 and you really see day to day what the physician assistants and the other staff at that place, what their life is really like. And then you have to ask yourself, is this the kind of life that I want? Or the most common and the best way that people find a PA job, their first job is through their rotations. Morning, guys. I think I'm going to make this a goal for this week to record something every day on my way to work. Now this week is Christmas, so I'm going to be working three, possibly four days. I'm going to ask my boss if I can maybe have Thursday so I can go home earlier, but we'll see. So I think this week I'm going to try to record something every single day on my way to work. And I think I have an idea of a few things I want to talk about, not scripted, just kind of off the cuff, just like the last video. So if you have anything you want me to talk about, you have any ideas, post it as a comment below, shoot me a message on Instagram or email me, I'll be happy to talk about it. But I do have a list of some things people have asked me already that I've wanted to make more formal scripted videos about. So maybe I'll start using some of those ideas because those videos take forever to make and these are much, much faster. So I can just record them, get them out there, and then answer your questions that way. So let's go to work. And the topic I wanted to talk about today was getting a job as a PA, as a brand new PA. And if you're in the pre-PA community, you probably keep seeing all these articles pop on Newsweek or whatever that magazine was that said physician assistant is the best healthcare job, number one for satisfaction, for just everything under the sun. And that includes employability. So people who graduate with a physician assistant degree, they get certified, they don't really find it very difficult to find a job. A lot of people get a job before they graduate. That's partially true and it's partially not. So as someone who does follow this community on Reddit, Facebook groups, I'm not as involved as I was back when I was a student, mostly just because I don't have the time now that I'm practicing, but I still do see this question pop up all the time. And a lot of people seem to have a lot of difficulty getting jobs. I constantly see posts on the physician assistant Reddit page saying, I graduated three months ago, I graduated six months ago, and I still can't find a job. I've sent out my resume, I've applied on like Indeed, monster.com, online, everything. And I've applied to like 150 jobs. I got like a couple of interviews, but like still nothing. And some people got like zero interviews. So seriously, it's pretty crazy that a physician assistant can't get a job. So some people just coming out of PA school who heard their whole time, Oh yeah, you'll get a job easy, no problem. And then this is their experience, they might be a little surprised and a little disappointed about how difficult it could be to get a job. So the first thing I want to say about that, is what they kind of tell you when you're searching a job to manage your expectations. So they say you have to pick two out of the three, salary, specialty, and location, which means out of those three factors, salary, you know, how much you make, salary and bonuses and the whole package, specialty, what kind of specialty you want to work in primary care, surgery, neurosurgery, neurology, whatever it may be, and location, what kind of place you want to live in, and maybe particularly what city you want to live So for example, let's say you're from Michigan. Let's say you grew up and most of your family lives somewhere around Ann Arbor, Michigan, you went to the University of Michigan, you went to PA school in Michigan, and you just always thought that's where you were going to stay. You were going to stay close to home, you were going to get married there, have kids there, maybe you're still dating your high school sweetheart, maybe you're like the perfect American story, and you always thought that you were just going to stay in your hometown or around your hometown, at least within like an hour drive, and you were going to get a job there after PA school. Okay, sounds pretty reasonable. A lot of people would want that. Let's also say that since you were like nine and you decided that medicine was for you, you've always loved neuroscience, you've always loved neurology, neurosurgery, just the whole thing, and you realize maybe surgery wasn't for you, but you really, really want to work in neuro. So let's say you want to work in neurology, you want to be a neurology PA, lots of jobs out there for that, lots of neurologists want PAs on their team, so absolutely possible to get a neurology job. It's also really possible to get a job in Michigan. And then let's say you're good, smart, squared away, well-informed, new grad physician assistant, and let's say you read the AAPA salary report, which comes out of a year, and when you ask people like how much should I expect for my first job, how much should I expect in this specialty working here, working there, basically they'll just refer you to that document because it has all the averages of all the salaries that people report. So you could just like use hearsay and ask people, or you could actually use the data, which helps you much more negotiations for your job anyway. So let's say you did all that, and you're saying, okay, in my area with people from my level of experience, which is zero to one year as a new grad, by the way, in neurology, the 50th percentile PA makes $115,000 per year. Now that's just a random number, I did not actually do my research on this, I just kind of made this example up in my head, but let's just say that's the number, okay, and so you're expecting, okay, I want a job that's going to pay me at least the average of what people in my position are paid with my level of experience. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? So you do all that, and you're expecting to find a job exactly where you want it in your hometown in Michigan, in the specialty that you want, neurology, and the salary that you think you deserve, $115,000 a year. Now that just sounds pretty sweet, doesn't it? And unfortunately, this rule of three, this rule of picking two out of the three would tell you that it's very unlikely you're going to find all three in your first job. You might find two of the three, so maybe you'll get a neurology job in Michigan, but the salary might not be exactly what you want, and that particular office or practice may not be able to come up to the to the figure that you want. Maybe they'll offer you $90,000 to start, maybe they'll offer you $100,000, but maybe they won't do $115,000. Or maybe you'll find the perfect job in this neurology practice with an awesome supervising physician, and like you just love everything about the office, and they're paying you like $120,000, but it's in California, you know, $3,000 miles away from home. Or maybe you found the perfect location, it's like right next to your parents' house, they want to pay you $120,000 with a bonus structure, the contract is amazing, but it's in like pediatrics, it's not in neurology. You know, and by the way, all these figures I'm totally making up, I don't know what pediatrics and neurology PAs make in Michigan. So don't take these numbers with any kind of seriousness. These are just examples. So I'm saying you got to pick two out of the three to be even remotely realistic in finding a job. And actually, I think I'm going to get a coffee on my way to work. Doesn't that just sound good? Oh man, I freaking love recess coffee. Recess is like a local coffee shop here in Syracuse. And from like my very first time I've ever been in Syracuse, which has been years and years. And then I went back and forth and back and forth. And I haven't really been here consistently for very long until I went to PA school here. And I kind of went back and forth from here a lot, mostly because I was in a long distance relationship. She lived here, went upstate. And so that's actually what brought me to the area. Then I ended up getting into PA school here. And, you know, that's the story. Now I'm here forever, or at least for a couple of years, we'll see. But that first time I came to Syracuse to visit who's my ex now, but who was living here, I found recess pretty quickly. And I just went there to hang out, to study whatever I was doing at the time. I can't remember. But I always look for a good coffee shop when I get to a new city and I found this one right away. And, you know, I've been going there ever since. And now I go there pretty often. I get their espresso, I make it at home. I go there once in a while. And then sometimes when I run out of espresso, I actually go to the shop and get myself a coffee. Anyway, totally random shout out to recess coffee, but I love you guys. Okay, moving on. So I think we covered the rule of two out of three pretty well. You should only really expect to get two out of those three specialty location and salary. If you're expecting all three, your expectations might be a little too high and you might have trouble finding a job. What I've actually seen a little bit, unlike the Reddit forums and on Facebook, is people not even having that highest standards, people just really wanting their first job, any job, and still having trouble finding it. And they're saying just like I said earlier, you know, they're sending out tons of resumes, they're applying online to like hundreds of jobs all over the country and they just still can't find anything. And I actually had this experience a little bit myself because I was applying to jobs at the Cleveland Clinic. I thought maybe I would work in Cleveland, Ohio, where my family lives. And so I applied to a bunch of jobs online at the Cleveland Clinic, you know, through their website, their portal, and I didn't get a single one, didn't even get an interview as a new grad. So I do kind of understand what these people are going through. And I'm sure every situation is different. I don't want to speculate about anyone's situation particularly. But what I do want to say is applying online is always going to be worse than applying in person and applying somewhere where people don't know you, whether that's online or even in person, if you just drop by with your resume, is always going to be worse than applying through somebody that knows you, or just applying to a practice where you're known already for some reason. Maybe you work there as a medical assistant or a nurse, maybe you have a friend or a family member that works there and can really highly recommend you, or the most common and the best way that people find a PA job, their first job, is through their rotations. Maybe you had a rotation there. And that's what I want to spend the rest of this video really talking about, because that's by far the best way to get your first job as a physician assistant. Not only because the office or the practice or whatever knows you and they know you have a good work ethic and you were a good rotation student, they liked you, I'm assuming all these things are true. And so if they have an opening, maybe they'll hire you, like all of that, but also for you to screen them out, you know, you don't want to get a job somewhere, even if you're desperate for a job, you don't want to get a job somewhere that's going to suck to work at, where the environment is toxic, the supervising physician might not be a good leader or might not want to train you or is just an a-hole for any other number of reasons. You just don't want to subject yourself to that. And then you end up asking, like, how long can I stay in this toxic job? Like, I have to give it at least six months, or it looks bad on me. And so then you have to deal with that and then search for a job while you already have a job. And like, it's just best to get a job that doesn't suck for your first job, if possible. And