Years ago I asked my chief resident how I could find a job. He answered: "Just ask all the attendings and if that doesn't work, call a scalper", and nowadays he would have added, "go on the internet".
Well, I googled the terms "Physician jobs" and "ObGyn jobs". The results were a disaster: Recruiter website after recruiter website, then the websites that post recruiter ads, then the recruiting companies, then the occult and hidden recruiter ads disguised as "advice" that sneak up on you on student and fellowship websites, and on general health websites, and so on. In short, recruiters dominate the internet. This is severly misleading and a gross distortion of reality.
Recruiters only seem to be important when you look on the internet. In reality, they aren't. Accoring to my personal impression recruiters handle between 10-15% of jobs. A telephone survey of 1000 practices, unplublished, done by "Thedoctorjob.com" was consistent with this. A recruitment company researched the issue and arrived at an estimate of 33% of jobs, something that I believe it to be too optimistic.
So how do we find jobs? Print and direect internet advertising by employers may be responsible for filling 20-40% of jobs - in my estimate.
The remaining roughly 50% of jobs are filled by word of mouth, by direct personal contacts.
This has serious implications on how a physician should look for a job.
Networking should be effort number one, because most of the jobs are filled through personal contacts. This includes talking to anybody who is willing to listen and presenting them your "elevator pitch". The elevator pitch is a short presentation that includes who you are, what you are looking for, what makes you special and what makes you different than the rest. Handing out a business card with your contact info and maybe the elevator pitch is a good idea.
Networking includes contacting hospitals in the area where you want to work, I have discussed this in previous posts.
Networking includes sending a letter to every single physician in the area where you want to work and introducing yourself with a letter that essentially says the same as the elevator pitch. You may or may not include your CV in this letter. You will find the addresses and all other contact information of any physician anywhere at InfoUSA.com, where you can buy them for 50$ each. I have described this elsewhere in this blog.
Mailing a letter to each physician in your target area is especially useful, since you find all the physicians that have not advertised yet, that are just thinking about maybe hiring someone. This is great, since it gets you in before the competition. You automatically find all the physicians that have already advertised. They will simply think you are responding to their ad, even if you have never seen the ad. You will also reach all the physicians that have contacted recruiters, and you will be especially welcome, since your application does not have a 20K price tag attached (the fee the recruiter charges for brokering a candidate).
So, with one single activity, sending a letter to every physician in your target area, you reach absolutely everyone.
You tap the "hidden job market" as well as all other "markets". You cannot do better than that.
You can do this yourself, or you can have a company such as "thedoctorjob.com" do it for a fee.
Compared to networking and direct mail, all other methods of searching for a physician job pale. By looking only at print ads and internet ads you are limiting yourself at 30-40% of the job market, and by searching through recruiters, you limit yourself to about 15% of the job market.
Why is the Internet and why are the print media dominated by recruiters? Because they pay. Follow the money! Recruiters pay websites to post their ads and the websites do not mind giving them a little "editorial space" - and, voila, you have a nice editorial touting the "advantages" of recruiters. Print media need advertising, and they need recruiter ads. They survive because of these ads. And they do not mind publishing a few nice articles presenting the "advantages of working with a recruiter".
And so you have a completely slanted view of the "physician job search" on the net.
It does not help the balance of published material that physicians have no interest whatsoever in writing about the almost embarassing topic of "job search". They just get it done and go to work. Write about it? Please...I have better things to do with my time!
And that is the reason why every new generation of graduating residents and fellows do not use the best tools to find a physician job. They simply do not know. And they fall for one of the thousands of slanted and partial websites prepared by recruiters. And the older, exeprienced physicians do not bother telling them how to find a job. We need to raise awareness of what physicians can do to find the jobs they want.
A physician job seach is a straightforward thing: contact all potential employers by mail. And Network. Done.
If you are interested in detailed info about techniques, in tips, in experiences, in books about physician job search, in new ways of using email alerts and websearch techniques, if you want to find more helpful weblinks, good websites, help in writing cover letters, CVs and more, please browse through my blog.
You will find it all. And it will be from a physician - for physicians. No financial interest, no pushing recruiters nor recruiter agendas, just good, straightforward, helpful info. How it should be.
Showing posts with label physician job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label physician job. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Physician Recruiters Love Direct Mail, But Will Never Recommend It To You
Recruiters are hired by an employer and they are the agents of that employer. The recruiter is NOT working for you, the searching candidate, simply because you are not paying for the recruiter. When you contact a recruiter, you are dealing with someone who is looking to fill a position in order to get paid, not to help YOU FIND a position. You are NOT dealing with someone whose job it is to help YOU, the candidate. A recruiter is NOT YOUR AGENT. Recruiters are called recruiters because they recruit. The recruiter is pursuing YOU, he is a "headhunter or "doctor-hunter" or "doc-hunter". Rumor has it that in a far far away and remote corner of the web there even a recruiter website called "dochunterdiary.com".
Do not expect a recruiter to behave or function as a "candidate search agent", "search advisor", a "career advisor", a "career consultant". They do NOT get paid for any of that, so why should they do it?
Nevertheless, sometimes recruiters work in the job seekers interest, when it happens to coincide with their goal of filling a position. Such a match or coincidence is possible. Recruiters will support you, the job seeker, as long as it is in their main interest. Their main interest is closing the deal.
Let's assume for a moment that a recruiter is really, truly on your side, on the job seekers side. In that case, your recruiter would tell you how to find a job independent of his listed jobs, he would tell you, teach you, instruct you how to network, in that case the recruiter would point you to the most informative and most helpful websites for job seekers, the best job boards with the most job postings, the journals with the best ads. A recruiter that was truly on your side, on the job seekers side would advise you to call hospitals and their physician liaison departments (yes, some actually do that!), and finally he certainly would advise you to mail a letter to every physician in your specialty in the area where you want to work (NO recruiter will do that).
A recruiter that is on your side would give you pretty much the advice I am giving in my blog. Right? Take a close look at it. I have summarized most of my tips and tricks on the blog "A Physician on Job Search". My blog is not a "logging of current events", no, it is a publication of experience and recommendations. Please look at them and compare that with your typical recruiter information.
Reality check:
Now, compare what information recruiters offer you with what I am offering on my blog. Recruiters offer you tremendously helpful tips such as "how to answer a recruiter call", "how to get along with your recruiter", "what information to have ready when a recruiter calls" "why the countryside is worth taking a look at", "Disadvantages of city jobs" (we know where that comes from) and they of course help you with truly grave decisions such as "should I contact one or more than one recruiter during my job search?". You get the picture!
Oh, sorry, yes, they may give you a few hints about how to improve your CV and how to behave during the interview, after all, that makes you more marketable....
Too many graduating residents are not aware of these rules. Too many graduating physicians still believe that using recruiters is a mainstream way to find a job. Too many graduating physicians are not aware that they do not need recruiters at all. It is the employers who needs recruiters, not the job seekers. Employers need to fill positions.
Recruiters need physicians, "candidates". On their blogs they muse about the ideal candidate - someone who is happily employed and doing a great job, and not even thinking about switching jobs. They have names for good candidates, they call them "MPC" - most placeable candidates. They think about the tip of the iceberg - the candidates that are actively seeking and think there must be a large number of candidates below the surface, just like the iceberg has most of its mass below the surface. Recruiters look for ways to find those candidates, to tap that untapped mass of candidates...If they just could find a great approach to all those hidden candidates!
This is of absolutely no concern whatsoever to a job seeker. Job Seekers need jobs. They do not care about the hidden iceberg of silent candidates. They are the candidates.
Job seekers assume correctly that advertised jobs, and especially jobs coming through recruiters, are only the tip of the iceberg. The larger number of jobs is hidden under the surface, often never advertised. Jobs constantly change hands in big cities and only the insiders know about it. This is called the "churn of the job market", the hidden constant movement. Physicians change jobs all the time, from one hospital to the next, sometimes within one community, sometimes they switch to the neighboring hospital or health care system. These jobs are not posted, they are talked about over coffee, over lunch, in the locker room, on local CMEs, on informal department meetings, on the golf course and so on.
Recruiters hardly ever have access to the hidden job market - and here I am just trying not to be too radical by saying "no access at all". The churn of the job market is like the "gray" or the "black market" - a semi-underground affair.
Yet, you the job seeker can easily break into that hidden job market! Not just by networking, but even more easily by direct mail. Job seekers can find easy access to this hidden job market by sending their cover letter and CV to every physician in their area of interest. I have frequently described how in the smallest detail. Please go to my blog "A Physician on Job Search" and check the posts "Active Job Search" among others. You can also have others do the leg work for you by going to "TheDoctorJob.com". This company will optimize your cover letter and CV, merge the cover letter with a list of doctors in your area of interest, send you all the letters. You sign them, put them in envelopes and stick a stamp on the envelopes.
It works.
And because this method is a threat to recruiters, they will never recommend it. It makes you, the job seekers completely independent, self-sufficient. You do not need anybody's help and yet, you can reach every single doctor in your area of interest.
Recruiters are extremely familiar with direct mail, they use it. They appreciate it, they love it. The NAPR routinely send out massive amounts of mail to all physicians looking for positions and for candidates. Yet, you, the lowly job seeker will never hear about this from any recruiter.
Direct mail is the most basic thing. I want a job. I send a cover letter and CV to a doctor who might have a job. Repeat a thousand times. It is so simple.
Direct mail is the job seekers ticket into the hidden job market! You have to know about it if you want to find the best possible job for you!
Do not expect a recruiter to behave or function as a "candidate search agent", "search advisor", a "career advisor", a "career consultant". They do NOT get paid for any of that, so why should they do it?
Nevertheless, sometimes recruiters work in the job seekers interest, when it happens to coincide with their goal of filling a position. Such a match or coincidence is possible. Recruiters will support you, the job seeker, as long as it is in their main interest. Their main interest is closing the deal.
Let's assume for a moment that a recruiter is really, truly on your side, on the job seekers side. In that case, your recruiter would tell you how to find a job independent of his listed jobs, he would tell you, teach you, instruct you how to network, in that case the recruiter would point you to the most informative and most helpful websites for job seekers, the best job boards with the most job postings, the journals with the best ads. A recruiter that was truly on your side, on the job seekers side would advise you to call hospitals and their physician liaison departments (yes, some actually do that!), and finally he certainly would advise you to mail a letter to every physician in your specialty in the area where you want to work (NO recruiter will do that).
A recruiter that is on your side would give you pretty much the advice I am giving in my blog. Right? Take a close look at it. I have summarized most of my tips and tricks on the blog "A Physician on Job Search". My blog is not a "logging of current events", no, it is a publication of experience and recommendations. Please look at them and compare that with your typical recruiter information.
Reality check:
Now, compare what information recruiters offer you with what I am offering on my blog. Recruiters offer you tremendously helpful tips such as "how to answer a recruiter call", "how to get along with your recruiter", "what information to have ready when a recruiter calls" "why the countryside is worth taking a look at", "Disadvantages of city jobs" (we know where that comes from) and they of course help you with truly grave decisions such as "should I contact one or more than one recruiter during my job search?". You get the picture!
Oh, sorry, yes, they may give you a few hints about how to improve your CV and how to behave during the interview, after all, that makes you more marketable....
Too many graduating residents are not aware of these rules. Too many graduating physicians still believe that using recruiters is a mainstream way to find a job. Too many graduating physicians are not aware that they do not need recruiters at all. It is the employers who needs recruiters, not the job seekers. Employers need to fill positions.
Recruiters need physicians, "candidates". On their blogs they muse about the ideal candidate - someone who is happily employed and doing a great job, and not even thinking about switching jobs. They have names for good candidates, they call them "MPC" - most placeable candidates. They think about the tip of the iceberg - the candidates that are actively seeking and think there must be a large number of candidates below the surface, just like the iceberg has most of its mass below the surface. Recruiters look for ways to find those candidates, to tap that untapped mass of candidates...If they just could find a great approach to all those hidden candidates!
This is of absolutely no concern whatsoever to a job seeker. Job Seekers need jobs. They do not care about the hidden iceberg of silent candidates. They are the candidates.
Job seekers assume correctly that advertised jobs, and especially jobs coming through recruiters, are only the tip of the iceberg. The larger number of jobs is hidden under the surface, often never advertised. Jobs constantly change hands in big cities and only the insiders know about it. This is called the "churn of the job market", the hidden constant movement. Physicians change jobs all the time, from one hospital to the next, sometimes within one community, sometimes they switch to the neighboring hospital or health care system. These jobs are not posted, they are talked about over coffee, over lunch, in the locker room, on local CMEs, on informal department meetings, on the golf course and so on.
Recruiters hardly ever have access to the hidden job market - and here I am just trying not to be too radical by saying "no access at all". The churn of the job market is like the "gray" or the "black market" - a semi-underground affair.
Yet, you the job seeker can easily break into that hidden job market! Not just by networking, but even more easily by direct mail. Job seekers can find easy access to this hidden job market by sending their cover letter and CV to every physician in their area of interest. I have frequently described how in the smallest detail. Please go to my blog "A Physician on Job Search" and check the posts "Active Job Search" among others. You can also have others do the leg work for you by going to "TheDoctorJob.com". This company will optimize your cover letter and CV, merge the cover letter with a list of doctors in your area of interest, send you all the letters. You sign them, put them in envelopes and stick a stamp on the envelopes.
It works.
And because this method is a threat to recruiters, they will never recommend it. It makes you, the job seekers completely independent, self-sufficient. You do not need anybody's help and yet, you can reach every single doctor in your area of interest.
Recruiters are extremely familiar with direct mail, they use it. They appreciate it, they love it. The NAPR routinely send out massive amounts of mail to all physicians looking for positions and for candidates. Yet, you, the lowly job seeker will never hear about this from any recruiter.
Direct mail is the most basic thing. I want a job. I send a cover letter and CV to a doctor who might have a job. Repeat a thousand times. It is so simple.
Direct mail is the job seekers ticket into the hidden job market! You have to know about it if you want to find the best possible job for you!
Monday, July 30, 2007
14 Must Know Facts about Physician Recruiters
Physicians are not well informed about job search methods and about recruiters, about how they really work and about their limitations. Residents in particular lack awareness of the disadvantages of working with recruiters. Graduating residents are just stepping out of an educational, basically helpful environment. They are naive in business matters and rarely understand the economical pressures that shape recruiter behavior.
The fact sheet below was developed after years of personal experience with physician recruiters, based on being a candidate looking for a new job as well as an employer looking to hire a new associate for my practice. I am writing specifically about contingency recruiters, and that these facts and rules do not refer to retained recruiters, in-house recruiters or locum tenens recruiters.
Recruiters will deny all of these facts or at least try to gloss them over. Many actually will claim to be proud of avoiding one of the drawbacks below, which is ...just marketing. I leave it up to you whom to believe: a physician without any financial interest that reports out of personal experience and research, or recruiters who defend the living they make based on marketing slogans.
Also consider that there are always the "exceptions that confirm the rule". There are those recruiters that market less "aggressively", that really care about you, that do visit the practices they represent, that are straightforward about what they are able to accomplish and what they cannot, but that does not change the big picture I am describing.
As much as recruiters may try, as nice or good hearted or ethical or hard working or well-meaning they might be, some facts will never change:
a. recruiters are hired and paid by the employer
b. they charge a $ 20,000 fee for their services and
c. they only get paid after closing the deal.
These facts lead to all the consequences and problems described here. I am not trying to indict recruiters, I am describing the basic framework they practice in.
1. Physician Recruiters are hired and paid by employers to fill a vacancy. They are not hired nor paid by the candidate. This is much more important than candidates think! Their loyalty therefore is to the paying party, the employer, not to the searching candidate. They do not get paid to consider the desires, careers or preferences of the candidates. The candidate is useful as far as he or she fills the job the recruiter gets paid to fill. A recruiter for example will never "negotiate a salary" for you, as some claim. You really think they will go against the employer who pays them and create higher costs for them? When it comes down to it, recruiters are not on the side of the job seekers. They are on their own side: closing the deal and getting paid.
2. Recruiters charge $ 20,000 to fill a position. This is the biggest handicap for recruiters, something that no recruiter can overcome. This creates a barrier to hire them. This places recruiters at a severe disadvantage compared to you, the physician, when you are looking for a job and applying for a position. You come without the price tag and instantly are more attractive.
Obviously you could argue about the significance of those 20K. Maybe the hiring hospital is flush in money and can afford to spend it, maybe they consider physicians valuable enough to spend that kind of money on recruitment, maybe the loss of revenue with an open position is even more expensive, but 20,000 are still 20,000. Maybe the yearly collections of the physician (neurosurgeon) dwarfs those 20K, but to me as an ObGyn it means about 8 complete "9 months of prenatal care plus delivery" and to a family physicians it means seeing a whole lot of patients!
3. 80-90 percent of private practices refuse to work with physician recruiters, since they are very expensive. The usefulness of recruiters in medicine is reduced dramatically by the fact that they cannot reach that 80-90% of the job market - which is most of the private physician job market and pretty much the whole job market in desirable areas.
Keep in mind that 50-60% of physician jobs are filled through networking, 10-30% through advertising by employers on Job Boards and 15-25% by recruiters. What kind of help can you expect from someone who can only reach 20% of possible jobs?
What do recruiters do in response to this? They tell you that those areas are "oversaturated" and try to lure you to under served areas, where recruiters do get jobs.
4. What does a day in the life of a recruiter look like? Recruiters are salespeople and spend their days on the phone. Recruiters spend part of their day cold-calling practices, groups and hospitals to see if they are interested in their services. Then they pay large fees to NTNJobs, eHealthCareers and numerous other Internet boards to post job descriptions. Then they spend a few hours each day cold calling physicians, sending fliers, postcards or e-mails to program directors, specific departments and numerous physicians fishing for applicants.
Candidates will usually respond to recruiters by e-mail, submit their CVs and recruiters then forward these CVs with names blacked out to the potential employers.
Recruiters love to give you the impression that they have resources or skills that you don't possess, yet, once you see what they actually do, you realize that you can do it perfectly well on your own. No, they don't have secret sources in high positions; they just want you to think that. Unlike what they sometimes claim, most recruiters do not visit practices and they do not get face to face with physicians. Usually they work nationally and seeing offices and physicians means travel and would be very time consuming and expensive.
5. Most recruiters subscribe to a background database, usually the NAPR "Job Bank". Paying subscribers store short profiles of jobs and candidates in these confidential, recruiter-only databases. Since thousands contribute to these databases recruitment becomes more efficient due to sharing of resources and combining efforts. "Maybe my candidate fits your job". Fees are usually split between the recruiter who has the candidate and the one who has the job. This is the same model that Realtors use. When a recruiter says "we personalize a search for you", (I love that slick line) he means that he enters your name in the recruiter background database and checks if there is a matching job for you. The only problem is: the whole database is filled with left-over and hard-to-fill jobs.
6. Occasionally recruiters market themselves as "screening candidates and practices carefully" to give themselves an air of quality. Based on my personal experience I doubt this. Screening does not fill positions and only filling vacant positions gets them paid.
7. Recruiters are first and foremost salespeople, not helpers. Given the fact that recruiters only get paid their $20,000 if they close the deal, they are highly motivated to sell.
This explains their behavior:
They contact as many physicians as possible per day, hoping to find the one that can fill the job. They try to convince you that the jobs in "Desirable city" are not so desirable and that the countryside jobs they have actually might be better for you.
Recruiters loose interest in you immediately if you insist on a job in very desirable area or if you are looking for part time jobs. Their chances of getting paid in all these scenarios are very low and therefore the interest in you vanishes.
Because of the pressure to sell and the strong competition, all too often the candidate becomes just a number, a meal ticket, a means to fill the job, to close the deal and get paid.
8. Physicians can easily find 2-5 times more jobs than the best recruiter. Doctors have been the target of marketers for a long time. They are all listed in multiple databases. List of doctor contact info can be easily bought from a large number of sources, some of them in a few minutes online. Check out InfoUSA.com! Since physicians are so easy to reach, candidates do not need any help from recruiters. Medicine actually does not appear to be an appropriate field for recruiters.
Please refer to my blog for excellent information how you personally can find more jobs than any recruiter.
Physicians applying to an employer without a recruiter do not have a 20,000 price tag attached and they immediately become a preferred candidate. Recruiters vehemently deny this in public, but admit it privately. In the end recruiters are more of a distraction and burden to a job seeker rather than a benefit.
9. Recruiters are not "free for the candidate". This is a common marketing myth. Yes, the employer formally pays the fee. This fee is "recruitment cost" and therefore part of the overhead, the expense, caused by the candidate. The employer will recover this cost from the employed candidate in one way or another. Getting a job through a recruiter usually means a lower salary or fewer benefits, at least in the frist year.
Although, the true price of working with a recruiter is less visible and much higher: you get a less desirable job!
10. Recruiters may have many jobs, but they do NOT HAVE GREAT JOBS. Here I have to declare my own bias. I consider jobs in attractive, large cities "great jobs", an opinion that not everybody shares.
No matter if we talk about city or countryside though, the recruiters tend not to get the best jobs. The most attractive jobs are never advertised and are filled by word of mouth or direct mail. The moderately attractive jobs are advertised in print and on the Internet. Only those jobs that employers just cannot fill, even though many physicians look at them and decline, are handed over to recruiters to fill.
Recruiter told me" We get jobs in areas where there are more jobs than applicants" and "The function of recruiters in medicine is to fill the less desirable jobs", and Pam Pohly, another recruiter writes "Recruiters get the hard to fill jobs". Do you really want one of those jobs?
Ask yourself before talking to any recruiter: Do I really want a less desirable job?
After all, why would any employer pay 20,000 to a recruiter if a job can be filled by word of mouth of with $400-800 of advertising in a few journals?
11. Physician recruiters advertise using their own language: "easy access to", "a short drive to" means the locations is 1 to 2 hours from an attractive city. "Easy access to city A and B" is even worse, this job is in the dead middle between 2 separate suburban areas. "A great place to raise a family" means there is absolutely nothing to do in that town. If you are single, you are dead!
Much more important is what recruiters do NOT mention, such as high turnover of associates, low salary, high-buy-in and other hidden drawbacks.
But how can a recruiter find out in a 10 minute phone conversation what goes really on in a practice or hospital? They can't and the candidate is the one who suffers the consequences.
Recruiters sometimes "forget" to mention drawbacks of jobs, since that disclosure would hurt the sale.
12. Recruiters advertise insidiously by masquerading as "job search experts" and "advisers". This kind of marketing is much more dangerous, since it is often not recognized as the advertisement it is. This misleading marketing includes posing questions such as "How do you choose the recruiter that is right for you?” The implication of this question is that there is actually a recruiter that is right for you. Posing this question is similar to "Should I shoot myself in the left or right foot?" NO, you should not shoot yourself at all, and NO, you should not use a recruiter at all!
Often recruiters post tidbits of helpful info on their websites, such as links to licensing boards, short "5 points to improve your CV", but that is all marketing fluff to attract you or to make your CV more marketable. They will never give you advise how to best find a job - outside of recruitment. That would be bad for business and would threaten the basis of their existence. Therefore this info is never complete nor truly useful. In the end is only a means to get you as a client. Nothing wrong with that, you just have to be aware.
Anytime you read - anywhere - that someone recommends recruiters or even considers them a good alternative to networking, you are dealing with either a recruiter or someone who just has no clue about how the job market works.
13. Recruiters are NOT advisers, helpers, career counselors, CV writers or job market experts. They are usually neither qualified nor versed in any of these matters. They may read a lot of CVs, but that does not make them experts at writing or editing them. They will not take the time to go over your CV and advise you. They check your CV mostly for one single question: Can I sell this candidate?
They are not experts in the job market, even though they spend their time trying to fill job vacancies. Recruiters know only a small segment of the job market, the segment that is available to them. Do not trust their opinions in that matter, their opinions are shaped by the marginal 10-20% of jobs they are aware of.
14. Worst of all: recruiters do not disclose their limitations. They will not tell you that they cannot get jobs in desirable cities and locations. They will not tell you that they cannot get jobs with desirable practices. They will not tell you about alternative ways of finding jobs. This is a serious ethical issue - imagine a physician not treating a patient, just because he personally is unable to perform a certain surgical procedure! We send our patients to someone else who can help them. Recruiters never do that. Physician recruiters simply tell you that the great areas where you are looking for a job are " oversaturated". In reality this is a code for "unreachable for recruiters who charge 20K to fill a job". They will never tell you: "Just mail a letter to every doctor in Desirable City and you will get a job", because this might threaten the foundation of their existence. Imagine all physicians just mailing letters to eployers and getting jobs! Instead recruiters tell you "Call back in a few weeks, maybe I have something then". The obvious idea is to keep you as a client and maybe get that commission later, in blatant disregard of what you want and need! I consider this a lack of responsibility towards clients.
Summary: AVOID physician recruiters!
The better way to find a job is a simple and very successful method: mail a letter containing your CV with a cover letter to every physician of your specialty in the area where you want to work. You buy the list of contact info online from e.g. InfoUSA.com, then load it onto your computer and mail-merge it with your cover letter in Word. Voila - hundreds of personalized letters addressed to every single physician in your area of interest. Most successful!!
See my previous blog post for a detailed description.
How can all this come up after recruiters have been serving the physician community for 20 years?
Personal computers and then the Internet have changed our lives. Contact information for physicians, once hard to find and expensive, can now easily selected and downloaded on the web within a few minutes. A PC can easily produce hundreds of customized, personalized letters and the new Internet fax services allow us to fax a letter to thousands of doctors with a few clicks.
That, together with Internet job boards that are becoming easier to navigate and with physicians and hospitals becoming more computer savvy, leads to a future of job searching directly without middlemen. More and more candidates will contact employers directly and
viceversa.
So, what keeps recruiters in business?
It is those employers who sadly do not know how to find candidates and those employers who do not have the personnel to recruit themselves. It is those colleagues who pay recruiter fees, who allow recruiters to pay for their advertising avalanche on the web. It is all paid by us, the physicians! This can change! I have described in detail the know-how that employers need to recruit successfully. Please check past posts in my blog for this.
The fact sheet below was developed after years of personal experience with physician recruiters, based on being a candidate looking for a new job as well as an employer looking to hire a new associate for my practice. I am writing specifically about contingency recruiters, and that these facts and rules do not refer to retained recruiters, in-house recruiters or locum tenens recruiters.
Recruiters will deny all of these facts or at least try to gloss them over. Many actually will claim to be proud of avoiding one of the drawbacks below, which is ...just marketing. I leave it up to you whom to believe: a physician without any financial interest that reports out of personal experience and research, or recruiters who defend the living they make based on marketing slogans.
Also consider that there are always the "exceptions that confirm the rule". There are those recruiters that market less "aggressively", that really care about you, that do visit the practices they represent, that are straightforward about what they are able to accomplish and what they cannot, but that does not change the big picture I am describing.
As much as recruiters may try, as nice or good hearted or ethical or hard working or well-meaning they might be, some facts will never change:
a. recruiters are hired and paid by the employer
b. they charge a $ 20,000 fee for their services and
c. they only get paid after closing the deal.
These facts lead to all the consequences and problems described here. I am not trying to indict recruiters, I am describing the basic framework they practice in.
1. Physician Recruiters are hired and paid by employers to fill a vacancy. They are not hired nor paid by the candidate. This is much more important than candidates think! Their loyalty therefore is to the paying party, the employer, not to the searching candidate. They do not get paid to consider the desires, careers or preferences of the candidates. The candidate is useful as far as he or she fills the job the recruiter gets paid to fill. A recruiter for example will never "negotiate a salary" for you, as some claim. You really think they will go against the employer who pays them and create higher costs for them? When it comes down to it, recruiters are not on the side of the job seekers. They are on their own side: closing the deal and getting paid.
2. Recruiters charge $ 20,000 to fill a position. This is the biggest handicap for recruiters, something that no recruiter can overcome. This creates a barrier to hire them. This places recruiters at a severe disadvantage compared to you, the physician, when you are looking for a job and applying for a position. You come without the price tag and instantly are more attractive.
Obviously you could argue about the significance of those 20K. Maybe the hiring hospital is flush in money and can afford to spend it, maybe they consider physicians valuable enough to spend that kind of money on recruitment, maybe the loss of revenue with an open position is even more expensive, but 20,000 are still 20,000. Maybe the yearly collections of the physician (neurosurgeon) dwarfs those 20K, but to me as an ObGyn it means about 8 complete "9 months of prenatal care plus delivery" and to a family physicians it means seeing a whole lot of patients!
3. 80-90 percent of private practices refuse to work with physician recruiters, since they are very expensive. The usefulness of recruiters in medicine is reduced dramatically by the fact that they cannot reach that 80-90% of the job market - which is most of the private physician job market and pretty much the whole job market in desirable areas.
Keep in mind that 50-60% of physician jobs are filled through networking, 10-30% through advertising by employers on Job Boards and 15-25% by recruiters. What kind of help can you expect from someone who can only reach 20% of possible jobs?
What do recruiters do in response to this? They tell you that those areas are "oversaturated" and try to lure you to under served areas, where recruiters do get jobs.
4. What does a day in the life of a recruiter look like? Recruiters are salespeople and spend their days on the phone. Recruiters spend part of their day cold-calling practices, groups and hospitals to see if they are interested in their services. Then they pay large fees to NTNJobs, eHealthCareers and numerous other Internet boards to post job descriptions. Then they spend a few hours each day cold calling physicians, sending fliers, postcards or e-mails to program directors, specific departments and numerous physicians fishing for applicants.
Candidates will usually respond to recruiters by e-mail, submit their CVs and recruiters then forward these CVs with names blacked out to the potential employers.
Recruiters love to give you the impression that they have resources or skills that you don't possess, yet, once you see what they actually do, you realize that you can do it perfectly well on your own. No, they don't have secret sources in high positions; they just want you to think that. Unlike what they sometimes claim, most recruiters do not visit practices and they do not get face to face with physicians. Usually they work nationally and seeing offices and physicians means travel and would be very time consuming and expensive.
5. Most recruiters subscribe to a background database, usually the NAPR "Job Bank". Paying subscribers store short profiles of jobs and candidates in these confidential, recruiter-only databases. Since thousands contribute to these databases recruitment becomes more efficient due to sharing of resources and combining efforts. "Maybe my candidate fits your job". Fees are usually split between the recruiter who has the candidate and the one who has the job. This is the same model that Realtors use. When a recruiter says "we personalize a search for you", (I love that slick line) he means that he enters your name in the recruiter background database and checks if there is a matching job for you. The only problem is: the whole database is filled with left-over and hard-to-fill jobs.
6. Occasionally recruiters market themselves as "screening candidates and practices carefully" to give themselves an air of quality. Based on my personal experience I doubt this. Screening does not fill positions and only filling vacant positions gets them paid.
7. Recruiters are first and foremost salespeople, not helpers. Given the fact that recruiters only get paid their $20,000 if they close the deal, they are highly motivated to sell.
This explains their behavior:
They contact as many physicians as possible per day, hoping to find the one that can fill the job. They try to convince you that the jobs in "Desirable city" are not so desirable and that the countryside jobs they have actually might be better for you.
Recruiters loose interest in you immediately if you insist on a job in very desirable area or if you are looking for part time jobs. Their chances of getting paid in all these scenarios are very low and therefore the interest in you vanishes.
Because of the pressure to sell and the strong competition, all too often the candidate becomes just a number, a meal ticket, a means to fill the job, to close the deal and get paid.
8. Physicians can easily find 2-5 times more jobs than the best recruiter. Doctors have been the target of marketers for a long time. They are all listed in multiple databases. List of doctor contact info can be easily bought from a large number of sources, some of them in a few minutes online. Check out InfoUSA.com! Since physicians are so easy to reach, candidates do not need any help from recruiters. Medicine actually does not appear to be an appropriate field for recruiters.
Please refer to my blog for excellent information how you personally can find more jobs than any recruiter.
Physicians applying to an employer without a recruiter do not have a 20,000 price tag attached and they immediately become a preferred candidate. Recruiters vehemently deny this in public, but admit it privately. In the end recruiters are more of a distraction and burden to a job seeker rather than a benefit.
9. Recruiters are not "free for the candidate". This is a common marketing myth. Yes, the employer formally pays the fee. This fee is "recruitment cost" and therefore part of the overhead, the expense, caused by the candidate. The employer will recover this cost from the employed candidate in one way or another. Getting a job through a recruiter usually means a lower salary or fewer benefits, at least in the frist year.
Although, the true price of working with a recruiter is less visible and much higher: you get a less desirable job!
10. Recruiters may have many jobs, but they do NOT HAVE GREAT JOBS. Here I have to declare my own bias. I consider jobs in attractive, large cities "great jobs", an opinion that not everybody shares.
No matter if we talk about city or countryside though, the recruiters tend not to get the best jobs. The most attractive jobs are never advertised and are filled by word of mouth or direct mail. The moderately attractive jobs are advertised in print and on the Internet. Only those jobs that employers just cannot fill, even though many physicians look at them and decline, are handed over to recruiters to fill.
Recruiter told me" We get jobs in areas where there are more jobs than applicants" and "The function of recruiters in medicine is to fill the less desirable jobs", and Pam Pohly, another recruiter writes "Recruiters get the hard to fill jobs". Do you really want one of those jobs?
Ask yourself before talking to any recruiter: Do I really want a less desirable job?
After all, why would any employer pay 20,000 to a recruiter if a job can be filled by word of mouth of with $400-800 of advertising in a few journals?
11. Physician recruiters advertise using their own language: "easy access to", "a short drive to" means the locations is 1 to 2 hours from an attractive city. "Easy access to city A and B" is even worse, this job is in the dead middle between 2 separate suburban areas. "A great place to raise a family" means there is absolutely nothing to do in that town. If you are single, you are dead!
Much more important is what recruiters do NOT mention, such as high turnover of associates, low salary, high-buy-in and other hidden drawbacks.
But how can a recruiter find out in a 10 minute phone conversation what goes really on in a practice or hospital? They can't and the candidate is the one who suffers the consequences.
Recruiters sometimes "forget" to mention drawbacks of jobs, since that disclosure would hurt the sale.
12. Recruiters advertise insidiously by masquerading as "job search experts" and "advisers". This kind of marketing is much more dangerous, since it is often not recognized as the advertisement it is. This misleading marketing includes posing questions such as "How do you choose the recruiter that is right for you?” The implication of this question is that there is actually a recruiter that is right for you. Posing this question is similar to "Should I shoot myself in the left or right foot?" NO, you should not shoot yourself at all, and NO, you should not use a recruiter at all!
Often recruiters post tidbits of helpful info on their websites, such as links to licensing boards, short "5 points to improve your CV", but that is all marketing fluff to attract you or to make your CV more marketable. They will never give you advise how to best find a job - outside of recruitment. That would be bad for business and would threaten the basis of their existence. Therefore this info is never complete nor truly useful. In the end is only a means to get you as a client. Nothing wrong with that, you just have to be aware.
Anytime you read - anywhere - that someone recommends recruiters or even considers them a good alternative to networking, you are dealing with either a recruiter or someone who just has no clue about how the job market works.
13. Recruiters are NOT advisers, helpers, career counselors, CV writers or job market experts. They are usually neither qualified nor versed in any of these matters. They may read a lot of CVs, but that does not make them experts at writing or editing them. They will not take the time to go over your CV and advise you. They check your CV mostly for one single question: Can I sell this candidate?
They are not experts in the job market, even though they spend their time trying to fill job vacancies. Recruiters know only a small segment of the job market, the segment that is available to them. Do not trust their opinions in that matter, their opinions are shaped by the marginal 10-20% of jobs they are aware of.
14. Worst of all: recruiters do not disclose their limitations. They will not tell you that they cannot get jobs in desirable cities and locations. They will not tell you that they cannot get jobs with desirable practices. They will not tell you about alternative ways of finding jobs. This is a serious ethical issue - imagine a physician not treating a patient, just because he personally is unable to perform a certain surgical procedure! We send our patients to someone else who can help them. Recruiters never do that. Physician recruiters simply tell you that the great areas where you are looking for a job are " oversaturated". In reality this is a code for "unreachable for recruiters who charge 20K to fill a job". They will never tell you: "Just mail a letter to every doctor in Desirable City and you will get a job", because this might threaten the foundation of their existence. Imagine all physicians just mailing letters to eployers and getting jobs! Instead recruiters tell you "Call back in a few weeks, maybe I have something then". The obvious idea is to keep you as a client and maybe get that commission later, in blatant disregard of what you want and need! I consider this a lack of responsibility towards clients.
Summary: AVOID physician recruiters!
The better way to find a job is a simple and very successful method: mail a letter containing your CV with a cover letter to every physician of your specialty in the area where you want to work. You buy the list of contact info online from e.g. InfoUSA.com, then load it onto your computer and mail-merge it with your cover letter in Word. Voila - hundreds of personalized letters addressed to every single physician in your area of interest. Most successful!!
See my previous blog post for a detailed description.
How can all this come up after recruiters have been serving the physician community for 20 years?
Personal computers and then the Internet have changed our lives. Contact information for physicians, once hard to find and expensive, can now easily selected and downloaded on the web within a few minutes. A PC can easily produce hundreds of customized, personalized letters and the new Internet fax services allow us to fax a letter to thousands of doctors with a few clicks.
That, together with Internet job boards that are becoming easier to navigate and with physicians and hospitals becoming more computer savvy, leads to a future of job searching directly without middlemen. More and more candidates will contact employers directly and
viceversa.
So, what keeps recruiters in business?
It is those employers who sadly do not know how to find candidates and those employers who do not have the personnel to recruit themselves. It is those colleagues who pay recruiter fees, who allow recruiters to pay for their advertising avalanche on the web. It is all paid by us, the physicians! This can change! I have described in detail the know-how that employers need to recruit successfully. Please check past posts in my blog for this.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
How to find more physician jobs than any recruiter
Physician Job Search
The best, most powerful, most successful and least advertised way of finding a job
1. Decide where you want to work and live. Consider the climate, the landscape, the economical situation and future outlook, the culture, your ability to pursue your hobbies, the cost of living and of real estate, the cost of malpractice, the possibility of working without paying malpractice, and financial issues such as being able to balance-bill.
2. Buy a list of all addresses, phone number and fax number of all physicians in your specialty in the desired area. This is much easier and cheaper than you may think.
List providers are InfoUSA.com, WebMD or MMSlists, the marketing arm of the AMA.
I prefer InfoUSA.com. First, you can easily select just the right group of physicians you want. Second, you can purchase your list online, without having to call anyone. Third, there are no restrictions on the list you receive such as number of times you can use it (The AMA just loves to restrict you...). The cost per physician contact info is about 75 cents. For this you get address, telephone and fax number. InfoUSA also gives you year of graduation, name of office manager and a number of other useful little data. You will receive the list via email in CSV or Excel format. Either format is fine for your purposes.
3. Write your CV and cover letter. Have them reviewed, rewritten or may be written anew by an expert, such as a friend who is a marketer or publicist, an English major, or a professional writer, e.g. the people at Quintcareers.com. I have personal experiences with Quintcareers.com and was happy with them.
4. Have your CV photocopied on quality paper at Staples, Office Max, Kinko, etc.
5. Use Microsoft Word to Mail-Merge your cover letter with the address list from InfoUSA and print the 100-500 personally addressed letters on the same paper as your CV. Your office store can do that as well for you. Sign all letters, fold and put them in envelops. Address the envelops with clear plastic labels, e.g. Avery, that you buy at your office store. You can print the addresses and your own home address on these labels using Word.
6. Mail your cover letter and CV to all doctors in your target area. Mail them so that they arrive on a Tuesday or Wednesday. This increases the chance of being read.
7. You may also fax your cover letter and CV (or maybe just your cover letter) to all physicians in your target area. You can fax all letters individually or you can use an Internet fax service such as JBlast.com. This is my preferred fax broadcast system because it allows you to Mail-Merge your letter with your list of addresses with the same ease as MS Word. You can literally fax your letter to hundreds of physicians with a single click. This costs about 6-10 cents per fax. Please consider the laws about unsolicited faxes that apply in most states! You may be considered to send unsolicited faxes, which may be illegal! You are doing this at your own risk!
The response rate will be 1-2%, meaning if you mail or fax 800 letters, you will receive about 8-16 interviews. The more physicians you contact, the more interviews you will get. This is the least expensive and most effective, most successful way to find a job as a physician - and you can find it exactly where you want it. Obviously, you may repeat this after three to four months if it does not work the first time.
Sounds like too much work for you? You do not know how you can fit this into the schedule? there is a company that does all the legwork for you. It is called TheDoctorJob.com. They will charge about 1.50 to 2.00 for each letter they write, print and mail. It is slightly more expensive then doing it yourself, but it saves you time. They have been doing it since 2003 and are very, very good at it. Since 2006 Doccafe.com also offers this service, but they do not seem very enthusiastic about it. After all, they seem to live on recruiter ads and recruiters despise the direct mail method. It makes them obsolete.
8. Follow up, follow up, follow up. That means sending another letter, another fax or calling one or two weeks after sending the letter. Be persistent.
9. Parallel to all this, use the methods that I call "Passive search". Click here to find out more.10. You do not need recruiters. With the above method you will find 2-5 times more jobs than the best recruiter will ever be able to find. Your application does not have a 20K price tag
attached and therefore your letter is much more welcome than a mailing from any recruiter.
Friday, June 22, 2007
"We personalize a search for you"
While physicians and HR people usually comment on my blog in words like "you are so right", "you point very well out what is wrong with recruiters" etc, recruiters are very upset at my blog and usually claims that I do "not have enough experience with recruiters".
Ooohh, yes, believe me, I do. I have been searching for a job for over 7 years and I have been in contact with recruiters for about 7 years. I have spoken on the phone to dozens, maybe a hundred recruiters, seen countless recruiter websites, aggregator websites that publish ads from multiple recruiters, and read innumerable newspaper and magazine ads. I may not be the ultimate expert, but I am most certainly knowledgeable enough to voice an opinion. And I most certainly write pretty much everything in this blog based on my own blood, sweat and tears.
And, before I continue, I have found a way to find more jobs than any recruiter, click here to read it
But, to support that I am not alone, here is another experience with recruiters that mirrors my own.
It is from a pediatrician in North Carolina who had serious legal disputes with a hospital at which she was practicing, who consequently lost her practice and is now recieving recruiter emails offering her employment in her own former practice! It does not get much better than that! It is the perfect example for the claim of many recruiters: "We personalize a search for you", "We taylor a search to your needs". Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for this contribution!
Here is a quote from Dr. Johnson's blog:
I know I'm supposed to be on a break, but the following e-mail (from a physician head-hunter) was in my In-Box today:
Dear Doctor Johnson
Our firm is representing an excellent opportunity for a pediatrician to join two others in a beautiful community in central NC.
This employed position offers a strong income and benefits package with shared call of 1:4. The physicians have their own autonomy in clinical practice and management decisions are made by the practice administration in consult with the physicians. Physicians do attend C-sections as required.
This position is supported by a private, not-for-profit, 145-bed community hospital and is the only hospital in the county serving a population of over 130,000. The facility had 800 deliveries last year. Located in the beautiful, rolling hills of central NC, the community offers all the charm and quality of life expected in a small town. Residents enjoy all the advantages of living in a small town while enjoying quick access to the Research Triangle. Greensboro, North Carolina’s third largest city is just 25 minutes away, while Charlotte, the largest City is only 1.25 hours south.
If you would be interested in learning more about this outstanding opportunity, please forward a copy of your CV for review or respond to this email. I will not send your CV to anyone without your prior approval.
Regards,
X
Mr. X obviously didn't know that I am more-than-familiar with this "opportunity". Over the years, I've gotten dozens of these . . . as more Pediatricians came and went from the practice whose doors I opened in 1995.
Makes it kinda hard to just "forgive and forget".
......some material left out.........
Anyway, this is the umpteenth e-mail I've gotten about this job "opportunity" from headhunters who, if they had done the smallest amount of research, might've thought twice about sending me this particular "invite". And you'd think the geniuses running this practice would say to the recruiter, "If there's a Mary Johnson in your recruitment files, it's probably best not to send her this one."
Sometimes, I reply. Sometimes I shrug it off. Today I replied:
Mr. X, you are talking about Asheboro, North Carolina. It is my hometown. And a long time ago, I bought the sell. It is the worst professional mistake I ever made.
www.drjshousecalls.blogspot.com
www.asheboropediatrics.com
"The physicians have their own autonomy in clinical practice and management decisions are made by the practice administration in consult with the physicians."
That was not the case ten years ago. When this "practice administration" (still in power after all of the nasty & illegal things they've done) fired me after I intervened to save a newborn baby's life . . . a baby being mismanaged by another physician whose neonatology skills they falsely marketed to the public. Then they pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure I could not stay and compete.
This "non-profit" has pounded me into the dirt for years and laughed as they pounded. But this story is getting out and around.
Respectfully, you (and every other locums company that has contacted me about this job in the last several months) should do a little more research on the situations you represent.
Mary Johnson, M.D., FAAP
And no. I don't feel any better for sending it. This guy has money to make and will blow me off.
No comments are necessary. Click here to read my instructions for searching the right way and finding more jobs than any recruiter can - click here.
Ooohh, yes, believe me, I do. I have been searching for a job for over 7 years and I have been in contact with recruiters for about 7 years. I have spoken on the phone to dozens, maybe a hundred recruiters, seen countless recruiter websites, aggregator websites that publish ads from multiple recruiters, and read innumerable newspaper and magazine ads. I may not be the ultimate expert, but I am most certainly knowledgeable enough to voice an opinion. And I most certainly write pretty much everything in this blog based on my own blood, sweat and tears.
