When you’re aiming to land your dream physician job, it’s key that you make your resume as impressive as humanly possible. Doing so requires you to list not only medical qualifications and awards but many useful “soft skills” as well. If you’re preparing for a fateful interview, here are six soft skills you should be putting on your physician’s resume:
If you try to land work as a physician, but you have no empathy in your personality and professional practice, you will struggle to land (or keep) a high-paying job. After all, physicians have to deliver sometimes-devastating news and diagnoses to patients nearly every day they’re on the job. Without a strong, empathetic nature, doing so without hurting a patient, or weighing your own mental state down, becomes downright impossible. Those in search of jobs in healthcare need to demonstrate their empathy as effectively as humanly possible. Especially, during their interviews with the tough competition out there. Nailing the interview process, and taking advantage of the need for recruiters to fill the many open physician roles nationwide in 2023, will help you find your dream physician job.
When interviewers are analyzing a pool of potential physician candidates, they aim to discover the candidates who are not only the most skilled but who have the most demonstrable work ethic. Professionalism seeps through in interviews. Thus, if you fail to approach an interview professionally, it will speak poorly of your work ethic. For this reason, it’s good to have an anecdote handy about a time when you went above and beyond with your work ethic in a past position. Doing so will ensure you stand out amongst other candidates in a more immediate, successful fashion. Just make sure you deliver this anecdote in a sincere, believable (and true) fashion during the interview. After all, these interview professionals will be checking your references post-interview.
Even the most professional, widely-acclaimed medical workers make mistakes now and then. There are infinite complexities that are involved in physician work combined with the ever-evolving landscape of medical knowledge. Thus, any doctor who claims to be foolproof ends up looking like a fool in the medical community. Due to this, it’s incredibly important that you demonstrate professional humility when interviewing for a high-paying physician job. Doing so shows the interview professional analyzing you that you’re a great candidate. Plus, shows that you approach medicine with a reasonable, non-ego-driven mindset. Nobody likes working with a diva, especially in the life-and-death world of medicine. If you want the interviewer to like you, and see you as a fellow human being (and not just a great candidate), then being humble is an absolute must.
Speaking of attributes like humility, confidence is another key personality and professional quality that high-quality physician candidates need to hold. Even if you’re fresh out of your medical training, and this is your first “full-on” physician job, you need to demonstrate a level of professional confidence. This will also help sell you to the interviewer. This confidence should come off naturally, as forced confidence will almost certainly lead to a bad taste in your interviewer’s mouth. Find stories to tell the interviewer that demonstrate your confidence. However, also emphasize your want for professional growth, and you will nail your next big interview without a problem.
Medical work is not always bright and sunny. In fact, it can be downright dour at times. You’ll deal with tragic medical scenarios, and hopeless patients nearly every day, after all. For this reason, having enough positivity to help you stay motivated and professional is key. Finding the light at the end of the tunnel, and constantly aiming to reach it, is crucial for lifelong medical professionals. Especially, if they want to avoid professional burnout. In interview situations, a positive attitude can do wonders for making the interviewer like, and respect you. Take advantage of this, and use positivity to help you stand out from the other physician candidates. After all, you're bound to be competing with several during 2023.
Since there is a widespread shortage of qualified physician staff for interviewers to reach out to, you’ll have a lot of bargaining power throughout most of the hiring process. That being said, this shortage does present one major downfall. Physicians are expected to take on more hours, and longer shifts to help keep on top of a medical practice’s workload. For this reason, candidates who are incredibly flexible when it comes to scheduling, and who are willing to work more excessively, are much more likely to be hired for empty physician roles in 2023.
