Congratulations!  You’ve reached the end of one phase of your career and are about to launch the next.  As any experienced Physicist will tell you, your first job is the hardest one to get.  There are a number of things you can/should/must do to ensure a smooth and successful transition. 

The Medical Physics market has changed since you started your academic programs.  The days of walking across the stage to get your diploma with a job already in hand are pretty much over  You have to be more creative and aggressive than your predecessors to get the interview and the offer, and I have a number of suggestions to help you along the way.

 First, it’s OK to work with a Recruiter, but choose carefully.  Pick a search firm that specializes in Radiation Oncology (there are a handful), but not one that just dabbles in it.  Interview your Recruiter on the phone – ask them how many placements they’ve made in your niche in the past year.  Never, ever, work with a Recruiter that asks you for your money.  You’ve spent enough already!  A reputable Recruiter will also promise you up front to never send your resume anywhere without your permission.  If they don’t mention this themselves, you bring it up and make it a part of your business agreement.  It’s also OK to work with more than one Recruiter.  Ours is a relationship-based business, and there are facilities that will work with me and not others because of our relationship, just as there are facilities where I don’t yet have that relationship established and another Recruiter does.  A reputable Recruiter will also not ask you to work only with them.  It’s to your advantage early on to have more than one set of eyes out there looking for opportunities for you. 

Now, the reality is that it is likely that a Recruiter will not help you get your first job.  The reason that there is no charge to you for our service is because we charge the Hospital a fee to hire you, when they hire you based on our referral  (and that fee is totally separate and apart from your salary.  You’re not responsible for a nickel of it.)  With that said, when a Hospital has a need for a Physicist and they’re at a point of urgency where they will pay a fee to fill the position, they will usually expect from the Recruiter a Board-certified Physicist with multiple years of post-academic experience.  But not always!  Each year, we place a number of new graduates and non Board-certified Physicists in permanent, full-time positions.  It’s a matter of timing, need, and the dynamics of the particular Hospital’s Rad Onc program.  So again, it’s to your advantage to be in our system and have your information on file with us! 

If you haven’t done so already, please do the following:

 ¨ Stop using your school email address TODAY.  Remove it from your resume, and replace it and send all of your job-related correspondence from an email provider that will follow you wherever you go (Yahoo, Hotmail, GMail, etc.)  Your school address will expire shortly after you finish, and a potential employer who may not have the need to talk to you today, may in a few months and will try to get a hold of you only once.  If your address is closed, they’ll move on to the next resume on their desk.  (Hint:  Be professional with your email address!  A Chief Physicist or Human Resource manager is not likely to review a resume from “HotHarleyBabe@yahoo.com.”)

 ¨ Register with and monitor daily the Medical Physics message board from Wayne State University.  It’s free, and the 3000+ subscribers are almost all Medical Physicists.  It’s a great place to follow the trends and discussions in the industry, and because it’s a free service, it’s also the best place I know of to get the first look at job postings and Residency announcements.  Go to http://lists.wayne.edu, click “Browse” on the Main page, scroll down to “MedPhys,” and sign up.  Select to receive the daily digest updates.  (Added bonus:  you’ll get names and phone numbers of hiring managers/Chief Physicists.  Particularly useful if you have targeted specific regions and/or facilities.)

 ¨ There are several good aggregate job boards on the Web.  One we monitor regularly is www.indeed.com.  It’s not just postings from Monster and CareerBuilder, but from other specialty healthcare job boards, other recruiters, and quite often the direct website of the Hospital. 

¨ Go back 5-10 years in your academic program’s alumni list, find those graduates in the AAPM Membership Directory, and call them!  It’s a great icebreaker (“Can you help a fellow alumni?” etc.) and they may just have a need in their program that hadn’t been advertised.  They’re obviously (and blatantly) biased in your favor!

¨ Network, network, network!  Go to your regional and national AAPM conferences when possible, and stay in touch with the people you meet there.

¨ Call a Recruiter!  I’m in the office 7AM-5PM Eastern time. 

In my experience, I do not know of a single involuntarily unemployed Medical Physicist in the US.  This search may be harder and take longer than you want or need it to, but it will be successful!  You have chosen a great field, and the personal and career rewards you will receive will be many!