How do I stand out as a new grad fresh out of residency applying for a hospitalist job?

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Sarcoid_Sorcerer

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I graduate IM residency in roughly a year and a half and will probably start to apply for hospitalist jobs in about 6-9 months from now.

I’m currently training at a university program in the Midwest but want to eventually move back home to Southern California to work as a hospitalist. I have a few questions about the best way to go about doing so:

1. What are employers looking for when it comes to hiring new grads? How do they tell people apart, aside from the interview itself where they can assess your interpersonal skills? I imagine they don’t really care about publications, or board exam scores, or extracurricular activities, so how do I stand out as an applicant? Is there anything I can be doing right now while I’m still in residency to appear more competitiv?

2. Do academic hospitals have different hiring criteria than community hospitals? Let’s say that for some reason I was dead set on somehow landing a job as an academic hospitalist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, what should I be doing now to make myself the ideal candidate for this type of position? Are academic positions typically more competitive than community positions, or do they tend to be easier to land because the salaries are lower?

Thanks in advance for any feedback. My program gives us like zero guidance on how to apply for jobs, and it feels like they just expect us all to go into fellowship which is not always what people want to do.

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I graduate IM residency in roughly a year and a half and will probably start to apply for hospitalist jobs in about 6-9 months from now.

I’m currently training at a university program in the Midwest but want to eventually move back home to Southern California to work as a hospitalist. I have a few questions about the best way to go about doing so:

1. What are employers looking for when it comes to hiring new grads? How do they tell people apart, aside from the interview itself where they can assess your interpersonal skills? I imagine they don’t really care about publications, or board exam scores, or extracurricular activities, so how do I stand out as an applicant? Is there anything I can be doing right now while I’m still in residency to appear more competitiv?

2. Do academic hospitals have different hiring criteria than community hospitals? Let’s say that for some reason I was dead set on somehow landing a job as an academic hospitalist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, what should I be doing now to make myself the ideal candidate for this type of position? Are academic positions typically more competitive than community positions, or do they tend to be easier to land because the salaries are lower?

Thanks in advance for any feedback. My program gives us like zero guidance on how to apply for jobs, and it feels like they just expect us all to go into fellowship which is not always what people want to do.
Don’t really know that you really need to to do much.
You could go to SHM meeting and see if there are any networking opportunities…usually there will be an employment area at these meetings.
ACP would be another meeting to go to.
 
I graduate IM residency in roughly a year and a half and will probably start to apply for hospitalist jobs in about 6-9 months from now.

I’m currently training at a university program in the Midwest but want to eventually move back home to Southern California to work as a hospitalist. I have a few questions about the best way to go about doing so:

1. What are employers looking for when it comes to hiring new grads? How do they tell people apart, aside from the interview itself where they can assess your interpersonal skills? I imagine they don’t really care about publications, or board exam scores, or extracurricular activities, so how do I stand out as an applicant? Is there anything I can be doing right now while I’m still in residency to appear more competitiv?

2. Do academic hospitals have different hiring criteria than community hospitals? Let’s say that for some reason I was dead set on somehow landing a job as an academic hospitalist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, what should I be doing now to make myself the ideal candidate for this type of position? Are academic positions typically more competitive than community positions, or do they tend to be easier to land because the salaries are lower?

Thanks in advance for any feedback. My program gives us like zero guidance on how to apply for jobs, and it feels like they just expect us all to go into fellowship which is not always what people want to do.
Would try networking as much as you can in the specific area you would like to work. For example, reach out to recruiters who who recruit for the hospital systems you are potentially interested in working at, so they have you on the list of potential candidates by the time you apply should a position be open at that time. The more desirable jobs, especially in Southern California, will probably fill quickly (and some maybe even internally by word of mouth) and there may be a wait list to work at certain more desirable hospitals. Otherwise you may get stuck with poor pay and poor conditions or in less desirable positions (eg nocturnist positions are usually harder to fill so you tend to see more of those open).

The more academic hospitalist jobs (eg those that are tenure track faculty positions and work directly with a teaching service from the start), will be most competitive to get. These probably involve a some track record of academic/scholarly work related to inpatient medicine and strong LORs from your residency program director, or doing a chief residency year. There will also be positions where you are employed by an academic health system but your job isn't really academic at all, and pretty much just clinical service oriented (ie covering a non-teaching service); the type of position is nearly the same as what you would do at a community hospital. These positions may be less competitive to get, but I would be careful about these jobs as many will take advantage of their status as an academic institution and pay new grads an academic medicine rate while still expecting their clinical productivity to be on par with a typical private community hospitalist volume.
 
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Most community places are really just looking for a warm body to plug holes in their schedules. Academic places can be a bit more choosy but if you want to be on the non-teaching side, they also are looking for warm bodies with a bit more of an academic bent.
 
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