Healthcare IS Blog

When I'm talking with people about their career options, the subject of consulting frequently enters into the conversation. Many times, they just aren't sure if consulting is for them. In these situations, I try to give them a starting point, in order to determine if it's a path they should explore further.

I want to share a conversation I had with a consultant, who, for the sake of this post, we’ll call Bob. Bob asked me for my advice regarding a contract he found on his own.

When looking for work, it’s understandable that you want to make sure your resume is getting in front of the right people and you’re not missing out on any good opportunities. However, when working with a recruiting firm, it’s also important to know to whom your resume is going, as well as for what position you’re applying and/or being considered. 

As a contract consultant, every six to 12 months, on average, you’re going to have to transition off of one contract and start another. From time to time, this can be difficult to manage. The challenge can arise when you have 30 days left on your current contract and a new one-year contract becomes available a week or two before your contract ends. It can be difficult to stay two more weeks at your current engagement, knowing that it will soon be over, and having to pass up on a new contract that can secure your income for the next year. So, how do you handle this situation? What can you do ahead of time to make the transition from your current contract as smooth as possible so that you don’t 1) miss out on the new one-year project and 2) do not leave your current client in a bind?

When managing their careers, people in the healthcare IT marketplace are faced a unique challenge: limited options compared to people in other industries.

Whenever we look to bring a contractor onto a project on which we’ve never worked before, we have to discuss compensation. Unfortunately, many new contractors are not prepared to have this conversation. Anyone can discuss what he or she wants to make. What I’m talking about is being able to have that discussion in a professional, credible manner.

What’s better, a two-year contract or four six-month contracts? Well, it depends. In keeping with what I discussed in a recent post, there are two types of contractor mentalities: The “get a job” consultant (GAJC) will, nine times out of ten, be more attracted to the two-year contract. This person isn’t thinking about a long-term career in consulting; he or she is thinking about a very well paying contract with the convenience of limited travel. If you add the fact that he or she won’t have to be concerned with looking for another contract for up to two years, well, things just couldn’t get much better.

First, let me clarify what I mean, in the title of this post, by “security.” I’m referring to the money you will have to pay your bills and take care of your family. There are many reasons to join a consulting firm as an employee. Typically, joining a consulting firm due to the perceived security of bench-time pay is not one of them.

Can being happy at your job be bad for your career?  Well, that depends what your mindset is when you are happy with your job.  And for a good percentage of people, it definitely is.

In past posts, I've discussed the difference between firms that hire consultants and those that place consultants on a contract basis. There are firms that hire consultants as salaried employees and pay them whether they're working or not (bench time), and firms that bring on consultants and pay them hourly for the term of the project. There are also some firms that do both.

In a previous blog post, How to Price Yourself In Health IT Contracting, we discussed how to calculate the minimum hourly rate you need as a contractor in order to know that you’re making a sound financial decision.

As managing partner of a healthcare IT consulting/staff augmentation firm, I’m always having conversations with people who are looking to enter the consulting marketplace.

The term "bench time" refers to the time spent in between engagements as a consultant while working for a consulting firm.

In consulting, professionals face a dilemma when it comes to working as a generalist in their field or focusing as a specialist.

Things change. It’s that simple.

As a consultant, you're going to be traveling weekly. Some of the associated costs can be covered up-front by your firm; other costs you'll have to cover yourself and be reimbursed by your firm. 

When you are considering taking a contract, many people know to consider the following:

• Is the project a good fit to your skill set?
• How will you fit in culturally with the group at the hospital?
• How much will the position pay?
• What is the expense reimbursement policy?
• What will the travel be like? How long will it take in travel time to get to the client site each week? 
• How often will you be required to travel to the client site? 
• Will they have flexibility if it is necessary for you to work from home occasionally?

When joining a consulting firm, it's important to understand where your skill set and knowledge base fall within their overall focus. Many pharmacists or pharmacy professionals join consulting firms only to realize that even though they signed on to participate in an exciting first project, that project was an exception for the firm, rather than the norm.

As part of their day-to-day job descriptions, hospital IT employees typically have a number of different responsibilities. Most of those responsibilities can be filed in one of two categories: “new project implementation” or “support-type functions.” If you prefer one area over another, you probably can’t image how anyone could like the other area. Many people like the “new project” side because of the satisfaction they get from beginning something new, having a timeline to follow, and seeing a fresh solution implemented within their organization. People who like the “support side” derive satisfaction from working on an immediate problem-fix as well as being a go-to person who keeps things running smoothly. Some people like the variety of having a long-term project on which to focus while, at the same time, dealing with support issues that allow them to have a day-to-day sense of immediate accomplishment. Either way, there’s a multitude of variations out there to keep team members challenged.

