Application tips

When you apply for your first job, you will certainly get so many calls from recruiter. You will be asked to fill 10 pages pre screening forms. Lots of time they will ask for your location preferences as well.

In my application process I learnt few tricks which I am sharing here. You can make your best judgements.

1. Never open your cards fully. Do mention your preferences but let them know that preferences do change based on your situation.

2. In terms of salary, do not mention that this is your upper limit, always let recruiters know your lowest acceptable pay but your upper limit is always something you need to negotiate after your interview is over and your tour is over.

3. Lots of recruiters will ask about where your family is largely located, give some vauge answers. If you let them know that your close family is in NY and you are trying for job in MD or NC, they will not put in great amout of efforts considering the fact that you would not prefer to move away from family.

4. Lots of them will ask if you have any other interviews and where. Let them politely know that, you can not divulge this information and it is not professionally right for them to answer such questions. I actually ended up having situation with one particular recruiter that after divulging this information my interview which was already scheduled got cancelled. I don't know what he shared with that particualr hospital.

5. Most of recruiters are nice but some are in only for the shake of money. For them once you are placed and stay for atleast 6 months they get hefty recruitment commission and that is so lucrative that many times they just tell you good things about the place which they represent. Make sure that you check out place on internet including location, local weather, local school system, patient population etc.

I hope this helps to fresh doctors who are graduating this June.



MDsuggests

1 comment:

ObGynThoughts said...

Dear MD Suggests:
I suggest not using physician recruiters at all, since their true function is to fill the less desirable jobs! Physician recruiters do not get the top jobs, they get the leftovers. Despite how they present themselves on their webistes, they are bottom-feeders. There are much, much better ways to find the good jobs, and those are: networking, approaching hospitals directly and direct mailing campaigns to multiple doctors and hospitals in the area you would like to live and work.
I have laid this out extensively in my blog "A Physician on Job Search, Career and Practice". I was happy to find your blog, since your goal is the same as mine: pass on the knowledge gained during job search, so that others do not have to suffer through the same nonsense that annoyed us