Healthcare IS Blog

Your resume is your most important calling card in your job search. At Healthcare IS we review hundreds of resumes regularly and have outlined the seven most evident segments found on the resumes we evaluate. Continue reading below to discover what these segments are and how you can best utilize them.

Let me start by clarifying what I mean by "referral fee."

I'm not referring to a placement fee paid to a recruiting firm determined by contract terms. I'm referring to a "bonus" paid to either an internal employee and/or a professional not associated with a recruiting firm upon the hiring of a candidate who was referred by that individual. 

In December 2010, I was at the ASHP’s (American Society for Health Systems Pharmacists) midyear meeting in Anaheim, CA. Over the years, their track relating to Pharmacy IT and Informatics has really expanded.

Between sessions, I was engaged in a conversation with a Director of Pharmacy and a Manager of Pharmacy Informatics. Both were talking about the technology initiatives their organizations had in place related to pharmacy and the medication management process. Once the discussion evolved into specific project plans and go-live dates, it turned toward having the right people in place — both full-time employees and consultants. Of course, it doesn’t seem like you can have a conversation about hiring Healthcare IT employees without someone saying how hard it is to find the right people. So, when they started telling me how hard it’s been for them to find the right people, they were both a little shocked by my response: “Good people are easy to find.” I paused for effect and when they both stared at me like I was crazy, I added, “Good people are easy to find — they’re just very hard to get hired.”

In this post, I want to discuss how to gain credibility with a hiring manager at the conclusion of an interview. 

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?

Consultants who work primarily on a contract basis know that there will come a time when their “job” will come to an end, and they’ll have to look for a new one. Even though there are many benefits to contracting, this is the one aspect to which contractors do not look forward.

Over the years, I've personally found active listening to be a very difficult skill to develop. Why? Partly because I'm a "type A" personality who likes to engage assertively, sometimes even aggressively, in conversation. I find myself occasionally interrupting people so that I can get my point across or "win" the conversation/debate. Many words have been written and training programs developed around active listening. Below is a summary of my thoughts on the topic.

In today's day and age, we are flooded with emails on a daily basis. Most people have a personal email address where we are bombarded with special offers, facebook alerts, updates from friends, etc. as well as a professional email address used for work purposes. And in most cases, this is equally full of new emails on an hourly basis. But are all these email necessary and relavant?

All of us in the staffing business have often heard, "We're in a candidate-driven market right now," or the opposite: "We're in a client-driven market right now." How about, "We are in neither?" The reality of the demand for "A" talent is that hiring the best requires a philosophical approach and process that consistently advocates a sense of urgency for all parties involved.

Now that most of you have thought about what you want to accomplish next year (including how you want to accomplish it), and have even done some traditional planning with objectives, metrics, and desired outcomes, perhaps it's time for a different perspective.

A few months ago, I read a New York Times article by Thomas Friedman titled "Need a Job? Invent It." In this article, Friedman refers to the book Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World by Tony Wagner, a Harvard education specialist. In the book, Wagner makes reference to a few key points:

The May 2013 issue of Inc. magazine featured an infographic (on page 24) concerning trends in big company hiring. 

Specific references were made to the fact that, for most companies that are hiring, online “job boards” are not producing the results they used to. When it comes to hiring online, employers need to be where the employees are. At the dawn of Internet recruiting in the late ’90s, people looking for jobs would regularly go to job boards or would post their résumés online when they were open to hearing about job opportunities. 

In a decision-making position, it’s often your job to save the company money wherever possible. Whether you accomplish this through effective vendor management, staff reduction, or offering lower salaries, you, as a manager, are usually looking for ways to save a few extra bucks and, as a result, make yourself look good. 

Once Health IT employees gain a certain level of experience working at a hospital, they have the option to consider working as consultants. As Health IT consultants, they would have the ability to increase their income by 25-70%, depending on their specific skills and the type employment or contracting relationship they put in place. Now, I understand that money isn’t everything, but it’s a motivator for many people who get into consulting. However, what keeps most people from getting into consulting is the amount of travel required.

I’ve always been a sports fan. In fact, I played various organized sports from the time I was six all the way through college, where I played baseball. In my opinion, so much of what happens in the sports world has direct correlations to everyday life. I also believe there are many lessons there that can be applied to hiring and team building.

It simply amazes me (and I’m not amazed too often) how bad some people are at hiring or building a team. It's almost as if - and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here - some people are trying to mess things up. Otherwise, I can't imagine how someone in a management role could stop, think, and then still do the things they do.

Optimal performance during this process reflects very positively on the organization, as this is where first and lasting impressions are made among all parties involved. Thus, structure, formality, and the positive alignment of all decision-makers are highly important factors for on-boarding the very best candidates. If this alignment is not present during the process, then clearly the candidate will sense this and might have hesitancy or doubts as to whether this is the “dream” career that he or she is seeking.

As parts of the overall job market are starting to improve (Healthcare IT being one of them, of course), I’m beginning to see a lot of the same headlines I saw when the economy was coming out of the 2001 recession. Articles about employment branding (which should never stop, even in bad times), the war for talent, etc. are popping up quite a bit. Estimates are showing that the Healthcare IT industry could be up to 50,000 new positions.

In the past, our firm has taken on projects for multiple hires with health systems with which we’ve never worked (it’s always exciting when taking on new clients). One particular client, like many healthcare organizations across the country, continually embarks on very ambitious projects. This client has a track record of fantastic accomplishments.