that you pick the ideal positions and negotiate the best for you can you make sure that your job search is an actual success, and not a failure that leaves you desiring a new job within a year.