 So what was the interview process like for me when I was looking for a job? That is the question that I'm going to be answering today. What's up, you guys? It's Benana. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. So I had this question asked to me a couple weeks ago. I guess you could say someone asked, what was my interview process like? Now, obviously this was pre-COVID, so the interview process for you might look a lot different, but for me, this is what it was like. So I passed my boards back in December and immediately after I passed my boards, I started putting out my resume on sites like ziprecruiter and resume.com or whatever the other places are, but Career Builder, those places because I wanted to get a job. That's exactly what you want to do after you've graduated and passed your board. So I put that out and within the first week, I got a lot of responses. And I wouldn't say that it's because I am this amazing PA student grad or anything like that, but it's just that in my particular area of the country, there were severely recruiting and hiring PAs and NPs. So I think although there was a lot of people putting their applications out there, there was a lot of jobs that were looking for individuals as well. So that worked out to my benefit. I don't know how many applications I put out. I put out well over 60 applications. I got well over 20 offers for interviews and stuff, but I think I only went to about 10 or 11 interviews. Now, obviously you have to vet through what you want. Do you really want to work at this place? Do you not? And for me, I didn't have an area that I specifically wanted to work in, except for OB, which I already knew like it was going to be hard to get into OB right out of PA school because again, in my area, they're looking for three to five years of experience. So I knew that it might be a long shot for that, but I did still apply to some OB positions that was out there. And I did get called back for an interview from one of those positions, but I eventually like turned it down because it was just actually way too far. And so those are some of the things that you have to consider. And I will talk about that a little bit later, but I did want to address the whole how many applications I put out and then getting back the calls to do an interview. So for me, like we had the phone interview process first with some of those jobs that I applied to, and then I was called in for like an actual in-person interview. And after I did the in-person interview for some of the jobs, I got a second interview. And then for some of them, the first job, like the first interview, I would get a soft offer. Now, here's the thing about soft offers, right? Like you're excited, you're happy because, you know, you're like, oh man, these people like me. This is great. They're kind of offering me. There's like a job because they're saying, hey, you know, so we really like you. But like this is what we're offering. But I don't know if that's like in the price range of what you want to do because they ask you for a salary that you're expecting. And I like always gave like a range and said that I was flexible because I didn't want to give a specific number and box myself into something. And I also didn't want to like low ball myself or be like extremely unrealistic. So I always gave a range and I always made sure that I did my research beforehand. Like you think that you're done with school and you're done with applying to PA school and things like that, and you don't have to do your research, you're always going to be doing your research on different ventures that you're about to start. And so this is like not like any other thing, you're going to do your research on the company and the position because I was applying to various different types of PA positions. With that being said, like I would do my research, see what like the average salary of a PA in that position was, I would look at like the APA salary report to see what like a new grad like one to three year out of PA school, PA would be offered at that position. And then I would try to like get an average of that in terms of like what would be realistic for me to actually ask for. And so that was something that I learned quickly on like how to do because I got like a lot of, I felt really low offers in the beginning. And I think like, I kind of like fielded my offers to other people. And I was like, Hey, you know, like, what do you think about this? Is this a good offer? Is this not? And like, they were on board that, you know, those offers were low. So I turned those jobs down or I said, like, Oh, no, like, I'm not really interested anymore. And I made sure, you know, I kept the lines of communication open, always sent a thank you card for the interview and always, you know, showed my gratitude in terms of saying, Hey, like, I really appreciate you like offering me this position or even in interviewing me for the position. And I think that is important for you all to do is always make sure that you send thank you cards because, I mean, it's nothing is guaranteed, right? So I always did that. But when it came to looking for jobs, like I said, there was not really like a job per se that I knew that I wanted, except for OB, but there were jobs that I knew that I didn't want. And so I made sure to just apply to jobs that I could kind of see myself in. And then when I actually got to the in-person interview, I would like ask to shadow or asked to come back in shadow if they were still interested in me or talk to their PA that was working with them or talk to the staff. And I think that is also important for you all to do when you're actually doing this whole interview process is kind of get the culture, get like who you're going to be working with, try to see like if you like the environment, because you're going to be spending hopefully a long time there, you know, you're going to be spending a large majority of your day there. And obviously, you don't want to just kind of jump from job to job per se, like within the first three months. So you want to make sure that you can actually see yourself there and be happy. So for me, like that was one of the things that I was interested in doing. Now, when I went