And, before I continue, I have found a way to find more jobs than any recruiter, click here to read it
But, to support that I am not alone, here is another experience with recruiters that mirrors my own.
It is from a pediatrician in North Carolina who had serious legal disputes with a hospital at which she was practicing, who consequently lost her practice and is now recieving recruiter emails offering her employment in her own former practice! It does not get much better than that! It is the perfect example for the claim of many recruiters: "We personalize a search for you", "We taylor a search to your needs". Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for this contribution!
Here is a quote from Dr. Johnson's blog:
I know I'm supposed to be on a break, but the following e-mail (from a physician head-hunter) was in my In-Box today:
Dear Doctor Johnson
Our firm is representing an excellent opportunity for a pediatrician to join two others in a beautiful community in central NC.
This employed position offers a strong income and benefits package with shared call of 1:4. The physicians have their own autonomy in clinical practice and management decisions are made by the practice administration in consult with the physicians. Physicians do attend C-sections as required.
This position is supported by a private, not-for-profit, 145-bed community hospital and is the only hospital in the county serving a population of over 130,000. The facility had 800 deliveries last year. Located in the beautiful, rolling hills of central NC, the community offers all the charm and quality of life expected in a small town. Residents enjoy all the advantages of living in a small town while enjoying quick access to the Research Triangle. Greensboro, North Carolina’s third largest city is just 25 minutes away, while Charlotte, the largest City is only 1.25 hours south.
If you would be interested in learning more about this outstanding opportunity, please forward a copy of your CV for review or respond to this email. I will not send your CV to anyone without your prior approval.
Regards,
X
Mr. X obviously didn't know that I am more-than-familiar with this "opportunity". Over the years, I've gotten dozens of these . . . as more Pediatricians came and went from the practice whose doors I opened in 1995.
Makes it kinda hard to just "forgive and forget".
......some material left out.........
Anyway, this is the umpteenth e-mail I've gotten about this job "opportunity" from headhunters who, if they had done the smallest amount of research, might've thought twice about sending me this particular "invite". And you'd think the geniuses running this practice would say to the recruiter, "If there's a Mary Johnson in your recruitment files, it's probably best not to send her this one."
Sometimes, I reply. Sometimes I shrug it off. Today I replied:
Mr. X, you are talking about Asheboro, North Carolina. It is my hometown. And a long time ago, I bought the sell. It is the worst professional mistake I ever made.
www.drjshousecalls.blogspot.com
www.asheboropediatrics.com
"The physicians have their own autonomy in clinical practice and management decisions are made by the practice administration in consult with the physicians."
That was not the case ten years ago. When this "practice administration" (still in power after all of the nasty & illegal things they've done) fired me after I intervened to save a newborn baby's life . . . a baby being mismanaged by another physician whose neonatology skills they falsely marketed to the public. Then they pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure I could not stay and compete.
This "non-profit" has pounded me into the dirt for years and laughed as they pounded. But this story is getting out and around.
Respectfully, you (and every other locums company that has contacted me about this job in the last several months) should do a little more research on the situations you represent.
Mary Johnson, M.D., FAAP
And no. I don't feel any better for sending it. This guy has money to make and will blow me off.
No comments are necessary. Click here to read my instructions for searching the right way and finding more jobs than any recruiter can - click here.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Better Tools for Physician Job Search
Years ago, when I asked my chief resident how I could find a job in the last year, he answered: "Aaahh, just ask all the attendings and if that does'nt work, call a scalper"
Today, he would add, "go on the internet". So, I googled "physician jobs" and "ObGyn jobs". The results were severely misleading. Recruiter website after recruiter website, then the websites that post recruiter ads, then the recruiting companies, then the occult and hidden recruiter ads disguised as "advice" that sneak up on you on student and fellowship websites, and on general health websites, and so on. In short, recruiters dominate the internet.
They seem to be number one when it comes to the physician job search. Not so.
In reality, recruiters handle between 10-15% of jobs according to a survey of 1000 practices (unplublished, by Thedoctorjob.com), which is consistent with my personal impression. The highest estimate I have ever seen was 1/3 or 33% of jobs. This estimate was published by a recruitment company and I believe it to be overly optimistic.
Print and direect internet advertising by employers may be responsible for filling 20-40% of jobs - in my estimate.
The remaining roughly 50% of jobs are filled by word of mouth, by direct personal contacts.
This has serious implications on how a physician should look for a job.
Networking should be effort number one, because most of the jobs are filled through personal contacts. This includes talking to anybody who is willing to listen and presenting them your "elevator pitch". The elevator pitch is a short presentation that includes who you are, what you are looking for, what makes you special and what makes you different than the rest. Handing out a business card with your contact info and maybe the elevator pitch is a good idea.
Networking includes contacting hospitals in the area where you want to work, I have discussed this in previous posts.
Networking includes sending a letter to every single physician in the area where you want to work and introducing yourself with a letter that essentially says the same as the elevator pitch. You may or may not include your CV in this letter. You will find the addresses and all other contact information of any physician anywhere at InfoUSA.com, where you can buy them for 50$ each. I have described this here - click here
Mailing a letter to each physician in your target area is especially useful, since you find all the physicians that have not advertised yet, that are just thinking about maybe hiring someone. This is great, since it gets you in before the competition. You automatically find all the physicians that have already advertised. They will simply think you are responding to their ad, even if you have never seen the ad. You will also reach all the physicians that have contacted recruiters, and you will be especially welcome, since your application does not have a 20K price tag attached (the fee the recruiter charges for brokering a candidate).
So, with one single activity, sending a letter to every physician in your target area, you reach absolutely everyone.
You tap the "hidden job market" as well as all other "markets". You cannot do better than that.
You can do this yourself, or you can have a company such as "thedoctorjob.com" or "Doccafe.com" do it for a fee.
Compared to networking and direct mail, all other methods of searching for a physician job pale. By looking only at print ads and internet ads you are limiting yourself at 30-40% of the job market, and by searching through recruiters, you limit yourself to about 15% of the job market.
Why is the Internet and why are the print media dominated by recruiters? Because they pay. Follow the money!Recruiters pay websites to post their ads and the websites do not mind giving them a little "editorial space" - and, voila, you have a nice editorial touting the "advantages" of recruiters. Print media need advertising, and they need recruiter ads. They survive because of these ads. And they do not mind publishing a few nice articles presenting the "advantages of working with a recruiter".
And so you have a completely slanted view of the physician job search on the net.
It does not help the balance of published material that physicians have no interest whatsoever in writing about the almost embarassing topic of "job search". They just get it done and go to work. Write about it? Please...I have better and more lucrative things to do with my time!
And that is the reason why physicians, why every new generation of graduating residents and fellows do not use the best tools to find a physician job. They simply do not know. And the older physicians do not bother telling them. We need to raise awareness of what physicians can do to find the jobs they want.
A physician job seach is a straightforward thing: contact all potential employers by mail. And Network. Done
Today, he would add, "go on the internet". So, I googled "physician jobs" and "ObGyn jobs". The results were severely misleading. Recruiter website after recruiter website, then the websites that post recruiter ads, then the recruiting companies, then the occult and hidden recruiter ads disguised as "advice" that sneak up on you on student and fellowship websites, and on general health websites, and so on. In short, recruiters dominate the internet.
They seem to be number one when it comes to the physician job search. Not so.
In reality, recruiters handle between 10-15% of jobs according to a survey of 1000 practices (unplublished, by Thedoctorjob.com), which is consistent with my personal impression. The highest estimate I have ever seen was 1/3 or 33% of jobs. This estimate was published by a recruitment company and I believe it to be overly optimistic.
Print and direect internet advertising by employers may be responsible for filling 20-40% of jobs - in my estimate.
The remaining roughly 50% of jobs are filled by word of mouth, by direct personal contacts.
This has serious implications on how a physician should look for a job.
Networking should be effort number one, because most of the jobs are filled through personal contacts. This includes talking to anybody who is willing to listen and presenting them your "elevator pitch". The elevator pitch is a short presentation that includes who you are, what you are looking for, what makes you special and what makes you different than the rest. Handing out a business card with your contact info and maybe the elevator pitch is a good idea.
Networking includes contacting hospitals in the area where you want to work, I have discussed this in previous posts.
Networking includes sending a letter to every single physician in the area where you want to work and introducing yourself with a letter that essentially says the same as the elevator pitch. You may or may not include your CV in this letter. You will find the addresses and all other contact information of any physician anywhere at InfoUSA.com, where you can buy them for 50$ each. I have described this here - click here
Mailing a letter to each physician in your target area is especially useful, since you find all the physicians that have not advertised yet, that are just thinking about maybe hiring someone. This is great, since it gets you in before the competition. You automatically find all the physicians that have already advertised. They will simply think you are responding to their ad, even if you have never seen the ad. You will also reach all the physicians that have contacted recruiters, and you will be especially welcome, since your application does not have a 20K price tag attached (the fee the recruiter charges for brokering a candidate).
So, with one single activity, sending a letter to every physician in your target area, you reach absolutely everyone.
You tap the "hidden job market" as well as all other "markets". You cannot do better than that.
You can do this yourself, or you can have a company such as "thedoctorjob.com" or "Doccafe.com" do it for a fee.
Compared to networking and direct mail, all other methods of searching for a physician job pale. By looking only at print ads and internet ads you are limiting yourself at 30-40% of the job market, and by searching through recruiters, you limit yourself to about 15% of the job market.
Why is the Internet and why are the print media dominated by recruiters? Because they pay. Follow the money!Recruiters pay websites to post their ads and the websites do not mind giving them a little "editorial space" - and, voila, you have a nice editorial touting the "advantages" of recruiters. Print media need advertising, and they need recruiter ads. They survive because of these ads. And they do not mind publishing a few nice articles presenting the "advantages of working with a recruiter".
And so you have a completely slanted view of the physician job search on the net.
It does not help the balance of published material that physicians have no interest whatsoever in writing about the almost embarassing topic of "job search". They just get it done and go to work. Write about it? Please...I have better and more lucrative things to do with my time!
And that is the reason why physicians, why every new generation of graduating residents and fellows do not use the best tools to find a physician job. They simply do not know. And the older physicians do not bother telling them. We need to raise awareness of what physicians can do to find the jobs they want.
A physician job seach is a straightforward thing: contact all potential employers by mail. And Network. Done
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Physicians - Best Way to Find a Job
This is how you will land a great job! Read the recommendations of a physician who has "been there and done that". This is advice from an insider!
Most important - forget recruiters. Recruiters get paid to lure you to suboptimal positions that could not be filled through word of mouth or print advertising. Don't be fooled by recruiter advertising.
You want the best jobs and recruiters do not have them and cannot get them. If you have the slightest doubt about that: Have you ever seen a recruiter ad for a Harvard position? Or for that well running practice in downtown Boston with an office overlooking the harbor, in downtown San Diego, in downtown San Francisco, Los Angeles? Have you noticed that recruiter jobs always are located "one hour drive to..." or described with euphemisms such as "Easy access to" or "Near...". Once you look closer, you find that most recruiter jobs are located in less attractive areas and /or have other drawbacks such as high turnover, unpleasant work atmosphere, low salary, high buy ins, etc. The function of recruiters is to fill the less desirable jobs! And those are the jobs YOU do not want!
All the following recommendations assume that you know where you want to live, where you want to work and that you have written a truly impressive CV and cover letter that bring out your abilities and highlight your potential. Please see my past blog posts about these topics.
