Editor’s Note: Copyright © 2001 by Medical Economics. Reprinted by permission from Medical Economics magazine, http:www.memag.com. This article has been edited for length.
Neurologist Richard M. Ransohoff, MD, of Cleveland remembers when a colleague passed along a letter from a senior medical student in Denmark who was looking for a job in the United States. Ransohoff wasn’t interested in someone so junior, but since he happened to be going to a meeting in Norway, he agreed to meet the young doctor. Ransohoff was so impressed with the man that he hired him.
For physicians, job hunting conjures up thoughts of newspaper and journal ads, executive search firms, and, more recently, Internet job sites and bulletin boards. These methods of looking for a clinical position can work and should be part of any job seeker’s arsenal, but the most powerful way to locate and secure challenging and rewarding jobs is through direct contact with other people. Ransohoff summarizes the process of recruiting as “a guy knows a guy who knows a guy who needs a guy.”
William S. Beckett, MD, an internist at Finger Lakes Occupational Health Services in Rochester, N.Y., believes that searching for a job in medicine is a lot like looking for an apartment in New York City. “Everyone knows that the really cool apartments are found by word of mouth, not by looking at newspaper ads,” he says. “The same is true for clinical positions in medicine.”
Molly D. Shepard, president of Shepard Executive Resources in Philadelphia, concurs: “In counseling high-level executives and physicians, I have found that at least 85 percent of the really good, exciting jobs are found through personal contacts. There is no doubt that networking is the one key skill for any job hunter.”
Network with Everyone
Networking serves many functions: It can lead to discovery of available jobs, introductions to influential people in your field, and priceless feedback on how well you’re presenting yourself, how effective your resume is, and how realistic your goals are.
For networking to be most effective, you need to begin well before you’re ready to land a job. You also need to balance the give-and-take in these relationships. As psychiatrist Gigi Hirsch observes in Strategic Career Management for the 21st Century Physician, “If you develop a reputation as a ‘taker’ rather than a ‘sharer,’ your ability to network will be drastically diminished.” Realize that you are a potentially valuable resource for those you meet, and do what you can to reciprocate, she says.
Who’s good to network with? Everyone. People you meet in the course of your day, or identify by doing Internet research, or talk to on the phone, or know as an opinion leader in your field can all help. You can never tell who will lead you to your next job, as ob/gyn Janice B. Asher, MD, learned when she moved from Chicago to Philadelphia with her attorney husband. “Three teen-age girls welcomed us to the neighborhood with home-baked brownies,” she recalls. “We became friendly and had a nice talk. After I revealed my occupation, they returned to their house to tell their father, who immediately rushed over and started recruiting me for his hospital. He was an internist who knew that the ob/gyn department desperately needed doctors.”
But networking is seldom that passive. “You really have to work at not becoming insulated in your daily cocoon,” says Hirsch, founder of MD IntelliNet, a firm in Brookline, Mass., that helps physicians diversify their careers. “Join clubs and associations that introduce you to people other than your colleagues in a particular specialty. Periodically take CME courses that don’t relate to your specialty. Keep your feelers out.”
Hirsch recalls one physician with expertise in alternative medicine who made a deliberate effort to become known to the key players of the healthcare system he worked for. As a result of his efforts, he was nammed director of all alternative medicine initiatives across the entire system.
Of course, your peers can be helpful, too. The colleague you schmooze with at those annual meetings may provide you with just the right information at just the right moment. That’s what happened to pathologist John D. Olson, MD, when he and his family decided to leave Iowa in search of a warmer climate. “I started my search on the Internet by looking at the job bulletin board on the Web site for the American Society for Investigative Pathology,” says Dr. Olson. “One listing was for director of clinical laboratories at the University Health System in San Antonio, and I sent in an application.”
After hearing nothing for months, Dr. Olson assumed the position had been filled. But when talking with a fellow pathologist in Arizona he had known for years, he learned the position was still available. Dr. Olson called the chair of pathology in San Antonio to express his continued interest and eventually landed the job.
Keith Pryor, a Philadelphia-based consultant and career counselor, encourages job seekers to keep in touch with a network of contacts by e-mail, and to cold-call influential leaders in a particular field. “Most people are willing to talk with a fellow professional who calls up for 15 minutes of mentoring,” he says. “Who can resist giving advice and being regarded as an expert?”
Can You Find a Position Using the Net?
Networking isn’t the only job-hunting strategy, of course. In addition to scanning newspapers and professional journals, doctors are increasingly turning to the Internet to ferret out job openings. However, plum opportunities are rarely advertised on the Web, and even if they are, you’ll face stiffer competition than if you learn about the job from a contact before it’s advertised. Still, using the Web may give you a slight edge in getting your CV in front of employers who advertise in medical journals if the journal routinely runs online classifieds before putting them in print. The New England Journal of Medicine https://www.nejm.org (careerlinks), for instance, gives its registered members the option of receiving e-mail job alerts of new openings before they’re listed in print or online.
If you’re just beginning your search, browse the Web sites for your specialty society and the larger recruiters such as Cejka & Company (www.cejka.com) , CompHealth (www.comphealth.com) , Merritt, Hawkins & Associates (www.merritthawkins.com) , and Weatherby Health Care (www.whcfirst.com) . Also consult the Medical Economics Career Center site at (www.memag.com) or (www.hospitalhub.com/medec). In addition to job listings, you may find current physician compensation surveys, CV writing tips and other career information.
The Web can also help job seekers research specific employers, jobs, or geographic locations or obtain information on potential networking contacts.
The Value of Recruiters
Recruiters are another way to supplement job-hunting efforts. Just remember that recruiters make their money from employers, so that’s where their loyalty lies-no matter what they tell you. And don’t look to them for long-term career counseling or to answer questions such as, “How do I leave practice and get a job in administration?” Those questions are better addressed to a career coach or counselor.
Recruiters may have leads that you couldn’t easily get elsewhere. Or they may not. “When I’ve engaged recruiters to find someone for my practice, they’ve tended to present the same candidates who contacted me after reading my ad in The New England JJournal of Medicine,” complains pulmonologist Ira P. Krefting, MD, from Silver Spring, Md. Most recruiters work on either contingency or retainer. The contingent firms typically recruit for lower-paying positions, and they don’t have an exclusive contract for the jobs they seek to fill. “Rarely do they have an opening in a prestigious practice in a metropolitan or suburban area,” says Dr. Krefting.
On the plus side, recruiters are good at providing valuable information and setting up interviews, Dr. Krefting says. They should be able to provide the information you need, for instance, to determine whether a community is right for you. Realize, too, that the quality of recruiting firms varies greatly. To size up the firm, he says, ask how many doctors the firm places annually, how long doctors stay in those positions, and whether recruiters visit a practice before advertising it.
Kent Bottles, MD, is a pathologist and president of a biotechnology firm in Cambridge, Mass., that has run physician workshops on career change.