By Jennifer Anne Hohman
The complex journey from program to practice is different for everyone but navigating it with grace and a little less stress is possible! These pearls for a first PA job search have been gathered over years of working one-on-one with new PAs and I hope they will be helpful for you as a recent graduate.
Pearl 1: Follow Your Passion and Personal Mission in Medicine
The PA educational journey may have changed your thoughts about where you’d like to practice. Remember why you decided to become a PA (re-read your application essays!) and also reflect on how your vision changed through your educational process. The spark that kept you going through the rigors of your program can help propel you to a great first position. The key is to know yourself and what role(s) in medicine inspire you, even if it gives you different career goals from your peers. I recommend visiting AAPA’s Areas of Practice Guide for information on some of the most popular PA specialties and non-clinical career paths.
Pearl 2: Clinical Rotations are a Vital Job Search Resource
Assess your rotation experience and reflect on the most successful ones. What do these experiences tell you about your interests and abilities? This is helpful information with which to direct your first job search.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to your preceptors to ask for recommendations, references, and job leads. These clinicians know you. They have insight into your abilities and personal qualities, and can therefore make meaningful recommendations on your behalf. They are typically knowledgeable about positions that may be a good fit for you. Connect with all the clinicians you worked well with and learned from during your rotations—and keep in touch! You can also follow institutions where you did rotations on LinkedIn and PA JobSource to keep track of new openings and opportunities.
Pearl 3: Make your Professional Materials Polished and Expressive
I find that my new graduate clients tend to make greater traction with potential employers after we have enhanced their professional materials, especially cover letters, with interesting highlights of their clinical experience in the form of a brief but compelling success story/anecdote. Ideally this will correspond to the employer’s specialty, but it does not have to. Dedicate a short paragraph in your cover letter to a highlight from your PA education: a patient encounter that stands out in your memory, a formative experience that confirmed for you the rightness of a particular specialty/setting/role. People respond to stories—share one that lets you shine.
Pearl 4: Your Network Expands Your Employment Possibilities
Beyond your valuable preceptorship contacts, people you know from your friend and family circles, as well as former clinical (and non-clinical) workplaces, can yield valuable intelligence about openings. The old adage about the importance of who you know in the job search process is often correct—relationships are vines that can blossom into introductions to hiring managers. Nurture accordingly!
Attending job fairs (virtual and in-person), professional conferences held by organizations (AAPA, medical specialty and PA state organizations) ,and other events held by employers are another way to expand your professional community. Get names, introduce yourself, and follow up with a LinkedIn connection and conversation.
Pearl 5: Recruiters Can Help Connect You to Employers
Recruiters are especially valuable in helping new graduates connect with potential employers at a time in their career when they do not yet have a rich network to draw upon. A recent new graduate I worked with opened up new connections to interviews by working skillfully with recruiters. Here are his helpful insights:
For job postings that provided a recruiter’s email, I directly emailed my resume and cover letter to the recruiter, often alongside my formal application on the company’s website. The majority of my initial interviews came from roles where I was able to contact a recruiter directly. So, if you are given a recruiter’s email address on the application page, I highly recommend contacting them, even if you apply formally on the website. I even had a couple of them promptly contact me to say why I wasn’t a good fit, which was nice to get immediate feedback.
Pearl 6. Identify Priorities but Retain Strategic Flexibility
Effective first job searches are rooted in self-understanding: having a sense for which paths in medicine are good fits for your personality, aptitudes, and interests. That said, it’s wise to identify secondary/alternate pathways that you can explore. This also applies to locations where you cast your search net. You may not be able to match each of your goals in the areas of specialty, location, and salary—but by staying flexible on some of these fronts, you are more likely to launch your career within your targeted time frame.
AAPA’s annually updated Salary Report is a very helpful resource for setting salary goals and researching key benefits. Knowing your salary targets and which benefits are the most important to you will empower your negotiations. I recommend studying the report’s many customizable findings to gain clarity and confidence about current industry standards.
Jennifer Anne Hohman is the founder of PA Career Coach, a service to help PAs create healthy and fulfilling careers. Contact her at [email protected] with your career questions and for individualized career and contract negotiation support.