The Medical Device Fee is a Bad Plan for Job Growth in It’s Current Form

The Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare reform bill is a topic of much concern for medical device professionals because its enactment could cut jobs in our industry. The Senate’s plan puts additional financial pressure on medical device companies by way of an annual aggregate fee on the medical device industry of $4 billion. Many experts believe this financial burden could cause more people to lose their jobs. The reasoning behind this plan is to generate $40 billion over the course of 10 years to go toward healthcare reform. John Engelhardt of Ortho Knowledge wrote a great article that breaks down a lot of the numbers here: Orthoworld Article (Thanks John)As the president of a recruitment firm within the medical device industry, my business’s livelihood depends on placing people for these jobs that could be lost. Needless to say, I’m a little worried, even in light of the incredible uptick in hiring in the past 60 days within our business.

That said, I read an interesting article from ModernHealthcare.com (Modern Healthcare Article) which states that the House is proposing a compromised version of the Senate’s bill, and it appears to be much less taxing (no pun intended). According to the article, under the House’s bill, rather than an aggregate fee, a 2.5% point-of-sale tax would be applied. The House’s plan aims to bring in $27 billion from the medical device industry over the course of 7 years beginning in 2013.

In the House plan, medical manufacturers would be able to reduce the total fee they incur by deducting the tax from annual corporate tax filings. Companies wouldn’t have that benefit with the Senate’s aggregate fee plan and would end up paying all of that $40 billion as it currently stands. The lesser of two evils (in my opinion) is still evil and would stunt the job growth just starting to take seed now. Worse, it could drive further off-shoring in our global economy where US chartered companies are looking to save operational and developmental costs. (Note: we have had 4 new operations/ manufacturing positions added in the past few weeks with increase emphasis on lean and out-sourced/off-shore manufacturing management. Not sure this is all coincidence).

Whether or not the House will have any impact on the Senate remains to be seen, but I remain optimistic that there will be some change in the current plan if it continues to be contested. I understand that no companies are excited about getting further taxed. It’s just my hope that the additional tax won’t place the burden on consumers and cause healthcare reform to hurt the very people it’s trying to help. However, by 2013, things could change. Let’s hope for the best.

Paula Rutledge
President, Legacy MedSearch
www.LegacyMedSearch.com

ABOUT LEGACY MEDSEARCH
With 25 years in the medical industry, our recruiting expertise extends to most areas of surgery, diagnostic & therapeutic imaging & radiology, including MIS & LIS procedures. We work with manufacturers of a variety of implants & technologies: IMD, AIMD and Class I, Class II and Class III devices with special emphasis on orthopedics, neurosurgery, radiology, neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular and other emerging medical technology (PMA, 510(k) & IDE device classes).

__________________
Paula Rutledge is the President of Legacy MedSearch, a sponsor of Medical Devce Guru. Legacy MedSearch is a retained recruitment provider to emerging medical companies.

 

www.LegacyMedSearch.com
407-898-4440

• MEDICAL DEVICE (510K, IDE, VC, Incubator stage)
• IMAGING (CT, MR, Ultrasound, HIFU, Fluoroscopy, PACS, Mammo, Molecular, CR, DR)
• NAVIGATION (IGS, CAS, DBS, IGRT, RF, Robotics)
• EMERGING AND CONVERGING Radiologic & Surgical Treatment Solutions.

Interview guide for Software Development Positions

Software Development is an extremely competitive field. It doesn’t help that several of the major industry players are starting to move offshore to countries like China and India. Let’s say that despite all these challenges, you still landed an interview. Congratulations! Now that you’ve made it this far, I’m going to give you some tips to make sure that you can get that dream job.

I’m Paula Rutledge – President of Legacy MedSearch, a retained executive search firm working exclusively in emerging medical technology. In this issue of Medical Career Magazine, and I’m here to help prepare you for the challenging and rewarding field of software development.

So. Let’s say you’ve read my other blogs or watched my videos on YouTube and have done everything right up to this point. All you have left to do is ace this interview and seal the deal. To make sure that happens, let’s review some typical questions that may appear in the interview. Some questions asked might be:

• How do you drive software development to support your company’s business?

