Preparing for a new role

You'll know when it's time (hopefully) to move on. For some, that decision may come years or decades into their current role. How does one prepare oneself for this new challenge? It's deep-dive time.

Our case and your situation

I would like to pursue opportunities for non-clinical work. I am thinking of XXX or YYY - something that can be remote or part time. Any key words you think I should use in my search?

Most of today’s healthcare professionals will leave their current/first position for something new. Some will start their own venture - for which we have a lot of great content to help you start successfully. Others will move onto a new employed role, but may be rusty after years or decades in their current position. Getting yourself noticed by a hiring manager requires its own skill set. Here’s a high-yield suggestion that can get you to the next round.

Disclaimer

I don’t recommend you lie, fabricate, embellish, exaggerate, or commit errors of omission/commission of your credentials. Be prepared with and honest about the skills you have and want to develop. Fibbing about your talents can cause a mismatch between the needs of the role, the firm, and your expectations. Nobody wants a mismatch.

Collect job descriptions - the more, the better

Grab as many job descriptions as you can. Each job description in your target industry provides data for the analyses that we’ll be recommending (see below). Even if you’re not actively looking, save job descriptions so that you can refer back to them when you are ready for a jump.

Job descriptions (no matter how detailed) == data

Believe it or not, human resource teams and/or recruiters carefully craft job descriptions. The effort (and cost) that they put into developing job descriptions increases the probability that they have the most appropriate candidates apply for the position. Use that attention-to-detail and careful crafting to your advantage.

Analyzing the job description(s)

Creating a word cloud is an easy and fruitful way of analyzing a bunch of text (which is, basically, what a job description is). Parse each word from all the job descriptions you’ve collected and filter out every article (e.g., a, the), preposition (e.g., about, beyond, beside), and conjunction (e.g., and, or, but). Below is a word cloud from the job description above ↴

For this particular role, the following features are important to the hiring manager/firm:

1. working in development

2. being an engineer

3. performing testing

4. participating on a team/working cross-functionally

5. knowing JavaScript

Application #1: Getting a sense of an industry’s direction

Application #2: Leveling-up your resume

Brevity is a skill in-and-of itself and is better exemplified by those who are adept at conveying complex messages in short spaces (i.e., on social media). Analyzing job descriptions will help you determine what is pertinent.

Accuracy goes back to our disclaimer at the start of this substack. Hiring managers depend on you to convey the truth.

Pertinence is learned by analyzing various job descriptions. These descriptions offer insight into what matters to hiring managers. Be sure to note the verbs that are used - you’ll want to use those verbs to highlight your credentials (as long as use of those verbs keeps your resume honest and accurate).

Application #3: Mentor the next gen

Tell us how you prep for a new role? What techniques have or haven’t worked? Comment below.