using your second year, your clinical rotations, to not only make yourself known and get your name out there for people that might want to hire you, but also to screen out potential places that might be really good or really bad to work at. So that second year, that clinical year is a real gift when it comes to looking for jobs. Now, one giant caveat with that is if you go to school in an area that you don't want to live, that really takes that third thing, the location, out of the equation. Because most of your rotations are probably going to be somewhere around the school within, you know, an hour to like three hours, depending on your school. Now, you can set up your own rotation. You can be super organized about this and planned out and end up getting rotations in your hometown, wherever you want to live, or just all over the country. And then maybe you want to pick where you want to live and like get your name known all over the country. Like you could do that too, which is possible. But most people end up just letting the school handle it, letting the school handle the rotations. And then they end up getting a job somewhere near the school because that's just easiest. And that's what I did. And so just a couple of things I want to talk about, about finding a job while you're on rotations. Sorry, it's really sunny. The sun's like shining in my eyes. It's making it kind of dangerous to drive. So I think we're going to put on some sunglasses. That's better. So much better. Okay. So the first thing I want to say about that, and it does kind of have two sides, so definitely be smart about this. And that is when you're a rotation student, you're obviously there to learn and get your experience and whatnot. That's first and foremost. But if getting a job right out of school is important to you, which it should be, maybe you should also think about screening that place out as a potential employer for you. At the very least, think about is this the kind of place that I would want to work at? Is it a small practice? Is it a hospital? Is it a surgical team? What is it? Is this the kind of place that I would actually be happy working? It's almost like shadowing, except much more intensely because you're like doing the actual work. And you really see day to day what the physician assistants and the other staff at that place, what their life is really like. And then you have to ask yourself, is this the kind of life that I want? Or at least, is this the kind of life that I could be happy enough with for a little while while I'm getting my experience in my first job? You'd be surprised how many people don't even think about that. They just think about the numbers. Like, okay, I'm going to get through this rotation, I'm going to get this score on my end of rotation exam, and then I'm going to graduate, and then I'm going to find a job that's going to pay me this much and is in this location. Like, it doesn't always work like that. You got to kind of think ahead a little bit and try to put yourself in a position that you'll be happy about later on down the line. You can't just think about in the moment what you have to do. You have to think a little bit ahead into the future if you want things to turn out the way that you want them to turn out, if that makes sense. So definitely start at least looking around, like, is this the kind of place that I want to work at? Then if you decide it is, or even if you're not really set on the location, or even if you're not really certain about the specialty, but you think that you might want to work there, like it's kind of a nice place, start making connections, start talking to everyone, talk to the medical assistants, talk to the nurses, talk to the nurse manager, the practice manager, just kind of get known, get your name out there in the practice. So when someone asks who is that guy, who is that girl, somebody can answer that question. And then if the person that asked that happens to be a doctor or somebody who's maybe involved in the hiring process, that person can know, oh, okay, yeah, Boris was a pretty good student. And I really liked talking with him that day. He sounded kind of smart. So who is that guy? Let me ask that nurse. Oh, yeah, she knows him. She thinks that he's good and she likes his attitude and everything like that. Maybe we'll reach out to him about an interview. But if you didn't make that connection, that's less likely to happen. So just really start to get to know everyone. Now, the other side of that is, don't let this distract you. Don't start like socializing with everyone and hanging out and then not focusing on being a PA student, which is what you're there to do. That kind of burned me once on my first rotation. And I got the feedback that was like, you're not a medical assistant. You're not a nurse. Like start acting more like a PA and quit socializing. Now, personally in that situation, I don't think I was socializing. I was just friendly to people and asked them how they were for maybe like one minute when I came in. It wasn't like I was avoiding work or anything like that. I was just friendly. But you know, perceptions are everything. And that's just what the perception happened to be. But my point is, do you get to know people, whether you think they might or might not help you find a job? You never know, you know, you really never know who's going to talk to that doctor, who's going to end up hiring you. So definitely just be friendly to everyone, get to know everyone, but don't let it distract you from your actual duties as a PA student. So that's all I'm going to say about that. The next thing is be aware of your surroundings. Be aware of how the other providers, the doctors, the PAs, anyone who might have any poll in the office, be aware of how they're talking to you. Pick up on cues if they might be kind of hinting at them wanting you to ask for an interview because it's not going to always be just dropped in your lap and handed to