Not all hospitals or healthcare systems are the same. As a job searching physician, it is crucial to find a hospital or healthcare system that shares similar values, supports your career goals, and is an excellent overall fit for you. Working for an organization that does not mesh well with your values or career goals can leave you feeling frustrated or unsatisfied. As a job seeker, how can you find out if the organization will be a good fit?
Run a search
As you are job searching, there's a good chance you will run across a hospital system you already know and some that you don't. Whether you know the healthcare system or not, run a quick search on Google or Bing to see what news stories come up. Running a search can be very telling, are there recent articles about strikes or layoffs? Have they recently made huge breakthroughs with new treatments? Do negative patient or physician reviews come up for the organization? These are all questions you should be able to answer. Read some of the articles to get a good idea of the type of organization you would be joining.
Look at their website and socials
Look at their website to see things like their mission statement and facility pictures and descriptions. An organization's mission statement can tell you what their main goal is. Is it providing excellent patient care to low-income patients? Or maybe it's a faith-based practice. As you read through their mission statement or core values, ask yourself how they align with your own. If their values and your values differ too much, it may not be the right organization for you.
Social media has become a significant tool for many organizations because they can share updates and news about themself. See what they are posting. Are they sharing posts about new locations or closing locations? Are they posting positive patient stories or trying to refute negative news stories? These can give you more insight into the organization.
Ask about the environment and culture
Even if you have already read their mission statement on their website, you should still ask during your interview. Some organizations will post buzz words on their website to appear in searches, so you need to ensure that those values are accurate. An easy way to do this is to say, "I noticed that your organization places a lot of value on trust. Can you give me a little more background on what you mean by that?" This lets them know you're already familiar with their values and that you place importance on this as well. If they skirt around the question or give you an answer that makes you feel uncomfortable, there's a good chance that this is probably not a good fit. You should also ask more than one person. It can be easy for an interviewer to only focus on the organization's positives, so if you get the chance to speak with other staff or faculty, ask them what their thoughts are on the culture.
Trust your gut
No matter how amazing the opportunity sounds, if the organization itself does not match with your professional goals or values, it's not going to work. We get that terrible feeling in our guts for a reason. Instead of trying to push it away, trust it! Working for an organization that you do not trust can lead to feeling burnt out, which is never good.
You are in charge of your job search, so make sure you do not fall into a position with an organization you are not proud to be a part of. This may shrink the list of available jobs but working somewhere that you feel happy to be a part of a team is extremely important. Looking for other job search tips? Check out our Physician Articles.
Hayley Woszczynski - Physician & Program Relations Manager. You can stay connected with me on LinkedIn for all of the latest PracticeMatch articles and upcoming events.