Searching for a new job can be challenging. Employers may receive many applications for each posting, and it’s easy to get discouraged during your search. There are a few important things you can do to help you stand out over other candidates for healthcare jobs.
Do a Skills Inventory
What are your skills? What traits would make you a good fit for a particular job? It’s helpful to be aware of this, especially because you should highlight skills that are suited to the job for which you are applying. A skills inventory can help you with this; this knowledge can be especially useful if you’re new to the job market, changing from one role to another, or trying to determine how suited you are for your dream job.
Hard skills are typically things you learned: how to take a blood pressure, how to perform a procedure, and so on. Soft skills can be compared to personality traits or attributes, including empathy, communication skills, work ethic, and ability to deal with pressure. It’s important to note that you can strengthen soft skills, just as you can with hard skills.
How Are You Continually Improving?
Continuing education is required in many healthcare fields, but what are you doing beyond that? There may be certain certifications or specialties you could add to your education that might make you more marketable and more valuable. It could be a class here and there, a certificate, a degree, a seminar, or a workshop; if it makes you better at your job, it has value.
This is true even when you’re not looking for a new job. Just because you have a job, it doesn’t mean you should hold yourself back or let your skills stagnate. Even if you don’t net an entirely new degree, you can still beef up your resume by becoming certified in a new skill. Online options make this more accessible; you can learn without even leaving your home.
Use Numbers That Show the Impact You Make
When you highlight your accomplishments in your resume and cover letter or talk about them in an interview, it’s important to quantify them. This gives employers a sense of the impact you’ve made. If you worked on a project with electronic health records to reduce denials, be specific and quantify it: led a multi-disciplinary team to create diagnosis-specific templates in the EHR and reduce documentation-related denials by 75 percent.
Keep in mind that it’s important to be truthful. Never stretch the facts to make it sound better than reality. It’s always wise to be honest, or you might be shocked when the prospective boss is so impressed with the numbers that he asks about them in checking your references.
You Can Stand Out
At 365 Healthcare Staffing Services, we specialize in the recruitment and placement of healthcare professionals in per diem, travel, and permanent assignments in healthcare facilities across the country. Your skills inventory, continual improvements, and impact will help you stand out over other candidates. If you are ready for a new assignment and want our help, we’d love to talk with you. Give us a call at 310.436.3650.
