Here is one of my favorite recruiter emails. After telling a recruiter in person - on the phone - and repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that I was looking for a position in Miami, Florida and only and exclusively in Miami proper, yes, in the city of Miami, not too far from downtown, not in Fort Lauderdale, not in Naples, not in Orlando, not anywhere in central Florida, no, no, no, really only in Miami...so, after telling a recruiter all this I received the following email on the very next day:
"Dear Doctor (note the nice personal touch), I hope this finds you well. You are receiving this because you are on the www.obgynxxxxx.com mailing list for new and exciting Ob/Gyn jobs! Although we represent OVER 400 Ob/Gyn jobs NATIONWIDE!!! (So what? But you have none where I want it! - and what are all those 400 jobs going to do for me???) I wanted to let you know about an exciting new position in Northern Los Angeles County!! (Just what I was looking for, Miami is right next to LA, talk about "personalizing a search for you") Here are the details: Easy access to Los Angeles (I just hope the devil will tell these guys after they die "Hey, you have easy access to heaven! Hah!)~ OBGYN physician needed to join a solo practitioner. The salary is $180,000 and will include malpractice insurance, health insurance, and dental coverage. Call coverage will increase to 1:3 with the addition of the new OBGYN. Partnership is available. Option to be Independent Contractor if physician so desires. This is a great community for a practice (and so is every single place a recruiter will ever tell you about, did you notice that yet?). Our ("our"? Does he live there? - of course not) wide array of art galleries showcase solo and membership exhibits of photography, paintings and other works of art with weekly readings open to the public. We also are the home of an enormous poppy reserve established to protect California’s native wildflowers. (So, the location is remote enough to house the last surviving poppy flowers....need I say more?) The California poppy, California’s state flower, can be seen by the hundreds blanketing the lush green fields and is a truly breathtaking sight. A wide variety of activities are available for those people who enjoy sports and other outdoor recreational opportunities (and if you do not enjoy sports and outdoors activities, but enjoy listening to concerts, theater etc? Another hint that there is nothing, but nothing cultural going on in that town!). Try your luck at catching the big one on our placid lake, which is stocked every two weeks (Which is stocked every two weeks? Did I read that right? The lake does not even support fish – is it toxic or just too small?), or go for a round of golf at one of the area golf courses. We are also teeming with places for fine dinning and shopping for everything from designer clothes to fine antiques. (All this blabla is usually copied and pasted without any further thought from local tourism brochures. Yet, it may help you pinpoint the town by entering the info in Google. In this case it yields the town of Lancaster, Los Angeles County, a mere 75 miles or 1 hour and 30 minutes from Rodeo Drive or from LAX. A prime example that teaches you what recruiters call a “short drive to LA”). This position will fill QUICKLY, so do not hesitate to fax or email your CV immediately (Old sales trick to push you forward by creating fear of competition and loss, never, ever believe something like that!). As I mentioned we do represent over 400 Ob/Gyn jobs Nationwide, so if there are other areas of interest please do not hesitate to contact me. I can be reached 7 Days a week at 800-xxx-xxxx until 10 PM EST. I look forward to hearing from you. Bxxxxxm, Txxxxxxp, Consultant (they never represent themselves as”salesmen”, but use cute euphemistic terms such as "Manager", "senior vice president", "consultant", "representative", "client advocate" etc).
What an instructive email. So many lessons about what is wrong with recruiters in one single email...
Forget recruiters, click on this link to find more jobs than any recruiter will ever find!
Remember, the function of physician recruiters is to fill the less desirable jobs.
Behind every recruiter ad is an employer that has given up trying to fill a position using the standard means and now is ready to pay 20 K to have it filled.
Don't fall for recruiters! And, send me similar email or write me your "recruiter story".
Matthias Muenzer, MD .....Search the right way!
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Reading material on "Physician Job Search"
I thought I should list additional resources for searching for physician jobs that I have found over time. The fact that this list is so short shows that there is really not much good information on this topic that is specifically tailored to physicans. This has to change!
Sadly, when you google "physician jobs" you are overrun by a endless barrage of recruiter websites, which are pretty much useless - unless you want a job in Desert Gulch, AZ or Podunk, NY. These sites all rechant the recruiter marketing pitch, which for the job searching physician is distracting at best and truly dangerous at its worst. Moreover, all these websites drown out the scarce useful information available on the Net.
My all time favorite and truly innovative website with enlightening information is TheDoctorJob.com. I cannot say enough good things about these people, except that we all should support them and spread the word about them to all residents, residency program directors and practicing physicians.