you. You know, it won't be like in your last week, the primary physician is just going to call you in their office and sit you down and be like, listen, you're exactly what we've been looking for. I want you to interview at my office and I want to potentially hire you like it will not necessarily be that easy. It might be a few steps behind that and they might just kind of hint at them maybe being interested in hiring you and then you have to take the next step. What does that look like? It could look something like this. Let's say you're on your surgery rotation. You're working first assist with your supervising physician, the surgeon, and maybe the PA that's training you is also kind of around something like that. And you guys are all very focused on the case. You're doing your surgery. Everything's very involved. Everything's pretty intense. There's a lot going on. The scrub tech is yelling at you. Don't you dare put your hands down. You know, it's like this really high tense, high stress surgery environment. And then out of nowhere, the surgeon or maybe the PA seems like they're just making conversation with you just to pass the time because it's a long surgery. You know, that's what it feels like. It doesn't feel like anything official, but they ask you just kind of off the cuff. Hey, so what are you thinking about after graduation? What are your plans? Seems like a pretty innocuous question. You know, it doesn't have to mean anything, but the way you answer that question could mean a lot for your future. If you say, you know, I really have my heart set on neurology, so I'm going to try to find a neurology job. Okay, duly noted, you know, respectable answer, you know exactly what you want, but you definitely 100% shut down any chance that that person is going to offer you a job because they're like, well, this guy doesn't want to be in surgery. Why would we waste our time? Why would we waste any effort looking into them doing any research on them, seeing if they might be a good fit, if they don't even want to work in surgery? So right there. And then if there was any chance you wanted to work in surgery, and particularly on that surgical team, you just shut your chances down of that happening just by incorrectly answering that like really simple off the cuff kind of a question. Does that make sense? So if there's any chance at all you would be interested in working there, a better answer would have been, you know, I really like this area. I'll probably stay around here. I'm open to all kinds of positions. I've had a few interviews, so we'll see what happens. Why are you guys hiring? Is there any chance I could work here? That would be a better answer. The best answer, of course, would be, oh man, I've been wanting to do surgery since I was like 15, since I decided to be a PA. I just always really wanted to do surgery. I love this. I actually really like this environment and this team that you guys have going here. Is there any chance you guys are hiring? Because I mean, working here would be just like a freaking dream come true. All right. I'm not saying you got to lie. I'm not saying anything like that, but I'm also not saying that you shouldn't do that. That's all I'm going to say about that. All right. Is there anything else I really want to say about getting a job? And I'm about five minutes away from work, so I think I'm going to cut the video off pretty soon. But I think the main thing that I just really wanted to leave you with today is how important I think it is to understand yourself and what it is you want out of a job. Not just salary, you know, any PA job, unless it's totally ridiculous, is going to pay you more than enough to live on and be very happy and stable, you know, like PAs make a lot of money. So just chasing that extra five, 10 grand is not necessarily worth it. Location, of course, is very important. And if you have very, very strong, you know, family ties or for some reason, you just absolutely have to be in a certain location. I can understand that. But if you don't, or there's any chance you kind of want to have that adventurous spirit and prioritize your career and your growth as a new provider and as a person, maybe don't be so stuck on a location. So salary and location out of those three, I personally think are the least important. You know, salary, yeah, you can make some more money probably in certain jobs than others, but let's be real, like it's enough to live on no matter what. It's enough to pay your loans off no matter what. So like those first couple years, I think experience is much more important than how much money you're going to make. And location, like, yeah, you have to like the place enough to where you'll be happy, to where you won't be miserable living there outside of work, but maybe don't be super stuck on any particular location if possible. So those two things, I think that specialty is by far the most important. If you really have your heart set on working in a certain specialty, you should do that. If you don't, what I personally believe, at least for me, is that I really wanted to work generally. I didn't want to specialize. I wanted to work in like primary care, urgent care, or maybe emergency medicine where you get to see a little bit of everything. So all that knowledge, all those skills of every single body system in the human body, how it presents the kind of diseases that it has, at least the common ones, you get to see that and you really get to solidify that knowledge, which really gives you a good knowledge base for any job that you might want in the future. So if I ever specialize, I think it'll be in a good two to five years. If I ever specialize, I might be an internal medicine my whole career. Who knows? But I personally think that as a new PA, the best that you can do for the first few years is work in some sort of like a generalist specialty. So primary care, emergency medicine, something like that, because it really does just kind of solidify