• Describe your ability to multitask and prioritize when faced with a conflict.

• Briefly outline your philosophy regarding SDLC (systems development life cycle).

• Are you more interested in program development or program implementation? Why?

• Are you familiar with ASTM standards? Do you have any ASTM related certifications?

Now that you know a bit about the interview itself, let’s go over some interview etiquette that may seem obvious, but that many interviewees still forget!

First arrive early, no excuses. Make sure to dress professionally or (even better) try and research the company’s dress code and conform to that. This will help show that you will fit-in well in the working environment. While you’re in the interview, show passion for software development as well as genuine interest in the company itself. A great way to appear involved is by asking questions and being engaged. Some good questions to ask might be:

• Tell me about your version control.
• Tell me about your bug tracking system.
• Tell me about your Quality Assurance.
• How much training per year do you offer?
• Do you have a Wiki to share developer knowledge?

Finally, show confidence both in your responses and your body language. Be decisive, maintain eye contact, and have good posture. No one wants to hire a shy, quiet, software engineer who isn’t confident in their abilities!

If you follow all of this advice, you’ll have the best shot possible at landing that software development job!

Don’t forget to check out our forum www.medicaldeviceguru.com or our website at www.LegacyMedSearch.com for some more great tips.!

How To Stay On Our Radar

I love the recruiting business. But, in the past few months, with this oddly strong need for fearless and unflinching leaders in our Client companies, I find myself struggling to stay in communication with viable due to the large volume of people contacting me. I’m Paula Rutledge, President of Legacy MedSearch, an executive recruiting firm focusing exclusively in medical device technology. In this post , I’ll teach you how to maintain communication with your recruiter!

I’ll be honest, sometimes we recruiters can be a bit difficult to get ahold of. We’re trying, I promise! I frequently speak on my headset with one candidate, email another, and set up an appointment with a third all at the same time! That being said, here are some tips to make sure I’m getting your message!

1. Be brief! I do care, but if I can get a 15 second voicemail with all your information, I can get back to you more quickly. Name, most recent company, phone number (said twice), and purpose of your call are enough!

2. Be flexible! Please don’t leave me a message telling me you’re available between 4 and 4:15 next Tuesday… Like you, I schedule my appointments weeks in advance, and odds are next Tuesday is booked!

3. Apply online! When you apply for a specific position, it flags you and puts you at the top of the heap for one of my recruiters to contact you within a day or two. It’s much easier to get a response from us this way. Don’t ask me to look over your resume and see if I have anything open… I have about 3,291 of these requests right now…

4. Look at our forum, www.meddeviceguru.com. It has nearly 5000 articles, tips, news stories, and ideas that we update daily!

5. Polish your resume! Make sure it’s pristine, descriptive, and follows the tips that we’ve discussed in other issues of Medical Career Magazine.

6. Link to me on LinkedIn! It’s a great way to contact me.

7. Recommend other people to us. Someone might return the favor! Our single biggest referral source for senior level positions is your boss, so keep that in mind!

8. Be Patient with us! The medical device industry is still hiring at a strong pace. In fact, my firm has had a 40% growth from this time last year. However, the bar is being set higher for candidates. Remember we’re not miracle workers. Give us some time to find you that perfect job!

9. Touch base with us. I add a caveat that touching base means every week or so… not every hour or every day. This is especially true if you’re in active consideration for a position and haven’t heard anything from us in a while. Things do occasionally fall through the cracks, so don’t be shy about contacting us!

10. Do your homework! Once we have an interview scheduled for you, we’ll do a verbal prep with you and send you materials on the client, but you can increase your odds by doing some work of your own. We’ve created the Interview Prep Guide for Medical Device Careers as a help. It’s a free 24 page packet chock full of great information! You can find it on our website.

The industry is looking strong, but no company is going to grow without smart, dedicated, and creative talent!

That’s this issue of Medical Career Magazine. Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips. I’m Paula Rutledge, thanks for joining us.