What do I mean by this title? What I mean is this:

Given the limited options available to the pharmacy IT or pharmacy informatics professional in any given marketplace, it can be challenging to acquire the experience necessary to advance your career. If you live in a city with only two or three hospital IT or informatics departments, the opportunity for you to gain exposure to career options can be limiting. If you’re currently an informatics pharmacist or IT pharmacist, and you’d like to become a project leader or be in a management/director role in the future, the options you have within your current organization or any of the others in your local market may be restricting. 

Most people don’t like change. At the same time, most people don’t like to perform the same mundane tasks day after day, week after week. This paradox can be challenging for the pharmacy IT/pharmacy informatics professional, or for any professional for that matter. 

Our firm focuses on pharmacy informatics. It’s a tight niche with a very specific skill set. Our clients are seeking a pharmacist with extensive experience implementing and using their pharmacy IT software. They will send us a very detailed job description that lists bullet point after bullet point of skills and experience for which they’re looking. In many ways, it’s helpful to have a detailed understanding of what they want. However, oftentimes this will hinder the search internally. 

There are people who work for a consulting firm who come to the conclusion that consulting is not for them. This is understandable. What’s unfortunate is when they feel that consulting is not for them when, in fact, the consulting firm they work for is not the right firm for them.

As you consider a career in Pharmacy IT/informatics you're most likely going to do as much research as you possibly can.

In the 15 years Healthcare IS has been in staffing and recruiting for the health information technology industry, we have found three key points that can terminate a successful career.

Compensation Classification

When transitioning from permanent employment to contract consulting in healthcare IT you need to understand how to price yourself so that you are making a sound financial decision.

In our previous SlideShare presentation we outlined three crucial mistakes that can lead to a short career in contracting, the very first being pricing and budgeting. In this post we hope to address the issue of how to calculate your rate while considering every aspect of working independently.

This is our second podcast in a series about working as a consultant in the healthcare IT industry and talking about the differences between working for a consulting firm and being an independent consultant. Our guest today is Jerry Queen. Jerry comes from the health insurance payer side of healthcare; many of our guests in the past have been on the hospital provider side. He has 25 total years of experience working in the payer IT space with three different health plans, 11 of those years in consulting. He primarily provides his expertise in operational management, configuration management, system integration and operational leadership for payers in the IT area.

If you fail to do the three things listed below prior to an interview, chances are you’ll not be offered the job. 

David Stansbury gives his insight in this month’s Healthcare IS podcast. Listen in and hear David’s experience in working as a pharmacist in IT, making transitions and what he’s observed in the last 30 years of his experience.

When it comes to making a career move, everyone’s motivation is different.

At the most basic level, the definition of a consultant is "a person who provides expert advice professionally."

As an independent contractor whose current project is coming to an end, you're going to be talking with staffing firms about projects they have coming up for which you may be a good fit. If a particular project sounds like a good fit, the firm with which you’re talking will present you to the client. At that point, whether you’re their W-2 employee or a Corp-to-Corp, you’re being represented by that company. As far as the client is concerned, you’re part of the organization that’s representing you.

Breaking Away From Your Firm

When you're an employee of a consulting firm and you're thinking about getting into contracting, one of the challenges you'll face is being able to break away from that firm in a smooth manner.

Very often when I am talking with people about their career options the thought of consulting enters into the conversation. Many times, people just aren't sure if consulting is for them. In these situations, I try to give them a starting point in order to determine if consulting is a path they should explore further.

Today's topic concerns something I'm asked quite often. When speaking to people who are working at a hospital and are thinking about getting into contracting, I'm commonly asked, “How do you price yourself in terms of the hourly rate you should be earning?”

Over the years, we’ve followed four main trends in a professional’s decision to transition from a career as a salaried employee to the lifestyle of an independent consultant. Consultants typically work at a higher rate due to the requirements involved, but also because of their scarcity. In order to work successfully as a contract consultant you need to fully understand what motivates you as a professional and what you can take away personally from this career option.

You can probably find more books, articles, and blogs on the subject of job interviews than on virtually any other topic. There are the basics of the process that should be well known — what to wear, when to show up, how to follow up, etc. — and which I will not cover in this post. I would like to focus, instead, on the 20% of the interview that is going to create 80% of your value. I simply want to talk about how to respond to questions.