I have the4 do-it-yourself version of what they do here in my blog. Click here for the info.
The job websites, the job boards that I recommend to look for postings are:
NTNjobs.com
Practicelink.com
http://www.healthecareers.com/ - this is the most professional appearing large recruitment website with just enough direct-by-employer ads to be useful.
The "Medical Economics" Journal has a series of 5 or 6 articles on the physician job search. Find it by going to the "Medical Economics" website and then search for "job search". They still suffer from the notion that recruiters play a role in a successful job search and they have not caught up to the direct mail job search method as it is beautifully done by thedoctorjob.com.
http://www.emra.org/Index.cfm?FuseAction=Page&PageID=1002108 - a thoughtful article you should read. Even though it was written by an emergency physician, many of the points and caveats apply to all araes of medicine.
Some of the best articles for new physicians can be found here: http://www.newphysician.com/library.cfm. Please be aware that this is the website of Merritt and Hawkins, a retained search firm, so you will encounter a favorable bias towards using recruiters in your job search - which we know is nonsense. That aside it is very good.
www.pohly.com. Published by a former-executive-turned-recruiter Pam Pohly, this site contains numerous valuable lists of links and resources. You will find great links to long lists of professional associations, hospital directories, very good tips about writing a cover letter and CV, how to prepare for interviews, how to conduct yourself in an interview. It is very noteworthy that such good information does not come from a long time recruiter, but from a former consultant that later went into recruiting. Just skip the whole talk about recruiters being helpful in your job search.
www.Collegegrad.com While not written for physicians, the chapters on resume writing are excellent and the interview tips are not bad either. This site offers a lot of very good content - for free.
http://www.studentdoc.com/ Info by medical students and residents concerning job search
At http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20060700/37find.html you will find an article by consultant Jack Valancy, who occasionally publishes on the website of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He emphasizes finding your perfect career and job and to help you with this he has published a questionnaire called "Finding the perfect job". It helps you find out what matters most for you and what feelings and goals should be the basis of your career planning.
www.princetonreview.com/cte/articles/hired/searchsuccess.asp This article in the Princeton Review emphasizes: know yourself, know your strenghts, and then, only then decide what you want to do and apply
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) in general has good and balanced info, but does not go into much detail, it is a bit superficial.
http://www.quintcareers.com/ this is the company that writes good cover letters and good CVs, trustworthy, fast, professional. I recommend them (no commission or any other benefits for me)
http://practice.org/resources/resources.html. This website offers a bit more advice and less distracting recruiter blabla, so it is worth looking at.
There are three books I highly recommend:
a. What color is your parachute? The classic book, the bestseller on job search and career.
b. 101 Answers to the toughest interview questions. An excellent book to prepare for questions you most likely will be asked during interviews. The better prepared you are the better you look.
c. The idiot's guide to cover letters.
Less interesting links, go there only if you have a lot of time:
http://www.cejkasearch.com/resources/careerdevelopment/default.htm#jobsearchstrategies this link will take you to some good and interesting advice on job searching by Cejka search. It is a valubale source of information about writing cover letters, CVs and interviewing. Otherwise they are just trying to lure you onto recruiter websites and into recruiter offered jobs. They discourage you from looking in the big cities and try to tell you that the country side is much better - no surprises here
The website of the American College of Physicians ACP has only moderately good information, visit http://www.acponline.org/counseling/
New England Journal of Medicine website. They have a few tips concerning job search, but they still feed the misconception that recruiters have more than a marginal function in the physician job search. Overall well meaning website, but doesnot have really good information. Misses the bite
http://caps.uchicago.edu/resources/materials/books/jss.html#jss this list of the University of Chicago has numerous resources and books, but just the titles. you will have to do the rest yourself
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/findajob/a/onlinejobs.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/findajob/a/howtofindajob.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/jobsearchbook.htm
these three links are interesting pages on about.com that has many ways of searching for a job and gives good tips
Job Star Central.....http://jobstar.org/index.php a good list of info from the public libraries in CA
http://www.your-cv-coach.com/resume-writing.html general purpose tips for writing a CV and cover letter, not specifically greared towards physicians. Moderately useful.
End of list
I wish you a lot of success in your job search! Please let me know if you find a great and helpful website! Post a comment on my blog please.
Your Matthias Muenzer, MD, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medford, MA 02155
Sadly, when you google "physician jobs" you are overrun by a endless barrage of recruiter websites, which are pretty much useless - unless you want a job in Desert Gulch, AZ or Podunk, NY. These sites all rechant the recruiter marketing pitch, which for the job searching physician is distracting at best and truly dangerous at its worst. Moreover, all these websites drown out the scarce useful information available on the Net.