Why to use a retained recruiter

This week my inbox has been flooded with responses to Monday’s post regarding the July unemployment statistics. One response in particular interested me:

 “I had an unfortunate incident recently.  A recruiter wanted to present me for an opportunity.  However, the hiring organization told her that they would not pay her for my candidacy because they had me in their database already from when I submitted an application earlier in the year.  Had the company ever considered going through its own database to find candidates?  Probably not because they are too short-staffed.  This is a no-win situation for all parties:

• The hiring organization never realizes that they have superb candidates already in their databases.  Like having gold nuggets in the stream behind your house but only panning in other parts of the world.  It reminds me of the recent story in the news of the daughter who replaced her mother’s old worn out mattress only to find out it had hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed inside. 
• The recruiter is losing opportunities for income even though they can provide great value to the hiring organization by cutting through so much useless clutter to find a candidate.  (They found the mattress stuffed with cash.)
• The candidate in the job search now must consider whether or not to EVER apply directly for a job.  I have only ONCE been called by an internal recruiter who has taken the effort to seek candidates for an opportunity.  (It came through LinkedIn.)  In my experience, company recruiters have neither the level of motivation nor the expertise to identify talent that may not exactly fit their candidate profile.

From now on when I find an interesting opportunity, my practice will be to be presented personally by one of my trusted recruiters who has a relationship at the hiring organization.  I would like to have you as one of those recruiters.  Let’s talk. “

Of course, I love positive feedback, but the incident Tom detailed troubled me. Employment opportunities are increasing and, according to Careerbuilder, 13% of hiring managers and 24% of job seekers expect to use recruiters in Q3. This means that situations similar to Tom’s are going to increase in the coming months and candidates need to be wary of which recruiters they choose to work with. An easy solution is to work exclusively with retained recruiters that have a personal relationship with hiring authorities. This will help avoid miscommunication between the prospective employer and the recruiter that could result in a candidate losing out on a great opportunity.

Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips.

Best Regards,

Paula Rutledge

What the July Unemployment Statistics Mean for the Medical Device Industry

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that U.S. employment fell by a less than expected 247,000 jobs in July – obviously good news. But its even better for those of us in the medical device industry… (Read Full Report at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm)

After studying the unemployment report issued this morning, I wanted to share some thoughts on the prospects for medical device hiring for 2010-2011.

UNEMPLOYMENT FOR COLLEGE GRADS is 4.7%
Best news of all – total unemployment among degreed professionals with a Bachelors or higher is 4.7%. While it doesn’t speak specifically to advanced degrees, my anecdotal data tells me that Masters or higher status unemployment may be a hair less. (Remind me to send this to my kids…- and yes, Lauren, I’ll pay for law school….).

HEALTHCARE HIRES GROW BY ANOTHER 20,000
The derivative allocated to Healthcare showed an increased by +20,000 in July, which is about the average monthly gain for the first half of this year but down from an average monthly increase of 30,000 during 2008. Keep in mind that “Healthcare” includes data from SIC codes attributable to clinical, acute and long-term care are other sub-segments and that data (best I can tell) for the SIC codes we are most associated with from our recruiting practice (the 38XX codes) fall into manufacturing in some cases.

NEW GRADS SKEW JULY FIGURES A BIT…. BUT….
And while the unemployment rate for management, business, and financial operation occupations (non specific to medical, of course), remained relatively steady at 4.7 for degreed professionals, the unemployment rate for other professional and related occupations, however, jumped from 5.1 to 6 percent after a similarly sized jump last month, most likely the result of new graduates entering the still stagnant job market..

MINIMUM WAGE JUST ROSE: WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU
While this doesn’t directly affect our level of candidate and clients, effective July 24, the U.S. minimum wage increased from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour with economists estimating that it will impact 2.8 million workers earning between the current federal minimum wage and the new standard. However, the 2.8 million figure doesn’t account for the millions of workers whose wages are tied to the minimum standard and may also go up in a “trickle up” effect.

WHAT I’M HEARING FROM SENIOR EXECUTIVES IN MEDICAL DEVICE
The conversations I’m having with our clients in the past few weeks are vastly different from even Q1, especially in light of the July 5, 2009 study released that indicated that a full 54% of U.S. said they are likely to look for new jobs once the economy rebounds. WOW. This blows me away – but mirrors the conversations I’m having with Mid to Senior level people EVERY DAY. I guess companies will be saving on “gold watch purchases….”

HIGH DEMAND FOR QA/RA/CA
Last year, 71% of our hires were on the “Commercial” side (Sales/ Marketing/Product Management/Operations, etc). This year, as we just closed out our 1H of 2009 – it is nearly directly inverse. I’m still quantifying exact ratio, but about 4/5 of our hires this year, so far, have been on the Pre-Commercial side: R&D, all aspects of engineering, QA (very strong) RA and more and more clinical affairs.

HOWEVER, our upcoming assignments for Q4 look increasingly like a tilt back to commercial hires.

MARKETING AND SALES ARE PICKING UP .. BUT..
As a salesman for JNJ 20++ years ago, I remember the then President saying to a company-wide gathering of top salespeople “You are the only department in the company that BRINGS revenue to the table, so you will always be compensated fairly.”

Things of changed in many ways – and companies are now increasingly deriving revenue from other sources. For instance, Service Revenue is growing appreciably, and one senior level executive from a Fortune 100 medical capital equipment company told me just this morning that Service accounted for 44% of revenue in FY 2009 just ended.

That said, judging from the surge of calls from exhausted salespeople covering twice the territory they used to with half the clinical and technical support, sales hires will again be a strong component of 2010-2011 hiring. (Incidentally, the “I’m overworked but happy to be employed refrain is one that I hear at all levels).

.COMPANIES ARE RAISING THE BAR ON MARKETING HIRES TO INCLUDE “NEW MEDIA”In terms of marketing there has been a strong uptick in requests for resumes of marketing professionals with formal marketing training AND those who have served in a consumer marketing company like P&G or Coca Cola or in a consulting company like BCG or Bain. The rationale seems to be that social media marketing is creeping into healthcare in insipid ways – and that a pedigree MBA or MSME/EE with 3 years at Dell or Microsoft or Target early in his/her career and knowledge of how to move the needle strategically will impact revenues. For the most part, I agree. The “medical marketing experience only” factor seems to be quieting for more senior level Marketing hires as companies are looking to expand their knowledge base. Just today, Biomet announced an “outsider” as the new President of 3i – Maggie Anderson – who has an engineering degree and ten years with General Motors as well as a Consulting/VC background. Top talent transcends industries.

THE ‘OBAMA-CARE” FACTOR IS STARTING TO RISE – plus a new wrinkle….
One of President Obama’s growing initiatives includes passing healthcare legislation that would reform our current system. I’m not sure what to think of this – but I have a pending assignment for a Business Development / Clinical Marketing position with a new criteria I’ve not seen before: “3+ years in a consulting, lobbyist, public policy or government affairs function….” Wow. Can’t wait to get started on this one…

DOJ, INCREASED REGULATION AND LESS TOLERANCE FOR “GRAY” ETHICS
Boy. Conventions and Trade Shows aren’t as fun as they used to be. At AAOS this year, one of my friends from Smith & Nephew commented that entertaining surgeons was like “curfew check at a Catholic Girls School : One minute past 5:00 and you were in deep trouble.” (I loved that phrase!). Today (August 7, 2009) it was Stryker’s turn in the hot seat with another subpoena from NJ seeking information on the financial interests and arrangements of the physicians participating in clinical trials. Medtronic and JNJ got hit this week, too. I had a very talented Product Management executive get fired over a comment made in a public forum by a surgeon who went “off script” and former Synthes colleagues facing significant legal matters. Our clients are asking more and more for “clean” candidates in senior level positions – and they are less concerned about college infractions than more recent actions that could result in stiff fines. It’s a whole new world out there.

TURNOVER IN MEDICAL DEVICE
There were lots of 10-Qs and earnings calls this week. I listened to several of the earnings calls and reviewed the reports in our sector and found that “employee retention” for FY 2011-2012 is a topic on lots of Executive Compensation Committees’ agenda.

