In order to get certain jobs, you have to go to school, and that takes time and effort to get through. Employers nowadays seem to want a mixture of flexibility, credentials, and experience, but that hasn’t stopped new graduates from getting into the work field yet. Yes, it is going to be challenging finding suitable hospital jobs after you’ve graduated medical school, received your nursing license or completed your medical billing and coding certification. The job postings that you come across doing a preliminary search might have a list of requirements that are a mile long. The recruiters you send your resume to may tell you to reach out again after you have gained a couple of years’ experience. You worked hard for your education, and now you’re going to have to work hard to land that first position.
Making Your First Professional Resume
If you have graduated from a degree or certificate program for the purpose of being able to land a premier job at a hospital, you have to completely rethink your resume. The long story short is that most jobs that you had prior to graduation aren’t going to be particularly relevant. Sure, you can still list anything you did prior to graduation, but the focus has to be on what you learned during the course of your time at school. You can find templates for jobs in your future line of work online or you can go to a professional resume company to have yours polished up. Either way, you should punctuate your personal profile with tenacity and highlight all of the field-specific things you learned in school.
Perfecting Your Interviewing Skills
To get a job at a hospital or anywhere else, your interpersonal and interviewing skills have to be on target. In other words, freezing up, losing your train of thought, or suddenly becoming self-deprecating during the course of an interview for any kind of hospital job is not going to help you in getting shortlisted. You have to be confident as well as be able to completely anticipate what kinds of questions are going to be asked. Can you give a detailed account of the courses you took in your field of study? Would you be able to give an example of how you demonstrated leadership skills at your last job? Interviewers want to learn as much as they possibly can about candidates in the 30 to 45-minute interview that they have with each job seeker. Make yourself stick out in a good way by coming across as self-assured, down to earth, and professional.
Choosing the Right Outfit for an Interview
Your choice of interview attire is also going to be important. Remember that your interviewer is going to choose you for an interview first based on your resume. There also might be a couple of phone conversations or virtual interviews before you come in to meet them in person. What you wear to your interview is going to say one or two things to the job recruiter; either you’re a good candidate who’d fit in perfectly or you still need more experience. Stick to colors that are dark but not drab. Be more conservative in your style of dress and choose sweaters, button down shirts, slacks, or knee-length skirts. Feel free to accessorize to show a taste of your personality but remember you’re going in to talk to the person who will be deciding on if you get hired or not.
References, References, References
Something else that can help you to get hired at a hospital quicker is to send some references along with your resume. If there is a professor who you impressed while at school, ask for a letter of recommendation. References can come from medical professionals, past teachers, or even personal friends who can vouch for your hardworking nature. Being able to call upon established professionals to speak positively about you can help to push you to the front of the pack when it comes to getting a job right out of school. You will most likely only get references if you ask for them, so make sure that you maintain positive interactions as you traverse the business world.
Post Job Interview Etiquette
With most interviews, candidates don’t find out right away if they are going to be hired. You might hear from a recruiter via email about a company’s decision months later. You could get a phone call from the person that interviewed you the very next day, telling you that the hospital has decided to go with a different candidate. If you want to be seriously considered for a position at a hospital, you have to show that you are a go-getter. Send a follow-up email or even a greeting card in the mail telling the interviewer about your gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity. Following up after an interview isn’t going to suddenly help you get a job that you weren’t chosen for, but it really does help hospital staff to remember your face and name.
Landing That Coveted Hospital Job
Eventually, you are going to get hired for a hospital job and your search is going to come to an end – but that’s not the end of things. You might have to send a formal acceptance letter or sign a contract before you start the hiring process. You may even need to consent to a background or drug test before a job offer can be extended for lots of reasons. In other words, don’t get ahead of yourself just because you learn that you got the job. Follow each step of the hiring process so that you are guaranteed to get a definitive start date.
It might take five or twenty interviews before you get a job at a hospital. Don’t worry about how long it takes to get hired, just keep your motivation. Getting hired will be the official start of your career, and after that, landing jobs at a hospital will be much easier.
Hello Lawrence, Getting a position with an Associates degree is very unlikely to happen but an interview to volunteer and follow a nurse would probably be your best bet to see and learn if you really wanna apply your self to that field.