Best way to tackle nationwide job hunt with partner in medicine

[Merovinge]

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Wondering for folks who have had a broad job hunt if anyone had recommendations for either A) reasonable recruitment firm B) strategy to find places to cold call/look for jobs online.

I'm looking about a year out and have plenty of lead time but am trying to devise an ideal strategy. I do not like external recruiters, but given that my wife and I have possible interest in around 10+ different metro areas I am also concerned with the effort involved in finding positions. Complexity obviously increases significantly as we would ideally both find jobs in the same area prior to the move. I've got Excel ready and I'm prepared to grind through the process, just interested if anyone has tips. I do have medium term aspirations to transition to a private practice model, but would want to be secure in the area and know local resources well before considering this so I don't believe it should impact the initial employed job search significantly.

 

[BiscoDisco]

Very interested in hearing about the cold calling approach.

 

[Sushirolls]

Wife locks in job.
You open up practice immediately.
Forget learning the local resources. You are C&A.
Problem solved.
Bigger issue is if wife realizes her job sucks and needs to change... that's the real dilemma.

 

[Merovinge]

Wife locks in job.
You open up practice immediately.
Forget learning the local resources. You are C&A.
Problem solved.
Bigger issue is if wife realizes her job sucks and needs to change... that's the real dilemma.

I strongly agree with making sure we A) like the area and B) she likes her job. I've found even a few years of quality work in an area makes a big difference with name recognition and I plan to be cash only, so I expect to go from full time employed to part-time employed/part time PP and transition naturally. I appreciate the vote for jump head first into the deep end vote of confidence, still planning on my graduated exposure though .

 

[Merovinge]

Very interested in hearing about the cold calling approach.

If you are talking about a single area, particularly smaller cities, it is not a huge obstacle to call every place that conceivably needs or already hires psychiatrists. At our current location, I called the university, the only private psychiatry practice in the area, the inpatient units, health care systems, and even the local prisons, just to get an idea of what options exist. I had secretaries that nearly went into shock when I introduced myself, but most people find away to pass you along to someone to speak to. There are clearly huge barriers to doing this for even one large metro compared to a town, much less several.

 

[BiscoDisco]

If you are talking about a single area, particularly smaller cities, it is not a huge obstacle to call every place that conceivably needs or already hires psychiatrists. At our current location, I called the university, the only private psychiatry practice in the area, the inpatient units, health care systems, and even the local prisons, just to get an idea of what options exist. I had secretaries that nearly went into shock when I introduced myself, but most people find away to pass you along to someone to speak to. There are clearly huge barriers to doing this for even one large metro compared to a town, much less several.

I would likely be doing this in one of the two large cities in SoCal after graduation. Would this approach be less likely to work in this environment?

 

[FlowRate]

I would likely be doing this in one of the two large cities in SoCal after graduation. Would this approach be less likely to work in this environment?

Well that transitions naturally into my recommendation to hit up Kaiser, if appropriate for the metro areas OP is talking about.

 

[BiscoDisco]

Well that transitions naturally into my recommendation to hit up Kaiser, if appropriate for the metro areas OP is talking about.

Ugh, Kaiser sounds like such a terrible place to work. Seems like its 90% outpatient med management.

 

[FlowRate]

Ugh, Kaiser sounds like such a terrible place to work. Seems like its 90% outpatient med management.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for. That's true of most (not inpatient) employed psychiatrist jobs.

 

[NewmansOwn]

With psychiatrists so in demand, cold calling works perfectly. Actually, since the vast majority of jobs aren't advertised broadly/nationally, it's probably the superior approach.

I looked a lot of places coming out of residency, and my approach was to simply call a hospital or clinic, say I was a psychiatrist on the market, and ask to speak to whomever was in charge of mental health at the institution. I was never turned down. Many chiefs/division managers/program directors had the somewhat bemusing attitude of "Well sure, we could absolutely use another psychiatrist," as if the idea had never before occurred to them but they loved it.

Hence, I suppose, why many jobs aren't advertised.

 

[Sushirolls]

These days the Big Box Shops, you'll get a positive response. But then the reality of the Bureaucracy sets in... we'll need to go up the admin tree to pitch the idea of expanding Psychiatry. Then with already poorly run hospitals, and medical groups, some one will say no, let's wait. We don't need more psych, you guys are already losing money or barely even breaking even. Now with Covid, some places have put more of a hiring freeze on their departments. But if a place has the positive moment to actually open/create a spot, you are looking at several months before they put it all together, and in the budget cycle projections, etc and actually post a position.

You will likely have better luck cold calling smaller places and practices first.