Did you know that, on average, it costs a company 130% of an employee’s salary to replace them? That number goes up if the employee leaving has significant company knowledge or possesses a unique and/or rare skill set.

RETENTION IS BECOMING MORE OF A CONCERN FOR 2011-2012
The Hansen Medical 10-Q filed yesterday was among those who made mention of employee retention” as a component of earnings for the near future.. Page 39 of the filing said: “…in the third quarter of 2008, the first quarter of 2009 and in July 2009, we reduced our work force. This may make it more difficult to retain and attract the qualified personnel required, placing a significant strain on our management. Accordingly, retaining such personnel and recruiting necessary new employees in the future will be critical to our success. There is intense competition from other companies and research and academic institutions for qualified personnel in the areas of our activities. If we fail to identify, attract, retain and motivate these highly skilled personnel, we may be unable to continue our development and commercialization activities.”

Has the tide turned? Maybe. Is there still alot of head-count pressure on medical device firms (especially in big-ticket capital equipment driven companies). Yes. Have we seen the bottom? Who knows – but I do know that my conversations are just starting to change in complexion and tone. It’s an early indicator. But I observed first hand that the most of the truly great companies used this recessionary period to peel off a lot of non performers – and several super stars were caught up in consolidation and cost-cutting measures. And great people will ALWAYS be in demand. ALWAYS.

Best Regards,

Paula Rutledge

Resume Don’ts

Let’s say you’ve done everything we’ve talked about so far with your resume. You’ve quantified, clarified, qualified, and all that other good stuff. That doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods yet! I’m Paula Rutledge, President of Legacy MedSearch, an executive recruiting firm focusing exclusively in medical device technology. In this post I’ll tell you what NOT to include on your resume!

The job market is so tight right now that hiring managers will look for any reason at all to exclude you from the huge pile of resumes on their desks! There are a couple of things that you should never include on your resume if you want to be taken seriously as a candidate.

1) An objective. Objectives serve no purpose! Employers don’t want to know what you want from them, they want to know what you can do for them. They want to know your professional strengths and skills. An objective just takes up valuable space on your (presumably) already crowded resume. Hiring managers probably won’t read them anyway! So skip the objective and include some useful information!

2) Jokes. While showing some humor in an interview might be a good idea, your resume is not the place to start showing off your incredible wit. Your potential employer will want to know that you can be serious and professional when need be, and your resume is a great place to show them that.

3) Negative statements. Your potential employer doesn’t want to know what you won’t do, can’t do, or refuse to do. Including these things on your resume make you seem high-maintenance and will have the hiring manager tossing your resume in the trash. Bring out the positive attributes about your skills and career. Make sure to emphasize your accomplishments. These reflect much better on you than coming off as a negative Nancy.

4) References Available Upon Request. Again, a space waster. Employers assume that if they ask you for references, you’ll provide them. You don’t need to include your references on your resume either…

5) Religious/Political Affiliations or Sexual Orientations. None of these affect your ability to do a job. In most cases, your employer could care less about any of these things. They want to know about your career and your abilities, not your personal life.

6) Unprofessional e-mail addresses. You’d think that people would have learned by now. You’d be wrong. We get resumes all the time that ask us to contact them at “hotmary3423” or “studmuffin340235012.” It’s smart to create a professional email identity such as firstname.lastname@gmail.com in order to keep track of your job search communications. It’s free to create a professional email, so you have no excuses! Remember, the difference between a good resume and a great resume can be a job offer.

Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips. I’m Paula Rutledge, thanks for joining us.

How to Write A Cover Letter

You’ve found the position you really want, but how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd? An easy way to do so is a really great cover letter. I’m Paula Rutledge, President of Legacy MedSearch, an executive recruiting firm focusing exclusively in medical device technology. In this post, I’ll give you some tips from The Resume Group on how to really make your cover letter shine and land you that interview!

There are 5 steps to creating a great cover letter:

1) The Rule of 3.Your cover letter needs to tell a potential employer three basic things:

1)     Who you are

2)     What you can do

3)     Prove that you can do it

You’ll want to have a statement that indicates your level in an organization and provide some of the skills that you possess that are relevant to the job you’re targeting. You should include two or three examples of your most notable achievements.