My all time favorite and truly innovative website with enlightening information is TheDoctorJob.com. I cannot say enough good things about these people, except that we all should support them and spread the word about them to all residents, residency program directors and practicing physicians.
I have the4 do-it-yourself version of what they do here in my blog. Click here for the info.
The job websites, the job boards that I recommend to look for postings are:
NTNjobs.com
Practicelink.com
http://www.healthecareers.com/ - this is the most professional appearing large recruitment website with just enough direct-by-employer ads to be useful.
The "Medical Economics" Journal has a series of 5 or 6 articles on the physician job search. Find it by going to the "Medical Economics" website and then search for "job search". They still suffer from the notion that recruiters play a role in a successful job search and they have not caught up to the direct mail job search method as it is beautifully done by thedoctorjob.com.
http://www.emra.org/Index.cfm?FuseAction=Page&PageID=1002108 - a thoughtful article you should read. Even though it was written by an emergency physician, many of the points and caveats apply to all araes of medicine.
Some of the best articles for new physicians can be found here: http://www.newphysician.com/library.cfm. Please be aware that this is the website of Merritt and Hawkins, a retained search firm, so you will encounter a favorable bias towards using recruiters in your job search - which we know is nonsense. That aside it is very good.
www.pohly.com. Published by a former-executive-turned-recruiter Pam Pohly, this site contains numerous valuable lists of links and resources. You will find great links to long lists of professional associations, hospital directories, very good tips about writing a cover letter and CV, how to prepare for interviews, how to conduct yourself in an interview. It is very noteworthy that such good information does not come from a long time recruiter, but from a former consultant that later went into recruiting. Just skip the whole talk about recruiters being helpful in your job search.
www.Collegegrad.com While not written for physicians, the chapters on resume writing are excellent and the interview tips are not bad either. This site offers a lot of very good content - for free.
http://www.studentdoc.com/ Info by medical students and residents concerning job search
At http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20060700/37find.html you will find an article by consultant Jack Valancy, who occasionally publishes on the website of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He emphasizes finding your perfect career and job and to help you with this he has published a questionnaire called "Finding the perfect job". It helps you find out what matters most for you and what feelings and goals should be the basis of your career planning.
www.princetonreview.com/cte/articles/hired/searchsuccess.asp This article in the Princeton Review emphasizes: know yourself, know your strenghts, and then, only then decide what you want to do and apply
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) in general has good and balanced info, but does not go into much detail, it is a bit superficial.
http://www.quintcareers.com/ this is the company that writes good cover letters and good CVs, trustworthy, fast, professional. I recommend them (no commission or any other benefits for me)
http://practice.org/resources/resources.html. This website offers a bit more advice and less distracting recruiter blabla, so it is worth looking at.
There are three books I highly recommend:
a. What color is your parachute? The classic book, the bestseller on job search and career.
b. 101 Answers to the toughest interview questions. An excellent book to prepare for questions you most likely will be asked during interviews. The better prepared you are the better you look.
c. The idiot's guide to cover letters.
Less interesting links, go there only if you have a lot of time:
http://www.cejkasearch.com/resources/careerdevelopment/default.htm#jobsearchstrategies this link will take you to some good and interesting advice on job searching by Cejka search. It is a valubale source of information about writing cover letters, CVs and interviewing. Otherwise they are just trying to lure you onto recruiter websites and into recruiter offered jobs. They discourage you from looking in the big cities and try to tell you that the country side is much better - no surprises here
The website of the American College of Physicians ACP has only moderately good information, visit http://www.acponline.org/counseling/
New England Journal of Medicine website. They have a few tips concerning job search, but they still feed the misconception that recruiters have more than a marginal function in the physician job search. Overall well meaning website, but doesnot have really good information. Misses the bite
http://caps.uchicago.edu/resources/materials/books/jss.html#jss this list of the University of Chicago has numerous resources and books, but just the titles. you will have to do the rest yourself
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/findajob/a/onlinejobs.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/findajob/a/howtofindajob.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/jobsearchbook.htm
these three links are interesting pages on about.com that has many ways of searching for a job and gives good tips
Job Star Central.....http://jobstar.org/index.php a good list of info from the public libraries in CA
http://www.your-cv-coach.com/resume-writing.html general purpose tips for writing a CV and cover letter, not specifically greared towards physicians. Moderately useful.
End of list
I wish you a lot of success in your job search! Please let me know if you find a great and helpful website! Post a comment on my blog please.
Your Matthias Muenzer, MD, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medford, MA 02155
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