that knowledge of all the different body system. And you get to learn the body and medicine a lot more holistically than you would if you jumped straight into like neurology, women's health, something like that. But of course, that's not everybody's experience. That's not what everybody wants. You know, just take that with a grain of salt. That's just what I believe and what I chose to do for myself and the reason I chose to do it. Also really wanted to say how important it is to find a good supervising physician. Because yeah, PA school teaches you a ton. You get an immense amount of knowledge. Your experiences on clinical rotations, they teach you a ton. But at the end of the day, it's only two years. And most of it is in theory. Compared to a doctor coming out of their training and attending physician after residency, we have absolutely no knowledge compared to that. And I know some people might get mad at me saying that because we are licensed and we are trusted to provide care more or less independently, you know, with a supervising physician's signature at the bottom of our chart. But we do know enough to really provide care at a high level. But compared to a doctor, we really do not know Jack and me personally, I want to know as much as I can to keep my patients safe to provide as high a level of care as I possibly can. So for me, I thought it was really, really, really, really important to find a supervising physician who wanted to teach me a very knowledgeable, very patient, very, very experienced physician who wanted to pass that knowledge down. Didn't just want someone to make money for their practice and see a bunch of sniffles and nosebleeds and like simple things, you know, 30 of those patients every day, just basically be in a meat grinder and like make money for the practice, but not actually gain any knowledge for themselves and become a good practitioner. No, like I didn't want someone who wanted someone like that. I wanted a supervising physician who really wanted to train me and pass down their knowledge and make me as good of a medical provider as I possibly can be. And if that person happened to not pay me as well as maybe some other specialties or some other offices, I don't care. If that person happened to be in a city that I didn't really want to live in or wasn't super excited about, I don't care. That was by far number one, two and three for me. I wanted someone who's going to make my career. I wanted someone who's going to make me a good provider. And that happens in those first few years more than any other time. So for me, personally, that was number one for me. I didn't really even care about the other two. I mean, he had to pay me fairly if he offered me like 80 grand or something insulting, like, no, I wouldn't have taken it. That's not even in the 25th percentile. But as long as he offered me somewhere around the 50th percentile, as long as there was a decent amount of vacation days and the contract was good enough, you know, and the city was okay. It wasn't like middle of nowhere. Syracuse is an okay city to live in. I could possibly see myself starting a family here and like staying here forever because I do like the area. So, you know, that's good enough. The salary and everything is good enough. But the physician that I got hired by, that's the reason I got this job. That's the reason I chose this job. And that's the reason I'm excited to go to work every single day, like right now. So I really, really want that for you. So as other brand new physician assistants and nurse practitioners and maybe doctors, nurses, I'm not sure who all is watching this, but all of you guys watching this, I want that for you. I want you to get a job, your first job, that's going to make you an amazing medical provider, not just someone who checks the boxes or makes a bunch of money, but someone who actually provides excellent care and really learns medicine at the highest possible level that you can. So that's why I think that should be your first priority in looking for a first job. How is the supervising physician? How is the office environment? Is this going to be conducive to me becoming the best provider that I can be? And if that's there, honestly, location, salary, everything else, I think you can kind of put that off for a little while for the reasons that I just told you. And also financially for that reason too, because if you do learn medicine at a high level and you can manage higher acuity patients and you're a better provider overall in a year, in two years, you're going to be so much more marketable than someone who just settled, who just checked a bunch of boxes and saw low acuity patients and didn't really learn anything for two years. You're going to be so much more marketable. You're going to make so much more money and you're going to have your pick of much better jobs if you actually take the time while you're a new provider to focus on really learning as much as you can and making sure that you choose a job in a supervising position that's going to teach you as much as possible. So invest in your future and your knowledge base as a provider and also just financially because you're going to be just so much more marketable and find it so much easier to find an amazing job if you do kind of invest in your knowledge right now. I know that last little bit may have been a ramble. I was kind of taking some turns here on the way to the office, but anyway, I'm here. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that video. Like I said, I'm committed. This week, Christmas week, I'm going to make a video every single morning. So get your comments in, email me, put a comment in on Instagram, something just let me know what you want me to talk about. And I'm going to answer these questions every single day this week. All right, guys, I'm going to work. I hope you have an amazing week. This is Monday. So happy Monday, and I'll see you in the next video, which will be tomorrow.