2) A call to action. Make sure to indicate what the employer should expect next from you. If you’re planning on calling or emailing in a few days, say so. You can also ask that they review your resume and then contact you to arrange a meeting. Don’t leave it to chance!

3) Customize it. There have been several issues of Medical Career Magazine about the horrors of sending “Dear John” or cookie cutter letters and resumes to a potential employer. Remember, targeting a specific position is the best way to get a foot in the door! Make a custom cover letter for each position you plan on applying for.

4) Contact information. Make sure you’re sending your information to the right person! You can use the corporate website, a social networking site, or Google to find the name of the hiring manager or recruiter in charge of your position. For that matter, don’t forget to include your own contact information!

5) Spell Check. I can’t say this enough: spell check and proofread everything you even think about submitting to a potential employer! I’ve gotten so many cover letters whose misspellings made me laugh out loud. I think my favorite was the man who left the “L” out of the word “public…” Even after you’ve proofread it once, do it again! It’s too easy to make un-retrievable mistakes that could cost you an interview or a job. Ask other people to proofread it for you, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, read it from the bottom to the top. Reading each sentence in reverse order will make it easier to spot mistakes.

Following these 5 easy steps should make your cover letter shine like new. For more information, check out The Resume Group at www.theresumegroup.com.

Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips. I’m Paula Rutledge, thanks for joining us.

Making A Career Change

Let’s say you’ve spent 10 years climbing the ladder in your field, making connections and gaining the respect of your industry, only to decide (or have decided for you) that it’s time to move in another direction. What do you do? Here’s where I tell you how to handle a drastic career change successfully.

Making a career change, especially if you’re in the middle or later stages of your career can be difficult, especially in such a specialized industry as medical device. However, it’s certainly not impossible. I’ve had candidates come to me who wanted to move from law to pharmaceutical sales! I give them all the same advice when they ask how to market themselves in a different industry with minimal industry experience.

1) Create an interview narrative that you can communicate quickly, logically, and puts listeners at ease. Your interviewers want to feel that there’s a solid logical reason behind your career change, not simply that you got fired for poor performance and are now looking for a fill in job. Communicating quickly lets the listener know that you’re not hiding anything about why you left. For more information on that topic, see another post of mine.

2) Create parallels of the skills needed for each of the two jobs. For example, explain how both require process-oriented thinking, customer service skills, quick understanding of a client’s needs, and ability to execute from big ideas to the little details. Draw a picture for your employers! This is a great way to preemptively address concerns that you may not be as qualified as some other candidates

3) Stick to the facts and put in positive statements about learning from your past mistakes. This is not the time to be bitter and sulk. Your goal is to make your potential employer as comfortable as possible.

4) If a hiring manager voices his/her suspicions that you many be less than qualified, don’t argue with them. The odds are that they’re correct. After all, they’re paid to weed out unqualified candidates. Your goal is simply to make them feel as if they wouldn’t lose out by hiring you as opposed to hiring someone with more industry experience. Make them see that skill sets are more important than actual experience.

5) Write down your story. Writing it down means that you’ll be able to practice it and not accidentally include emotions or compromising information that you wouldn’t want to come up in your first interview or two. You may want to follow the guidelines in Issue 4 of Medical Career Magazine. It has some great tips on how to construct a “why I left” story.

That’s this post. Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips. I’m Paula Rutledge, thanks for joining us.

How To Ace A Phone Interview

Are you dying to land that next job and have finally been scheduled for a preliminary phone interview? Things have changed since there early days, and there are some things you need to know before answering the call! In this post I’ll tell you how to ace that phone interview!

It used to be that the phone interview was just a preliminary step to make sure a candidate was qualified before scheduling them for an in person interview. However, with costs rising and more qualified candidates on the loose, phone interviews are becoming much more important and in depth.

As recruiters, we want to make sure that the candidates we’re presenting to our clients are in it for the long run and not just for a quick fill in job while they look for something better. With the unemployment rate rising and more and more equally qualified candidates coming to me, I can afford to be more selective in who I choose to develop. Often times after getting your basic information, every phone interview that involves a client will involve very specific questions. Make sure you’re prepared to answer questions that are normally reserved for second or third round interviews.

Phone interviews are also a great way to save on costs, so don’t mistake a serious phone interview for a quick preliminary call. The company may be using a phone interview in lieu of what would normally be a personal interview, which means they can be equally important.

That said, make sure that you prepare for a phone interview just as rigorously as you would for a personal one. There are always ways you can improve your answers, such as asking yourself what the company wants and why, and then crafting your answers around those facts.

For example, when asked about your experience, you may want to ask how much is required and at what level, because often time spent doesn’t equate to experience level.

Another thing that trips up many candidates is trying to concoct their answers on the fly. Don’t be one of those people! Try to imagine what the general path of the conversation flow will be. For instance, you know that there are certain questions that get asked in every single interview, so it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and craft specific, targeted answers to those questions so that you’re prepared when they come. Some of these questions might be:

What do you know about the company? Why do you want the job? What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? What are your career goals? And how do you see yourself fitting in?

Again, make sure to take into account what the company is looking for when crafting your answers.

Also, be careful of common mistakes, like giving long-winded answers that dance around the question ambiguously. The more you talk, the less you sound like you know what you’re saying. When you’re confident, you don’t need to drone! Additionally, don’t interrupt the recruiter to answer them before they’re finished speaking! It’s rude and disrespectful and makes it seem like your answers are too well-rehearsed.

Last but certainly not least, brush up on your phone etiquette! I’ve had candidates put me on hold to answer other calls, tend to their children, and I even had a candidate who was at dinner with his family while interviewing with me! I could hear the waiter taking orders in the background and the candidate cover the mouthpiece to order the lemon pepper chicken…

Follow those simple pieces of advice and you’ll be in the final round of interviews before you know it!

Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips.

How NOT To Contact Recruiters

Mid-sized recruiting firms like mine get more than 400 emails a day in our general inbox, and I personally get even more than that. Want to know how to get my attention?

You’re tired of submitting your resume to huge databases that holds millions of other resumes just like yours. Let’s say you’ve decided to work with a recruiter like me. How would you go about contacting me and ensuring that I’m interested in speaking with you?

Let’s start with what NOT to do. If your content doesn’t stand out, I’m not going to spend any time on it! That said, I can’t think of anything more boring and generic than a “Dear Recruiter” impersonal email that was clearly copied and pasted to hundreds of other recruiters. If I don’t know that you’re serious about finding a job and want to target a specific industry and job type, I’m not going to waste my time answering your email.

Second, make your attempts targeted. Blasting resumes to every corner of the country means that you aren’t stopping and customizing your resume for each individual opportunity. There’s more on that topic in “jump starting your job search”. If you want to catch someone’s attention in this competitive and intense job market, you’ll have to do more than the average candidate. Make your message targeted towards a specific audience and make sure that your message is personal and conveys your interest in THAT particular opportunity.

Recruiters are interested in candidates who have the time and patience to target employers that they’ve researched and are willing to put time and effort into. If we’re going to bat for you, we want to know that you’re equally committed to working with us.

I’ll give you an example of a candidate that went above and beyond to get my attention. He was one of you job seekers out there who continually blasted me with “Dear Recruiter” letters that I of course continually deleted. That is, until one day when out of nowhere I found a bouquet of flowers on my desk! Of course, that got my attention and let me know that this candidate was serious about wanting to work with me. While you don’t always have to do anything THAT drastic, doing something creative and unusual never hurts. Bribery is also a great tactic. Just kidding.

But the bottom line here is that I can tell when you’re just resume blasting and when you’ve taken the time to search me out and really want to concentrate on jumpstarting your career. Remember that there are thousands out there in the same situation as you, dying to get my or another recruiter’s attention! Make the most of your contact with me and I’ll return the favor.

That’s this issue of Medical Career Magazine. Don’t forget to check out our website at www.legacymedsearch.com or our forum at www.meddeviceguru.com for some more great tips.