When you’re in consulting, you’re offering your knowledge and skills as a service to organizations in need of that specific expertise.

Contractors frequently express that their #1 fear is not being able to find their next contract. It’s only natural for people dealing with that concern to look for ways to acquire as many skills as possible, in the hope of casting a broad net over contracts for which they can apply.

What I’ve found, over the years, is that there are two types of contractors: “Get a Job” Contractor (GAJC) & “Build a Practice” Contractor (BAPC).

“Get a Job” Contractor

When this type of contractor is looking for their next contract, dollar amount and travel convenience are their top priorities. The more money being paid and the less travel required, the better. This person gives little thought to the type of work or project. They fail to consider how this project will either increase or decrease their marketability for the next project. 

What’s the difference? If someone is "Career Oriented," they have an idea as to what type of position they want to be in down the road (timeframe can vary) and have an idea as to what they need to learn or accomplish in order to be qualified for that position. A "Job Oriented" person is someone who focuses more on their satisfaction with the job they are in today AND for the most part will not consider another job unless they become dissatisfied with their current position.

When evaluating taking a contract, many people will take into consideration the following:

Things are hot in the Healthcare IT marketplace today. As a result, many people I speak with think they need to leverage this demand and attempt to increase their compensation while the going is good. So, how do you make the most of this hot market? Can you just walk into your manager’s office and tell them how much demand there is for your skills and request, or demand, an increase in salary? I guess you could, but what if your manager says, “I would love to increase your salary, but we just don’t have it in the budget.”

Nothing can be more disruptive to an organization’s plans than the loss of key personnel. As a result, many times partnering organizations, vendor/clients, client/client, and even competing organizations will put in place formal and informal “agreements” to not hire each other’s employees. These types of agreements have existed for many years within various industries, Healthcare IT certainly being one of them. In fact, over the past couple of years, some Healthcare IT vendors and consulting firms have been very aggressive in establishing policies as it relates to hiring practices.

When looking to get into a new marketplace in which you think there will be high demand, you'll want to consider a few factors:

• How difficult will it be to break into the new market?

• How long will demand last?

• Will you be better off than if you were to remain in your current market?

After consultants have been with a firm for about two to three years, most will stop for the first time and evaluate where they are in regard to their ability to continue traveling on a weekly basis. Put another way, if a consultant is going to burn out on constant traveling, this is typically when it will occur.

7 Hard Hitting Interview Questions for Consultants

A while back we turned to Twitter & Facebook and asked our followers to share with us their worst interview questions. We ended up some pretty funny responses. When it comes down to it, we've all had some ridiculous interview questions thrown our way. What helps us to address these odd ball topics and hard hitting questions is simple. Preparation. In an attempt to share what we know here  at Healthcare IS we put together the following questions that we come across and advice on how to thoughtfully answer them.

As a consultant, you need to know your sellable skill set, or knowledge base. Just as importantly, you have to be able to package yourself in a way that the people who are buying your services will be comfortable engaging you.

I decided to write this particular post as a result of being asked the same question by several consultants over the last two years.

Frequently, people looking to get into contracting don’t have a true understanding of what the Health IT marketplace has to offer in terms of money and required travel. It’s very important to have a realistic understanding of these two criteria in order to work consistently. What I see often is someone waiting to leave their full-time job for a contract that will meet their terms. On the surface, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, it’s exactly what you should do.

Many people get into contracting for different reasons.  Some of those reasons I discussed in a previous post titled Guide to Successfully Working as a Consultant in the Healthcare IT Industry

Contracting can be a bit tricky.  You need to keep your current client happy, be on the lookout for your next engagement, while at the same time making sure you attain or maintain a skill set and knowledge base that will continually keep you marketable.

I have been talking with many consultants who work for consulting firms that are thinking about becoming a contractor.  It's natural for people who are considering this change to have some apprehension.  Because of this I wanted to take a minute to highlight the 3 common characteristics I see in successful contractors.

As a contractor (a consultant who works on a contract-to-contract basis, as opposed to an employee of a firm), you will engage in regular phone calls with firms that place people such as yourself on projects.

Having been in the executive recruiting business for 30-plus years, I can’t help but notice certain commonalities among top performers. These fundamental traits, which never seem to change, are integrated with a value/belief system that gets results. Let’s look at what makes the great ones get to the top and stay there.

Most the time, when discussing salary and/or hourly rate, people state an amount that they desire to make, accompanied by what they're currently making - adding that they would not want to go below that. Certainly, this makes sense. But are there exceptions to this rule? Are there times when taking less money may make more sense?

When you join a consulting firm you may be asked to sign pre-employment documents. You’ll receive the standard forms, such as W-4, I-9, etc.

A while back, Healthcare IS interviewed seven pharmacists who have successfully transitioned from the role of a traditional inpatient pharmacist to that of an IT or informatics pharmacist. The pharmacists in question are some with whom I’ve developed strong relationships. They’ve all been in IT for more than ten years and have profiles on LinkedIn. The objective of these interviews was to provide insight to pharmacists who are looking to enter this field. The questions were broken down into specific topics on which our firm is regularly asked to comment. We believe these short posts that address specific issues will provide value to pharmacists looking to enter this field.

Many people who get into pharmacy informatics/pharmacy IT consulting are motivated by the additional income they can earn. However, there's one factor that keeps many more from transitioning into the market space: the required travel. In fact, the travel makes demand for qualified people that much greater. Still, most people probably wouldn't do the required travel without some additional financial incentive.

If you ask tenured recruiters what's the myth they've most frequently encountered in the business, most would tell you it's the feedback they receive when debriefing candidates following interviews. So often, according to those candidates, they "nailed it" or they "hit a home run" or they’re certain to get a job offer. The reality: More than 75% of the time the employer has no interest in them. In fact, they had a very forgettable interview. Why the disconnect? What happened?

When a pharmacy IT or pharmacy informatics professional is looking to get into consulting, they’ll realize that they have essentially two options: They can work as an employee of a consulting firm or as an independent contractor. Without going into the details of each here (for more information on both, download our free eBook), many people choose to join a consulting firm because of the paid bench time. The advantage of having their salary paid while they’re between projects is perceived as a big benefit. Make sure that you have a solid understanding of bench time first.

I realize a lot of companies have had bad experiences with staffing firms, and I am not asking the above question to prompt memories of being burned one way or another. I am asking more to find out if you have enough faith in the firm you are working with to allow them to make your life easier.

How often do you speak with, or get together with, a friend? How about an old colleague? A previous boss? A recruiter with whom you've worked?

When following up on an interview, what's your strategy? If the opportunity is your dream job and there's heavy competition, what are you doing so that you'll stand above the competition? Many years ago, I learned a technique that, when put to use, has resulted in many job offers for candidates. It's called "the job description close" and here's a brief description . . .

One of the main differences between contract placement and permanent placement is the speed of which the contract world moves. 

This is a question we hear quite a bit. It's most often asked by pharmacists looking at the pharmacy IT/pharmacy informatics marketplace when considering a possible career transition. We’re also frequently asked this same question by new pharmacy graduates who’ve heard about, or done research into, the pharmacy IT/pharmacy informatics marketplace.

I tell contractors that when the next recession comes around (and it will), the rate they’re able to charge for their work will likely drop. Most of them understand why. During a recession, there’s less work. When there’s less work (i.e. less demand) with the same number of consultants looking for projects (i.e. same supply), contractors are likely to see the amount they can charge go down.

When leaving a professional voicemail — or any other voicemail, for that matter — you should take a few things into consideration if you want the call to be returned:

Most candidates who have more than ten years of professional experience cannot list all of that experience, not to mention their associated accomplishments, in the concise format of a professional résumé.

Times are good now. That means most contractors are not going to pay much attention to this post. Which is a shame, because while many contractors do well during good times, the longevity and fruitfulness of their careers is directly proportionate to the work they do at times just like these — not when projects slow and times get tough.

If you experience high levels of anxiety when facing a job interview you are among 92% of the U.S. adult population.

Only 7% of the adult population surveyed claimed to have nothing to fear when it comes to interviewing. 

Remember your goal and why you chose it.

It has officially been 6 months since the beginning of the year when many of us made our New Year’s Resolution. What was your goal? Think back to what changes you decided to make for yourself. This was a goal you set with the intention of completing it within the year. Why? According to Statistic Brain, 45% of Americans usually make a New Year’s resolution. Of that 45% only 8% find success with their year-end goals. So how can ensure that you will make that 8%?

The concept of blogging is nothing new but as the application process turns digital and fewer and fewer paper resumes are passed around.. One thing is for sure, taking advantage of the electronic era can only further your candidacy for the job you want.

In today's healthcare IT job market standing out in a file of submitted resumes can be a challenge. With an abundance of resumes sent every day, consultants are finding the "thank you, but no thank you" response to be an unfortunate loyal visitor to their inbox.  Inevitably, after weeks of job hunting and hopeful submittals, your frustration builds and begins to chip away at your motivation.