The Medical Job Process

If any of you know my husband you know he's a bit of an overachiever in the sense that he's extremely intelligent, so he achieves at higher levels than most of us mere plebeians.   He never mentions it, and you probably wouldn't even notice except for when conversing with him: his large vocabulary and uncanny ability to memorize and recall information give him away.

Joel is now in his last year of Fellowship and ninth year of medical training.  Joel told me that as a ten year wedding anniversary he would get his first real job.  Never were there more romantic words spoken!  He doesn't finish until June 30th of next year, but the applying for jobs started two weeks ago.

It's kind of a crazy process.  Since more than half the hiring is done without ever posting a job opening, a lot of it is word of mouth and randomly sending CVs to hospitals.  Since his focus is Oncology he needs to apply at Children's Hospitals.  Most states only have one or two Children's Hospitals unless it has a larger population.  We went through the states and determined where we felt we could afford to live on a pediatric salary (it's a third of adult specialties).  This pretty much cut out the major cities along the extreme coasts (ie. all of California, NYC, Boston, DC, etc.).  We also cut out a couple of cities we really didn't want to move to with young children or that were known for particularly poor schools.  This left us with a list of 30 hospitals.

Since each hospital is on its own time schedule in terms of hiring it's hard to coordinate interviews and job offers.  We could interview with one hospital and receive a job offer before hearing back from one we were more interested in, so you then have to weigh if you want to pass on the offer and hope something else comes up or not take any chances and take the offer.  For this reason, Joel and I decided to divide our list into Tiers.

Tiers 1 & 2: We knew about the programs, we're happy with the location, cost of living, school districts, and would have no reservations saying "yes" if we got a job offer.

Our original list:        

Tier 1:
Kansas City, KS
Columbus, OH
UNC, NC
Charlotte, NC
Duke, NC
Wake Forest, NC
Richmond, VA

Tier 2:
Syracuse, NY
Hershey, PA
Cincinnati, OH
Indianapolis, IN
Rochester, NY

Tier 3: We either didn't know much about the Oncology program or had some reservations about the location, climate, schools, etc.  Some of these also fell into this category, because I didn't like how far away they are from family.  We also weighed pretty heavily in our decision how far away an LDS Temple is located from each city (for example, it's 3 hours away from Pittsburgh).  For Tier 3 we would weigh really heavily whether or not we accept the offer before interviewing at other places.

Tier 3:
Charleston, SC
San Antonio, TX
Dallas, TX
Milwaukee, WI
Salt Lake, UT
Ann Arbor, MI
Norfolk,VA
Cleveland, OH
Dayton, OH
Louisville, KY
Grand Rapids, MI
Albuquerque, NM
Denver, CO
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, ME
Akron, OH
Minneapolis, MN
Vanderbilt, TN

The job search process has been particularly hard for Joel.  For someone who's usually successful at just about anything he decides to do, it's hard to continually get rejection emails.  It's really the first time he's repeatedly received the response of "no."   He sent CVs to the top two tiers two weeks ago and then sent out Tier 3 this week.  He has already received a "We're not hiring" or "We're not interested" from 10 of the 30 hospitals.

No:
Kansas City, KS
Charlotte, NC
Duke, NC
Syracuse, NY
Rochester, NY
Charleston, SC
Milwaukee, WI
Louisville, KY
Akron, OH
Minneapolis, MN

It's not completely unexpected, because we were told to expect about 4 interviews from the 30.  Most of the interviews begin in the Fall, so several hospitals have told him to contact them again in September or are still just collecting applications.  If they're not hiring it's not really personal, but it still doesn't feel very good to get rejection after rejection with only vague hopes of something working out somewhere else.

The following 10 hospitals have responded to Joel with varying levels of possibilitY:

Tier 1:
Columbus, OH- there's a possibility of creating a job specifically for him, but it's a long shot, because it has to be approved by the division chief and then pass through the hospital board

UNC, NC- there's possibly an opening, but they're not sure yet. He's supposed to check back in the end of August.

Wake Forest, NC- there's a possibility of an opening, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.  If there is one Joel has a good possibility of an interview.

Richmond, VA- they're getting a new program director September 1st and will be actively hiring, so he's supposed to contact them again mid-September.

Tier 2:
Hershey, PA- they're a long shot, because they're looking for someone with 4-5 years experience for the job they currently have open, but it they can't fill it then he'll be considered.

Indianapolis, IN- they haven't figured out their 2016 needs yet (which means there's not a pressing need, so this one is also only a slim possibility)

Tier 3:
San Antonio, TX- they have an opening they are actively collecting applications for that fits exactly what Joel wants to do, so he's really hopeful about this one.

Pittsburgh, PA- they will be interviewing later in the Fall, so they will contact Joel either way in a month or so.

Vanderbilt, TN- they are actively hiring and collecting applications, so he may get an interview request at some point.

The program with the most promise of an interview so far is actually Dallas, TX.  They contacted Joel right away and said they were hiring and asked him what his dream job description would be, so they could discuss if it was a possibility.  The program director cc:ed the scheduler on the email which means Joel most likely will be asked for at least a first interview.


This leaves 10 hospitals he still hasn't heard from.  Most of these hospitals he just barely sent his cover letters out to, so we probably will hear something in the next week or two.

Most hospitals go through a two interview process, so it's often long and drawn out.  Contracts aren't usually signed until late Winter/early Spring.  The truth of the matter is this process is going to drag out for several months, so I'm trying not to let it stress me out, but having a daily rejection email for the last two weeks has made the process a bit more ongoing in the painful process.  I'm hoping things will settle down once we've heard back from everyone and then can start to weed our way down to actual interviews.  I feel certain it will all work out, but the waiting and unknown factors tend to wear at me.  I'm feeling a bit calmer about the process at this point and am hopeful for things ahead.  I guess we'll see what happens as the process progresses.