through like my whole interview, like they would come in, I know somebody asked me like, dude, did they know about my YouTube channel? Or did they ask about my YouTube channel? And really and truly, there was only like two or so of the positions, sorry, that asked me about my channel or kind of knew about my channel. One knew. And then like one asked about like social media and stuff. And I, you know, told them that, yes, I am on social media. And they like looked me up and they were really excited actually about the channel because they wanted to kind of brand their office and try to see if they could get videos and things like that on the internet to kind of just promote their office a little bit more. So that was like working out to my benefit. But again, like I had to take into consideration everything like, is this job close enough to my house where I would be happy? Was it like, what are the hours? And for me, it didn't really pan out because I would be there like pretty much five days a week and I wasn't really too fond of the hours. And also I didn't really necessarily like the offer as well. So some things that I learned from going through this whole interview process is, you know, send out a lot of applications because you have no idea. It's just like pay school, right? You're going to get a lot of applications and they have to windle it down to one person. You're not fighting for one slot or one seat out of 40 or 30. You're fighting just for one seat, one job. And so it's important for you to just kind of put your feelers out there and make sure that you are not putting all of your eggs in one basket. I also learned that you should not like sit up here and like entertain soft offers. So like, don't do anything. Don't say anything. Don't make any plans until you see something in writing. See like, have them put in front of you an offer saying, Hey, like, this is what we would like to offer you and you take like your week or however long it is that they allow you to take to review it review it with like, if you have like financial or a lawyer or somebody that can review it with you do that. But you take your time read through every page and, you know, kind of tear that thing apart because this is your contract or this is your offer. And so you want to make sure that it's fair to you and to them. Also, speaking of contracts, like, you know, I only do a contract if it's very, very beneficial to you. Like if you're going to sit up here and lock yourself into a position or a job for like a year, two years, three years, there really should be some things on the table that they're offering, like tuition reimbursement and, you know, like CME money and hours and maybe even like paying for your licensing and all of that stuff. Those things are important. I just did that video about all of the money that you spend for your initial licensure and delegation and things like that. So if you're going to be locking yourself into a contract with somebody, it's important for them to like kind of give up like those funds and be like, yeah, you know, we're investing in you as well. Speaking of investing, go ahead and invest in my channel. Hit that like button, you guys. It really helps my algorithm and also like consider subscribing because that will help my channel as well. Another thing that I learned actually was after you've done your interview and like I said is, you know, ask to shadow. It's really important to know the culture, look at the space that you're going to be working in and know that you're feeling comfortable there. Some things that I think you guys should take away, especially for those of you that are either new grads now or will be graduating in the upcoming months of like August slash September. Obviously you're going to be interviewing like kind of in COVID times, right? We have no idea what the country's going to look like in terms of openings and how open places are going to be. So take that into consideration when you're planning for your interview because you might be doing it online. You know, I've had several friends of mine that are doing interviews online and getting flown out for like official, official like interviews slash offers, but the initial aspect of things is online. And so kind of like taking the time to like practice online interviews and your interviewing skills like in front of a camera is important for you all because you know, like being in front of a camera and your facial expression and everything is important because that's all they're going to see there. Like they're not going to release your personality any other way. So make sure that you're like smiling and you're happy and you're pleasant because it's going to be important to showcase the personality that you have that they can't otherwise see because you're not in person with them. But that ultimately is kind of like how my whole like interview slash job hunt process was applied to like over 60 jobs, got called like, you know, called back for like about 20, got interviews, like actually went to the interview of about 11, got a few offers actually, like maybe half or so of that 11 were offers. And then ultimately, like I settled on the one that I'm at right now, this trauma gen surge position, but it kind of really happened very like organically and just kind of quickly honestly, because I did my rotations there. It was, it was great, like just kind of a good feel got the job offer, got the official offer and the rest is history, right? And now I'm a trauma PA, gen surge PA. So it's really, it's really exciting. I know it can be nerve wracking, but I think ultimately what you should take away from this is don't put all your eggs in one basket. Be pleasant. Make sure you send out some thank you letters and enjoy the process. All right, if you guys have any other questions for me, please leave them in the comment section below. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate each and every one of you. We're at 30,000 subscribers, like this is great. This is amazing. And I wouldn't be here without each and every one of you. So thank you guys. Please follow me on Instagram at adana, the PA, like this video and subscribe. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time.