So, here are the ways to find a job YOU want: For the "executive summary", click here.
1. Network, using your personal contacts and beyond
2. Directly approach the hospitals in your desired area.
3. Direct Mail to all physicians in your desired area (the best method of all!)
1. Network
Consider your job search a marketing project for yourself. Apply marketing principles, use marketing tools and you will achieve great results.
This is not the time to be shy, not the time to be disciplined and withdrawn, this is the time to make yourself heard, to be clear and loud, to be relentless, untiring, persistent, this is the time to be pushy! "Squeaky wheel gets the oil!"
Talk to anyone who will listen more than 2 seconds and give them your "elevator pitch".Write an "elevator speech", meaning a one-minute talk to introduce yourself. State who you are, why you are good, what you have to offer to an employer and what you are looking for.
Practice the elevator speech and use it whenever you can. It will become easier and easier.
Here is an example: "Experienced, Board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with Yale training and multilingual skills – including fluent Spanish – seeking new practice opportunity in Boston to be closer to family. I have an active Massachusetts license and am available to start working in 3 months."
The elevator pitch is a short introduction to what you have to offer, what you can do for others. You say who who are, what you do, what you excel in and how you are different and better than others. You can end with a call to action, such as "and I can start in three months"
There are several website and even books that spell out how to write the elevator pitch.Print a business card (if you have Microsoft Publisher or something similar) with your phone number, fax number and your email address. Always carry it with you. Hand out this business card with your contact information as often as if possible. You could consider printing your elevator pitch on this card as well.
Start to network with your residency program director. It is part of his or her job to help you find a job. Then ask every single one of your attendings. Ask them if they know anybody who is looking or anybody with a practice you might like, or anybody wher you would fit in based on your personality and preferences.
Try to find out if there are any former alumni of your residency program in the area where you are searching. Having gone through the same residency makes you sympathetic to a doctor and gives you a psychological "foot in the door".
Ask your parents and grandparents and your in-laws to contact their primary care doctors, their cardiologists, their orthopedists etc. See if the doctors of your family know of a very busy attending that might need help, might need a new associate, that might have plans to expand his or her practice. Just following this recommendation I got two great referrals in no time exactly where I wanted it and with almost no effort. One of them of one of the best job offers I ever had.
Call your friends from medical school to see if they are in apposition to hire you or if their practices or departments are searching – you would have an automatic contact reference.
Ask distant relatives you have not talked to for 6 years to inquire at their doctors offices - and even speak to your present acquaintances.Tell them what you are looking for, where you want to be and what kind of practice you would like to join (you already have decided and formulated this after reading the first paragraph). Don’t make it too exclusive, or you will be left without a job and don’t be too flexible, because you will be abused by someone who just wants to earn money off your sweat.
You could also try to get contacts through social networking websites such as Friendster or other! There are no limits to how and where you market yourself. Think Guerrilla Marketing. If you do not know what guerrilla marketing is, read the classic book by Jay Levinson "Guerilla Marketing". He wrote and co-wrote a whole series of guerilla marketing books, including "Guerilla Marketiing for Job Seekers".
2. Actively contact the hospitals and their Ob/Gyn departments in your target area.
You can find all hospitals by going to MedLinePlus, then to "Directories", then to "American Hospital Association". There you can find hospitals by name, zip code and city. There are several other hospital directories you can search and you will find most of them at Pam Pohly's list of hospitals and directories.
Pam Pohly was a consultant before becoming a recruiter, which may explain why her website has so much useful information. By the way - recruiter websites usually do not have useful information. The only purpose of recruiter websites is to steer you to use their services.
The is a very inexpensive hospital directory for download for $97 at Doctorlistpro.com. If you plan to search hospital data a lot, it might be worth buying it.
Once you have the hospital contact data, call the hospital and ask for the Physician Relations person, Physician Liaison or the Network Development person. Ask for the phone, fax and email.
Obviously you can also check the hospital’s website. The following link is a fairly complete and reliable list of hospital websites:
http://neuro-www2.mgh.harvard.edu/hospitalwebusa.html
The usual providers of physician contact data lists (e.g. InfoUSA) all have lists of hospitals as well. The advantage of InfoUSA.com is their reasonable prices. And the fact that you can buy exactly as many or as few addresses as you need. You essentially only need the address of the administrative offices, and then address your inquiry letter to "Physician Liaison / Network Development".
While contacting hospitals and their departments you will encounter two opposite biases:
First bias: The doctors in your specialty will tell you: “There is no need here, we are all set here, we have too many doctors already, 10 years ago we were 5, now we are 13, it may look like a nice place to live, but believe me, it is a problematic place to practice! Why do you not look 100 miles further north or south, east or west, it’s much easier there, I happen to know someone there who is looking yadayadayada”. They obviously do not want more competition and are more or less openly trying to discourage you from coming. If they really wanted more physicians, they would already be hiring themselves!This is course does not mean that you do not have a chance. The local doctors maybe older, maybe all male, may not be that popular anymore, may have some political pressure against them and in reality you may have a pretty good chance of being successful in that particular community.
Second bias, quite opposite to the first bias: The hospital administration is always very enthusiastic and encouraging – they always need more people, there always seems to be room for one or even two or three more, “Yes, there clearly is a need, there is an opportunity, you will do well etc, etc, blah, blah. We can help you with this and that, with everything actually (except a salary of course, except with any money at all, the help usually stops at non-material things, and routinely the Stark rules are cited as a excuse). In fact they might be able to help you a lot with marketing, by providing information about the community, giving you lists of fellow doctors of other specialties, give you background info on the service area of the hospital etc. But the hospital does not care at all (!!) how much money you make, or if you make any money at all. Deep down they do not care if you are successful or not. They have in mind that every new doc means another warm body attracting more business to the hospital. Every new doc means more admissions to the hospital floors… and therefore much needed cash in their coffers.
The medical director often stands somewhere in between these two opposites, and it is often someone specially hired for that position (retired, semi-retired handicapped, working part time etc) and therefore frequently the best source of information. Medical directors usually are more neutral. So talk to the medical director and try to get crucial information:
How busy are the docs in your field, how is the population growing, which areas in town or in the county are growing and developing, which segment of the population is developing, are people moving in or out of the area, how is the industry doing? Are offices and factories closing or are companies flocking to town to open new ones? Real estate prices going up or down? That means people are coming into the area or are leaving the area…What does the future look like in the area?
Then get the names and addresses of the practices affiliated with the hospital and the names and addresses of the practices that are looking or might be looking and contact them directly by sending them you cover letter and CV.
3. And, finally, here is the most successful and least published method to find a job.
Loved by those who use it, despised by the recruiters that loose much of their attraction - if they ever had it. This is the very best way of getting any job anywhere, even in the very best, most attractive, most competitive locations.
Direct Mailing and / or Broadcast Faxing of your cover letter and CV!This is the most direct way of presenting your cover letter and CV to as many doctors as you want - in exactly the area where you want to be. You buy the names, addresses, phone and fax numbers of all the colleagues you might work for. Then you send them a letter, send them a fax or give them a call. Calling takes a lot of time, and therefore I recommend mailing or faxing.
The big difference that makes all this easy and feasible is the Internet with unparalleled access to physician contact information databases and the availability of Internet faxing. Something that was extremely time consuming 10 years ago, is now a snap. Applying to 400 physicians is now literally a project for one single weekend.
So, how do you do it? First you buy the physician addresses, the contact data. The sources for buying physician addresses and contact information, fax numbers, email addresses and numerous data about the practices are: InfoUSA.com, USdata.com, WebMD and MMS, the marketing arm of the American Medical Association. The AMA has been selling lists of their members for profit for a long time, and so far this service has mainly be used by pharmaceutical companies to help their reps.
Doctorlistpro.com is probably the most affordable list service. The drawback is that you have to buy in bulk, such as all doctors in one specialty for $297, all doctors in one state for $297, all doctors in all of the US $497, all hospitals in the US $97. Can't beat those prices, this is a lot cheaper then MMSlists.
Of all the data companies, I recommend InfoUSA.com, since you can buy all data directly online, with a very easy process. All other companies have a minimum number of data to buy, require a personal call, make you jump through hoops and restrict your use of the data. And Info USA offers the best prices.
Here is how to buy the addresses in detail.
Once you are on the website of InfoUSA.com, look in the center, go down and click on: "Doctors, Dentists and other medical lists". In the window that opens click on "Physicians and Surgeons Database" then check the specialties you are interested in, e.g "Obstetrics and Gynecology" and then, further down, check "office based". On the following page uncheck the specialties you are not interested in contacting, e.g. MFM, critical care obstetrics etc. On the next page, click on "select all members in office". Do not check the "fax number" box, since this will exclude doctors that have not listed a fax number. You want all the names and addresses and phone numbers! On the next page you can select the geographic area, whihc can be the whole country or just one zip code, or a radius of 500 miles around an address or just 10 miles. For example: you would like to join a practice within 15 miles of your parents home. Enter the address of your parents and select "20 miles". on the following page, leave everything unchecked, since it would only reduce your list. Then you get to review the list. Sould the list be too large, then choose a smaller geographic selection, or select by age or gender etc. Of course, you can also increase your list this wayOnce you are there, go to “physician lists”, and then follow the simple steps to select the doctors you want to contact. The price is 50 cents per address. Beats having to type it yourself. Info USA is the database which the other addresses and list providers get their data from. So, go to the source. InfoUSA will email you a list in CSV format, which you can import into Microsoft Outlook, Win Fax, Act, Excel or any “Contact Manager”. I would keep the original untouched in a safe place and import the data into your application of choice.
Here are a few additional tips:
You cold also buy or borrow the American Medical Association book or CD that contains all the addresses of doctors in the US. The CD costs about $1100 and does NOT allow downloading and exporting of the data into a database. Who knows, maybe you know someone, who knows someone who has the disk and would be willing to loan it to you for a weekend? The AMA is very big on restricting the use of their databases. They want to be sure to squeeze the maximum profit out of your good name.
WebMD sells booklets for $18 for each Metro area that contain ALL physician names, addresses and telephone numbers. You will have to buy a second booklet for the same area to obtain the fax numbers. The fax booklet will also cost you $18. Over all a lot cheaper than buying the electronic lists, but you will have to type in th addresses if you ant to use them on a large scale. I have used the booklets from WebMD only to confirm my database that I purchased from InfoUSA.
You should be familiar with a software program called “Address Grabber”. This is a very nifty tool to collect addresses, names, phone numbers from any electronic sources and insert them into your lists! It sells on the net as a download for $70. It allows you to “grab” and capture any address you see on your screen from any website, from any source with a single click. Very cool! If you can see it on your screen, you can transfer it to your database! Digest that fro a moment! You can produce your own lists!You highlight the address you want to grab on the Internet or in Word or in other software...and then transfer all that information into a contact manager such as Outlook or ACT! With a just a single click. The info will appear like magic in the correct place, address in address field, name in name field, fax in fax field etc. Very handy. It is well worth the money if you search for a job in a difficult metro area and have to harvest addresses from the yellow pages, from WebMD etc. Obviously it is good for many other things, such as building address databases for referrals, fund raising, other mailings etc. There is a more advanced version of this technology called “ListGrabber” which imports not only a single address, but a whole page of addresses, a "list", hence the name Listgrabber, all at once, with just one click. It costs over $250 and most likely it will not pay off if you are a single physician looking for a job. But it is good to know that it exists, you never know...If you are an employer with repeated need for recruitment data, this is the tool for you.
Then you write your cover letter in WinWord.
Go to the Mail Merge function. You find this under “Tools”, then “Letters and Mailings”, then Mail Merge. Follow the instructions WinWord gives you step by step. You write the master document, then insert the merge fields, then open the database and…merge. You can easily see and manage the merged letters with the “merge toolbar”, which you have to open.Then you print out all the 100 or 200 or 300 letters on white or off white or cream 24 lb paper. You get 100 or 200 or 300 copies of your CV done by you local Staples, Office Max etc.Then you choose white or clear Avery labels at Staples or Office Max for the address and for the “sender” information (that is your address). WinWord knows how to precisely deal with the size of these labels. You enter the number of the Avery label and Winword knows the size and formats the address information exactly for the label. Magic! Then you print the labels using the Mail merge function again. You then fold and stuff the letters in envelopes, have the envelope weighed at the post office, buy the correct stamps and stick them on. You drop all 300, 500 or 1000 letters off at the post office and Voila! Mass mailing. You almost have the job. Just don't ruin the interview!
There is a company that does all the hard work of the mass mailing for you: ‘TheDoctorJob.com”. Go to their website and read and browse. Here are some quotes: “We help more physicians find jobs than any recruiter or job board in the country, and the reason is simple: we work for you, not for the employer. Unlike a recruiter, we won't try to force you to work in a rural area. Most of our clients find jobs in their first geographic choice, and we can help you find a great job in any metropolitan area in the country. 99% of our clients find jobs, and we guarantee that you'll find a job or get your money back. Visit our website at http://www.thedoctorjob.com" or call us to talk about our services and get a price quote. You will find a job with The Doctor Job. We guarantee it.”
They charge about $1, 50 to $2, 00 for each letter sent, but this is not too much. For that amount they review your letter and CV, maybe improve it, they get the names, addresses etc, they merge the letters, print them and send them to you. You have to sign them, to stuff them into the envelops and to put stamps on them, which costs money at 39 -63 cents a stamp. The service provided by “The Doctor Job” is very reasonably priced at $ 2000 – $3500. If that is too expensive for you, do it yourself. I did the mass mailing and faxing myself, and it cost about $1000, but it was a lot of work. I did never regret it though.
There is another company that provides this service since late 2006: Doccafe.com, a website founded and run by a former in-house physician recruiter and a lawyer. Not bad overall, but they still live off recruiter ads...
Mass Faxing:Legal notice: Do Mass Faxing at your own risk and only after closely looking at the rules and regulations in the state you fax to! Unsolicited faxes are illegal in many states! I am not responsible for anything that happens to you as a result of mass faxing. You have been warned!
You buy the addresses from Info USA or WebMD, have your CV and cover letter (re)written by e.g. Quintessential, add a signature image at the bottom of the fax and then fax it to 10, 50, 100 or 1000 colleagues using JBlast.
Step by step: You get the fax numbers from the same list sources. You use the same cover letter and CV. You can either sit at home or at the office fax machine and manually fax the hundred or two hundred cover letters and CV copies.
You can mass fax using an Internet service provider called www.j2.com, who offers a fax broadcast service called Jblast. Jblast is great, since it is easy to operate and offers a Mail Merge function that works just like Mail Merge in MS Word. And is very reasonably priced. You can use your Word document and your CSV address and fax number list or your Excel address/fax number list.
I recommend using an Internet faxing service anyway, since you can get a personal fax number with an area code of your choice - yes an area code anywhere in the USA - and you can switch it at any time. Now you have a fax number that you can print on your CV. The advantage is that this fax number will follow you after you move and after you leave residency. This fax number is as portable as your yahoo, hotmail or Gmail email address. This is an advantage because employer can send you faxes even after you have moved away and still find you. Maybe this is the way you will hear about your dream job!
Important! Add a signature at the bottom of your fax. It makes it look a lot better, more realistic, more credible. I wrote my signature on a tablet computer, saved it as a file, emailed myself the file and pasted it into my word document between the "Sincerely" and my name at the bottom - voila!
Follow up!Believe it or not, your application is not that special! Yes, it may get lost, neglected, forgotten in the daily rush, put at the bottom of a pile, or it may just get thrown away for whatever reason. It therefore is a good idea to fax the same letter and CV or a slightly different, maybe shorter version - about 2 weeks later. Keep your cover letter and CV in front of your potential employers!
And of course, you could call the most interesting practices and ask to speak to the doctors. Always leave message that you called with your call back number. This is not the time to be shy! Squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Should you not get the right practice during the first mailing campaign, then try to mail to a larger group, let's say a wider area. Include one or two or three more counties, or a few more zip codes. Check the following: Are you sure that your CV is optimized? Is it really written by a professional? Have you made sure that Your letter arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday, when it has the highest chances of getting read?Or just try the same list again, who knows. Maybe this time they will actually open the envelope, maybe the practice situation has changed. Sometimes partners or associates or their husband or wives leave, sometimes people die or suddenly have to retire. So, just try again, I would recommend to repeat this every 4 months. It will work!
So, this is how you find a job! And where do recruiters fit in? The people who seem to have more websites and more presence on the web than Google and Yahoo? Once you know what you just read, you do not need them anymore. Behind every recruiter job posting is an employer that is desperate enough to be ready to pay $ 20,000 just to find someone.
Take charge, search actively and you get the job YOU want, not the job someone wants to sell you! Recruiters are...unnecessary for job seekers!
Most important - forget recruiters. Recruiters get paid to lure you to suboptimal positions that could not be filled through word of mouth or print advertising. Don't be fooled by recruiter advertising.
You want the best jobs and recruiters do not have them and cannot get them. If you have the slightest doubt about that: Have you ever seen a recruiter ad for a Harvard position? Or for that well running practice in downtown Boston with an office overlooking the harbor, in downtown San Diego, in downtown San Francisco, Los Angeles? Have you noticed that recruiter jobs always are located "one hour drive to..." or described with euphemisms such as "Easy access to" or "Near...". Once you look closer, you find that most recruiter jobs are located in less attractive areas and /or have other drawbacks such as high turnover, unpleasant work atmosphere, low salary, high buy ins, etc. The function of recruiters is to fill the less desirable jobs! And those are the jobs YOU do not want!
All the following recommendations assume that you know where you want to live, where you want to work and that you have written a truly impressive CV and cover letter that bring out your abilities and highlight your potential. Please see my past blog posts about these topics.
So, here are the ways to find a job YOU want: For the "executive summary", click here.
1. Network, using your personal contacts and beyond
2. Directly approach the hospitals in your desired area.
3. Direct Mail to all physicians in your desired area (the best method of all!)
1. Network
Consider your job search a marketing project for yourself. Apply marketing principles, use marketing tools and you will achieve great results.
This is not the time to be shy, not the time to be disciplined and withdrawn, this is the time to make yourself heard, to be clear and loud, to be relentless, untiring, persistent, this is the time to be pushy! "Squeaky wheel gets the oil!"
Talk to anyone who will listen more than 2 seconds and give them your "elevator pitch".Write an "elevator speech", meaning a one-minute talk to introduce yourself. State who you are, why you are good, what you have to offer to an employer and what you are looking for.
Practice the elevator speech and use it whenever you can. It will become easier and easier.
Here is an example: "Experienced, Board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with Yale training and multilingual skills – including fluent Spanish – seeking new practice opportunity in Boston to be closer to family. I have an active Massachusetts license and am available to start working in 3 months."
The elevator pitch is a short introduction to what you have to offer, what you can do for others. You say who who are, what you do, what you excel in and how you are different and better than others. You can end with a call to action, such as "and I can start in three months"
There are several website and even books that spell out how to write the elevator pitch.Print a business card (if you have Microsoft Publisher or something similar) with your phone number, fax number and your email address. Always carry it with you. Hand out this business card with your contact information as often as if possible. You could consider printing your elevator pitch on this card as well.
Start to network with your residency program director. It is part of his or her job to help you find a job. Then ask every single one of your attendings. Ask them if they know anybody who is looking or anybody with a practice you might like, or anybody wher you would fit in based on your personality and preferences.
Try to find out if there are any former alumni of your residency program in the area where you are searching. Having gone through the same residency makes you sympathetic to a doctor and gives you a psychological "foot in the door".
Ask your parents and grandparents and your in-laws to contact their primary care doctors, their cardiologists, their orthopedists etc. See if the doctors of your family know of a very busy attending that might need help, might need a new associate, that might have plans to expand his or her practice. Just following this recommendation I got two great referrals in no time exactly where I wanted it and with almost no effort. One of them of one of the best job offers I ever had.
Call your friends from medical school to see if they are in apposition to hire you or if their practices or departments are searching – you would have an automatic contact reference.
Ask distant relatives you have not talked to for 6 years to inquire at their doctors offices - and even speak to your present acquaintances.Tell them what you are looking for, where you want to be and what kind of practice you would like to join (you already have decided and formulated this after reading the first paragraph). Don’t make it too exclusive, or you will be left without a job and don’t be too flexible, because you will be abused by someone who just wants to earn money off your sweat.
You could also try to get contacts through social networking websites such as Friendster or other! There are no limits to how and where you market yourself. Think Guerrilla Marketing. If you do not know what guerrilla marketing is, read the classic book by Jay Levinson "Guerilla Marketing". He wrote and co-wrote a whole series of guerilla marketing books, including "Guerilla Marketiing for Job Seekers".
2. Actively contact the hospitals and their Ob/Gyn departments in your target area.
You can find all hospitals by going to MedLinePlus, then to "Directories", then to "American Hospital Association". There you can find hospitals by name, zip code and city. There are several other hospital directories you can search and you will find most of them at Pam Pohly's list of hospitals and directories.
Pam Pohly was a consultant before becoming a recruiter, which may explain why her website has so much useful information. By the way - recruiter websites usually do not have useful information. The only purpose of recruiter websites is to steer you to use their services.
The is a very inexpensive hospital directory for download for $97 at Doctorlistpro.com. If you plan to search hospital data a lot, it might be worth buying it.
Once you have the hospital contact data, call the hospital and ask for the Physician Relations person, Physician Liaison or the Network Development person. Ask for the phone, fax and email.
Obviously you can also check the hospital’s website. The following link is a fairly complete and reliable list of hospital websites:
http://neuro-www2.mgh.harvard.edu/hospitalwebusa.html
The usual providers of physician contact data lists (e.g. InfoUSA) all have lists of hospitals as well. The advantage of InfoUSA.com is their reasonable prices. And the fact that you can buy exactly as many or as few addresses as you need. You essentially only need the address of the administrative offices, and then address your inquiry letter to "Physician Liaison / Network Development".
While contacting hospitals and their departments you will encounter two opposite biases:
First bias: The doctors in your specialty will tell you: “There is no need here, we are all set here, we have too many doctors already, 10 years ago we were 5, now we are 13, it may look like a nice place to live, but believe me, it is a problematic place to practice! Why do you not look 100 miles further north or south, east or west, it’s much easier there, I happen to know someone there who is looking yadayadayada”. They obviously do not want more competition and are more or less openly trying to discourage you from coming. If they really wanted more physicians, they would already be hiring themselves!This is course does not mean that you do not have a chance. The local doctors maybe older, maybe all male, may not be that popular anymore, may have some political pressure against them and in reality you may have a pretty good chance of being successful in that particular community.
Second bias, quite opposite to the first bias: The hospital administration is always very enthusiastic and encouraging – they always need more people, there always seems to be room for one or even two or three more, “Yes, there clearly is a need, there is an opportunity, you will do well etc, etc, blah, blah. We can help you with this and that, with everything actually (except a salary of course, except with any money at all, the help usually stops at non-material things, and routinely the Stark rules are cited as a excuse). In fact they might be able to help you a lot with marketing, by providing information about the community, giving you lists of fellow doctors of other specialties, give you background info on the service area of the hospital etc. But the hospital does not care at all (!!) how much money you make, or if you make any money at all. Deep down they do not care if you are successful or not. They have in mind that every new doc means another warm body attracting more business to the hospital. Every new doc means more admissions to the hospital floors… and therefore much needed cash in their coffers.
The medical director often stands somewhere in between these two opposites, and it is often someone specially hired for that position (retired, semi-retired handicapped, working part time etc) and therefore frequently the best source of information. Medical directors usually are more neutral. So talk to the medical director and try to get crucial information:
How busy are the docs in your field, how is the population growing, which areas in town or in the county are growing and developing, which segment of the population is developing, are people moving in or out of the area, how is the industry doing? Are offices and factories closing or are companies flocking to town to open new ones? Real estate prices going up or down? That means people are coming into the area or are leaving the area…What does the future look like in the area?
Then get the names and addresses of the practices affiliated with the hospital and the names and addresses of the practices that are looking or might be looking and contact them directly by sending them you cover letter and CV.
3. And, finally, here is the most successful and least published method to find a job.
Loved by those who use it, despised by the recruiters that loose much of their attraction - if they ever had it. This is the very best way of getting any job anywhere, even in the very best, most attractive, most competitive locations.
Direct Mailing and / or Broadcast Faxing of your cover letter and CV!This is the most direct way of presenting your cover letter and CV to as many doctors as you want - in exactly the area where you want to be. You buy the names, addresses, phone and fax numbers of all the colleagues you might work for. Then you send them a letter, send them a fax or give them a call. Calling takes a lot of time, and therefore I recommend mailing or faxing.
The big difference that makes all this easy and feasible is the Internet with unparalleled access to physician contact information databases and the availability of Internet faxing. Something that was extremely time consuming 10 years ago, is now a snap. Applying to 400 physicians is now literally a project for one single weekend.
So, how do you do it? First you buy the physician addresses, the contact data. The sources for buying physician addresses and contact information, fax numbers, email addresses and numerous data about the practices are: InfoUSA.com, USdata.com, WebMD and MMS, the marketing arm of the American Medical Association. The AMA has been selling lists of their members for profit for a long time, and so far this service has mainly be used by pharmaceutical companies to help their reps.
Doctorlistpro.com is probably the most affordable list service. The drawback is that you have to buy in bulk, such as all doctors in one specialty for $297, all doctors in one state for $297, all doctors in all of the US $497, all hospitals in the US $97. Can't beat those prices, this is a lot cheaper then MMSlists.
Of all the data companies, I recommend InfoUSA.com, since you can buy all data directly online, with a very easy process. All other companies have a minimum number of data to buy, require a personal call, make you jump through hoops and restrict your use of the data. And Info USA offers the best prices.
Here is how to buy the addresses in detail.
Once you are on the website of InfoUSA.com, look in the center, go down and click on: "Doctors, Dentists and other medical lists". In the window that opens click on "Physicians and Surgeons Database" then check the specialties you are interested in, e.g "Obstetrics and Gynecology" and then, further down, check "office based". On the following page uncheck the specialties you are not interested in contacting, e.g. MFM, critical care obstetrics etc. On the next page, click on "select all members in office". Do not check the "fax number" box, since this will exclude doctors that have not listed a fax number. You want all the names and addresses and phone numbers! On the next page you can select the geographic area, whihc can be the whole country or just one zip code, or a radius of 500 miles around an address or just 10 miles. For example: you would like to join a practice within 15 miles of your parents home. Enter the address of your parents and select "20 miles". on the following page, leave everything unchecked, since it would only reduce your list. Then you get to review the list. Sould the list be too large, then choose a smaller geographic selection, or select by age or gender etc. Of course, you can also increase your list this wayOnce you are there, go to “physician lists”, and then follow the simple steps to select the doctors you want to contact. The price is 50 cents per address. Beats having to type it yourself. Info USA is the database which the other addresses and list providers get their data from. So, go to the source. InfoUSA will email you a list in CSV format, which you can import into Microsoft Outlook, Win Fax, Act, Excel or any “Contact Manager”. I would keep the original untouched in a safe place and import the data into your application of choice.
Here are a few additional tips:
You cold also buy or borrow the American Medical Association book or CD that contains all the addresses of doctors in the US. The CD costs about $1100 and does NOT allow downloading and exporting of the data into a database. Who knows, maybe you know someone, who knows someone who has the disk and would be willing to loan it to you for a weekend? The AMA is very big on restricting the use of their databases. They want to be sure to squeeze the maximum profit out of your good name.
WebMD sells booklets for $18 for each Metro area that contain ALL physician names, addresses and telephone numbers. You will have to buy a second booklet for the same area to obtain the fax numbers. The fax booklet will also cost you $18. Over all a lot cheaper than buying the electronic lists, but you will have to type in th addresses if you ant to use them on a large scale. I have used the booklets from WebMD only to confirm my database that I purchased from InfoUSA.
You should be familiar with a software program called “Address Grabber”. This is a very nifty tool to collect addresses, names, phone numbers from any electronic sources and insert them into your lists! It sells on the net as a download for $70. It allows you to “grab” and capture any address you see on your screen from any website, from any source with a single click. Very cool! If you can see it on your screen, you can transfer it to your database! Digest that fro a moment! You can produce your own lists!You highlight the address you want to grab on the Internet or in Word or in other software...and then transfer all that information into a contact manager such as Outlook or ACT! With a just a single click. The info will appear like magic in the correct place, address in address field, name in name field, fax in fax field etc. Very handy. It is well worth the money if you search for a job in a difficult metro area and have to harvest addresses from the yellow pages, from WebMD etc. Obviously it is good for many other things, such as building address databases for referrals, fund raising, other mailings etc. There is a more advanced version of this technology called “ListGrabber” which imports not only a single address, but a whole page of addresses, a "list", hence the name Listgrabber, all at once, with just one click. It costs over $250 and most likely it will not pay off if you are a single physician looking for a job. But it is good to know that it exists, you never know...If you are an employer with repeated need for recruitment data, this is the tool for you.
Then you write your cover letter in WinWord.
Go to the Mail Merge function. You find this under “Tools”, then “Letters and Mailings”, then Mail Merge. Follow the instructions WinWord gives you step by step. You write the master document, then insert the merge fields, then open the database and…merge. You can easily see and manage the merged letters with the “merge toolbar”, which you have to open.Then you print out all the 100 or 200 or 300 letters on white or off white or cream 24 lb paper. You get 100 or 200 or 300 copies of your CV done by you local Staples, Office Max etc.Then you choose white or clear Avery labels at Staples or Office Max for the address and for the “sender” information (that is your address). WinWord knows how to precisely deal with the size of these labels. You enter the number of the Avery label and Winword knows the size and formats the address information exactly for the label. Magic! Then you print the labels using the Mail merge function again. You then fold and stuff the letters in envelopes, have the envelope weighed at the post office, buy the correct stamps and stick them on. You drop all 300, 500 or 1000 letters off at the post office and Voila! Mass mailing. You almost have the job. Just don't ruin the interview!
There is a company that does all the hard work of the mass mailing for you: ‘TheDoctorJob.com”. Go to their website and read and browse. Here are some quotes: “We help more physicians find jobs than any recruiter or job board in the country, and the reason is simple: we work for you, not for the employer. Unlike a recruiter, we won't try to force you to work in a rural area. Most of our clients find jobs in their first geographic choice, and we can help you find a great job in any metropolitan area in the country. 99% of our clients find jobs, and we guarantee that you'll find a job or get your money back. Visit our website at http://www.thedoctorjob.com" or call us to talk about our services and get a price quote. You will find a job with The Doctor Job. We guarantee it.”
They charge about $1, 50 to $2, 00 for each letter sent, but this is not too much. For that amount they review your letter and CV, maybe improve it, they get the names, addresses etc, they merge the letters, print them and send them to you. You have to sign them, to stuff them into the envelops and to put stamps on them, which costs money at 39 -63 cents a stamp. The service provided by “The Doctor Job” is very reasonably priced at $ 2000 – $3500. If that is too expensive for you, do it yourself. I did the mass mailing and faxing myself, and it cost about $1000, but it was a lot of work. I did never regret it though.
There is another company that provides this service since late 2006: Doccafe.com, a website founded and run by a former in-house physician recruiter and a lawyer. Not bad overall, but they still live off recruiter ads...
Mass Faxing:Legal notice: Do Mass Faxing at your own risk and only after closely looking at the rules and regulations in the state you fax to! Unsolicited faxes are illegal in many states! I am not responsible for anything that happens to you as a result of mass faxing. You have been warned!
You buy the addresses from Info USA or WebMD, have your CV and cover letter (re)written by e.g. Quintessential, add a signature image at the bottom of the fax and then fax it to 10, 50, 100 or 1000 colleagues using JBlast.
Step by step: You get the fax numbers from the same list sources. You use the same cover letter and CV. You can either sit at home or at the office fax machine and manually fax the hundred or two hundred cover letters and CV copies.
You can mass fax using an Internet service provider called www.j2.com, who offers a fax broadcast service called Jblast. Jblast is great, since it is easy to operate and offers a Mail Merge function that works just like Mail Merge in MS Word. And is very reasonably priced. You can use your Word document and your CSV address and fax number list or your Excel address/fax number list.
I recommend using an Internet faxing service anyway, since you can get a personal fax number with an area code of your choice - yes an area code anywhere in the USA - and you can switch it at any time. Now you have a fax number that you can print on your CV. The advantage is that this fax number will follow you after you move and after you leave residency. This fax number is as portable as your yahoo, hotmail or Gmail email address. This is an advantage because employer can send you faxes even after you have moved away and still find you. Maybe this is the way you will hear about your dream job!
Important! Add a signature at the bottom of your fax. It makes it look a lot better, more realistic, more credible. I wrote my signature on a tablet computer, saved it as a file, emailed myself the file and pasted it into my word document between the "Sincerely" and my name at the bottom - voila!
Follow up!Believe it or not, your application is not that special! Yes, it may get lost, neglected, forgotten in the daily rush, put at the bottom of a pile, or it may just get thrown away for whatever reason. It therefore is a good idea to fax the same letter and CV or a slightly different, maybe shorter version - about 2 weeks later. Keep your cover letter and CV in front of your potential employers!
And of course, you could call the most interesting practices and ask to speak to the doctors. Always leave message that you called with your call back number. This is not the time to be shy! Squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Should you not get the right practice during the first mailing campaign, then try to mail to a larger group, let's say a wider area. Include one or two or three more counties, or a few more zip codes. Check the following: Are you sure that your CV is optimized? Is it really written by a professional? Have you made sure that Your letter arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday, when it has the highest chances of getting read?Or just try the same list again, who knows. Maybe this time they will actually open the envelope, maybe the practice situation has changed. Sometimes partners or associates or their husband or wives leave, sometimes people die or suddenly have to retire. So, just try again, I would recommend to repeat this every 4 months. It will work!
So, this is how you find a job! And where do recruiters fit in? The people who seem to have more websites and more presence on the web than Google and Yahoo? Once you know what you just read, you do not need them anymore. Behind every recruiter job posting is an employer that is desperate enough to be ready to pay $ 20,000 just to find someone.
Take charge, search actively and you get the job YOU want, not the job someone wants to sell you! Recruiters are...unnecessary for job seekers!
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