Are you competent to find your first job after residency or fellowship?

Finding the right job after your formal medical graduate medical education training requires following a process and having job finding competencies, in addition to your clinical and durable skills competencies, to land a position that will offer you satisfaction and success.

Here is a process to follow to land not just your first job, but subsequent ones too during your career transitioning as you navigate the various career crisis crossroads.

RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE

REFLECTION

RESEARCH

REVIEW YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN PROGRESS

REACH OUT TO RESOURCES, COACHES, MENTORS AND PEERS AND APPLY FOR JOBS

REALIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

After following these suggestions, you should be able to:

1. Define your values and priorities
2. Understand the differences between practice environments and cultures e.g. academic medicine, private large group, small group, or solo practice, large integrated delivery network employment, or state, local or national government jobs like county safety net hospitals or the VA or Indian Health Service.
3. Know how to apply for a certain job including whether and how to use a job placement firm or platform if applicable
4. Perfect your interview skills
5. Build a robust internal and external network
6. Negotiate a physician employment contract
7. Agree on potential employer business of medicine outcomes, timelines and expectations
8. Practice intrapreneurship and how to find a non-clinical job if it is allowable
9. Reach out to mentors, colleagues and professionals for help
10. Have Plan B
11. Build your personal brand and business model canvas
12. Have a personal financial plan
13. Sell yourself and other things
14. Be data/AI literate and data dextrous and use it to find a job
15. Understand the difference in income potential at various practice settings

Dating is a two-way street. We can give more personalized candidate information to employers, but what information are they giving to candidates beyond how much you will pay them?

Questions employers need to answer for candidates to help them make the right choice:

1. How are you using AI?
2. What are you doing to create a better doctor experience and reduce burnout?
3. Will I be allowed to spend time doing non-clinical career activities and keep the compensation for doing it?
4. What happens if I invent or discover something and want to get it to patients?
5. What will be my teaching and "service" responsibilities, and will I be compensated to do them?
6. How will you measure my performance?
7. How will I be rewarded for performance that exceeds expectations?
8. What are your state and local practice regulations that impact my ability to practice medicine? e.g. restrictive covenants and reproductive rights laws?
9. Will I get paid to take call?
10. How will you help my personal and professional development?
11. Who makes the decisions around here?

The first physician job search is a transition marker from trainee to independent practice, concluding with a multiyear contract potentially affecting one's entire career. It can be multifaceted and anxiety provoking for trainees, especially when done with limited guidance. This Rip Out outlines a deliberate approach to the process.

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Failed Startups Made These 7 Marketing Mistakes. Are you making the same ones looking for your first job after residency or fellowship? After all, getting your dream job is about marketing selling yourself to the right people.

The rise of generative AI in the workplace and students’ demands for more hirable talents are driving schools to revamp courses and add specialized degrees at speeds rarely seen in higher education. Schools are even going so far as to emphasize that all undergraduates get a taste of the tech, teaching them how to use AI in a given field—as well as its failings and unethical applications

Having clinical and emotional intelligence competencies are table stakes required in job descriptions.

Having the competencies to find a job is another gap in your education and training and is part of the hidden curriculum.

Make it part of your personal and professional development plan the first day of your residency.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack