Why Join a Medical Staffing Network?

By Rick Fromme

Your former colleague told you that after she’d joined an online medical staffing network, she soon found a new position at a major medical center.  She loves her new job; the pay’s better, she gets an extra week

Yes! (Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik)

vacation, tuition assistance, and her benefits are more comprehensive than yours.

Now your curiosity is definitely piqued. Even though you already have a professional profile on LinkedIn and you periodically attend networking events and conferences in your specialty, you’re wondering, “Should I join a medical staffing network?

The answer is a resounding “Yes!”

By joining a medical staffing network and having your résumé available to potential employers and health industry specific recruiters, you stand the best chance of career security and advancement — whether you’re actively looking for a new position or not.

Health Care Jobs Are Happening

Senate Passes Insurance Industry Aid Bill (Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

Consider this: For medical recruiters especially, online networking and searching plays an increasingly critical role in sourcing active and passive candidates who possess the right skills sets for particular specialties in health care and medicine.  Whether it’s in medical and pharmaceutical sales, to numerous clinical specialties such as nursing, physical therapy, physician assistants, and sonographers; to health care IT specialists, to administrators and even physicians, recruiters and would-be employers are always looking for key talent. As I wrote in an earlier blog, "Health Care Jobs Outlook is Jammin'!" health care is one of the most dynamic sectors of today’s job market today and will continue to be within the next decade as well.  There will be a continual need for skilled professionals in health care for a long time to come. That’s why you want to have your résumé and contact information readily available for employers and recruiters to access anywhere, and anytime.

Since staffing agencies, recruiters, hiring managers, and providers use medical staffing networks to post jobs and search for qualified potential job candidates in medical social networks, you have to be where they’re looking.  By having your résumé and qualifications in a medical social network database, you ensure your qualifications are seen by hundreds of people searching for someone of your background and skills.  Regardless of your specialty, joining a medical staffing network makes promoting yourself on a consistent basis easier. Think of it as having your own 24/7 and 365 day-per-year press agency. 

To Niche Their Own

Joining a medical staffing network such as MedMasters.com gives you the benefit of belonging to a professional niche network that’s industry specific, plus provides the benefits of a comprehensive job board and social networking site — focused solely on the health care industry.  General sites such as LinkedIn are more of a jack-of-all trades network, so it’s easier for your information to get lost amongst the millions of other people and professions.

The Right Tools to Get the Best Job

Beautiful Tools (Photo credit: geishaboy500)

MedMasters was created by health care industry professionals, for health care industry professionals. Your membership provides access to its medical professional directory, its ever-expanding social hub, and gives you access to the sites other unique features:

• MedMail
• MedConnect Groups
• Professional Assessments
• Video Résumé

A MedMasters member’s MedMail box is set up to do most of the tasks found in popular email systems, but also facilitates real-time alerts such as MedConnect requests, job alerts, candidate alerts, and MedMatch alerts. Upon receiving a message, members receive a MedMail notification, which they may choose to respond to immediately or at a later date and time. It’s easy to sync your MedMail account to your mobile device since your MedMails are relayed to your email address. When a recruiter is trying to contact you about a given job opening, most people want to respond as soon as possible.  MedMail facilitates the instant communication process.

MedConnect Groups facilitates the ability for members to network, share ideas, and discuss important topics with professionals of similar interests. There's no limit to the number of groups a member can join. Most open groups aren't restricted to only one's peers. Premium groups consist of peers, the industry's top recruiters, and leading employers.

There are nearly 45 broad-based groups as part of MedMasters' Groups: Allied Health Lounge, Allied Health Opportunities (premium), Clinical Specialist Lounge, Clinical Specialist Opportunities (premium), Nurse Practitioner Opportunities (premium), Health Care Executive Suite, Medical Product Development, Healthcare Information Technology, many specialty specific groups and others. There are also more “'socially enjoyable” and general category groups for Socializing,  Humor, Fun & Interesting, Medical News Forum, Medical Events and Conferences, Mingling Singles and others.

Assessments are available to all of MedMasters’ professional members at no charge. Furthermore, you can choose to post your results on your MedMasters’ profile page. MedMasters’ assessments and methodologies are based on 40 years of data and research. They provide both individual members, as well as employers, human resource solutions that are proven, measurable, and provide optimal results.

Companies use the results of your assessment to evaluate and compare you (and other candidates) with their top employees.  Employers cull from MedMasters' membership database, using the assessment results of its top performers as an objective benchmark. The closer your assessment findings match the companies’ best performers, the more likely you’ll be able to succeed at the level of the firms’ most valuable employees. It’s a win-win situation for both you and the company.

Video camera in action. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the primary goals of any job seeker is to distinguish him or herself to become the target of potential employers’ radar. There are several different ways to do this. One that’s gaining a lot of popularity is through video résumés. Numerous studies have shown people respond better when shown something rather than being simply told. Furthermore, people would rather watch a video than read verbiage.  By having your own video résumé, you can personally highlight the reasons why you’re the ideal candidate to any potential employers or recruiters. It will allow you to make a favorable impression from the get-go.

In this article, I discussed some of the numerous advantages of joining a medical staffing network. Sites such as MedMasters.com provide health care industry professionals a niche job board as well as an interactive professional social network — both of which are highly advantageous to job seekers and hiring entities.  I also detailed some of the unique features you can find in MedMasters such as MedMail, MedConnect, Assessment Center and the ability to post video résumés. If you found this article useful, please post your comments below. I encourage you to also share it with your colleagues and recent graduates from accredited health care programs and medical schools.

Rick Fromme combines entrepreneurial enthusiasm with an insider's knowledge of the medical industry to co-found MedMasters.com. Both his drive and perspective helps provide health care professionals with a superior mechanism with which to communicate, network and market their strengths. Prior to founding MedMasters.com, Rick operated a highly successful medical device distributorship. Other milestones in his 12-year career in the medical industry include a key position at a medical device start-up company that was later sold to the Ethicon Endo division of Johnson & Johnson. You may also reach Rick by connecting with him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube. 

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A Site for Your Eyes

By Rick Fromme 

Computer Setup (Photo credit: Paul Mayne)

As many of you know who’ve been reading my blogs (and my bio at the end of them) I’ve had a successful career in the medical industry for over a decade, mostly dealing with medical device sales.

Like many in the health care profession,  I had joined, and still belong to, several social media and professional networking sites. I would also periodically visit several job board sites, some of them generic, others slanted towards the health care profession. While I felt some of them were fairly well conceived and designed, I still thought that none of them were optimized for today’s busy health care professional. Especially in this era of Web 2.0, where the emphasis is on participation, sharing, collaboration, and recommendation; as well as blogging, audio/video, being user-centric and easy to use.

So I started thinking: "If I were to build my own site geared for health care professionals, one that combined the best features of an industry specific job board and social media website, what are the key elements and components I’d like it to have?" 

• First, I thought the site should provide a robust social network for the medical community. One that would also act as a directory for users to find and connect with each other based on their specialty within the health care industry.

• The site would also facilitate members’ ability to collaborate with each other, share ideas, and join networking groups pertinent to their interests and work specialties.

• It would be a dynamic, interactive online portal where members could join networking groups specific and exclusive to their interests, acumen, and area(s) of expertise. For example, recruiter-only groups, doctor-only groups, medical sales-only groups, etc.

• As far as job board functionality, individual members could also find career opportunities, get leads, and locate people and products. It would also allow companies and recruiters to source active and passive members looking for jobs specific to the medical and health care industries.

• The site would allow health care and medical community job seekers to join a networking community that was outside the labeling of traditional job boards.  Since social networks are more popular these days, they could post their profile, specialties and résumé (printed and video) — without worrying about a manager wondering if they’re really looking for other jobs. 

• A key feature I wasn’t seeing on other sites were opportunities for professional development and career advancement. I envisioned this new site would provide an area to learn new skills, evaluate one’s current skills and provide users with supporting material to help with their career advancement.

Network (Photo credit: michael.heiss)

• It would also offer employers and recruiters the ability to objectively evaluate candidates based upon measurable benchmark assessments, not just relying on someone’s résumé, or how well he or she interviewed, etc.

• The site would allow providers to find products (we haven’t implemented this yet) they’re seeking and also locate associated vendor providers and product distibutors.

Hence, the birth and ongoing development of MedMasters.com, which has become the nation’s premier niche job board and social media site designed by and exclusively for health care professionals. Again, since we operate in the world of Web 2.0, there are currently a dozen or so videos we’ve created to answer specific questions for potential members, individual members, and recruiter members, and new employer members. As with our dedicated blog site, Medical Social Network News, we’re always adding new content to our video library as well. 

Here are some key questions and issues some of current our videos address:

What are the Principal Elements of an Effective Niche Job Board & Social Media Site?

A truly functional niche job board and social media site should enhance your ability to reach out to and connect with medical professionals, as well as allow you to locate and take advantage of industry specific services.  For job seekers, it should also facilitate — from a variety of approaches and services — your ability to research and apply for new career opportunities. For recruiters, it should provide a comprehensive database from which to research, evaluate and even assess a wealth of qualified candidates. In short, it should function as the most comprehensive networking and career management site in the health care community today.

The site should further your ability to reach your professional aspirations as well as expand your network of fellow health care and medical professionals.  

Especially for the current job candidate, the site should allow medical professionals to connect with and keep their name and qualifications in front of business associates, medical recruiters, employers, distributors and decision makers.

MedMasters: Real-time Opportunities, Real-time Results

How to Build Your Network Online?

Ever since humans engaged in commercial enterprises, creating a professional network has been essential to anyone in nearly any profession. That’s why there used to be guilds, even pubs and taverns specifically associated with a particular profession; because they facilitated and encouraged networking … tankerd in hand or not. Today, it’s particularly important for health care professionals to have an online “organic” network that works for them around the clock. A good niche job board/social media site should help you to expand your network in a variety of ways.  

First, you should be able to invite any professional medical contact you know to join the site to become part of your own network.  That way, you grow your own network while concurrently helping them to expand their network on the site. Remember, “givers gain.”

Secondly, you should be able to search a site’s member database by name or category (i.e., nurse practitioner, pharmaceutical sales representative, internist, etc.) Once you’ve identified that person, it should be easy to reach out and contact them.

Thirdly, when another member reaches out to you, it should be easy to see who they are, what their specialty is, and can easily accept their invitation to connect with them.

Building Your Network on MedMasters

How Can Recruiters Search for Applicants and Post Job-Specific Openings?

Professionals across a broad range of specialties such as a medical sales representative, allied health professional, doctor, or health care IT, etc., should be accessible by medical industry job recruiters. Likewise, job applicants should have the ability to network with recruiters that focus on their specialty or area of practice.  

The savvier job seeker can utilize a well-designed niche job board to expand their professional networking opportunities, have access to industry specific recruiter networks, and can post or look for job openings posted on the site. This enables them to promote themselves and their qualifications to hundreds of recruiters and thousands of other health care professionals.

Health Care Recruiters Can Post and Find Applicants on MedMasters

In this article, I shared with you my ideas on what would make an ideal niche job board and social network site geared specifically for the health care community.  I also shared with you several of the videos we created specifically for potential members, individual members and recruiter . If you found the content and videos helpful, please leave a comment below. FYI: If you’d like to check out MedMasters’ other videos, visit my YouTube Channel.

Rick Fromme combines entrepreneurial enthusiasm with an insider's knowledge of the medical industry to co-found MedMasters.com. Both his drive and perspective helps provide health care professionals with a superior mechanism with which to communicate, network and market their strengths. Prior to founding MedMasters.com, Rick operated a highly successful medical device distributorship. Other milestones in his 12-year career in the medical industry include a key position at a medical device start-up company that was later sold to the Ethicon Endo division of Johnson & Johnson. You may also reach Rick by connecting with him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube.