 We got our first job offer. That's right, you guys, your friendly neighborhood, YouTube, podcast, medical school, content creator is finally a few steps away from finally getting his first job. And in today's episode, I'm going to talk about a few steps that took along the way to not only get just one, but two job offers, as well as the lessons that I've taken since our very first episode of The Doc for Hire. So today's episode, I'm going to break down the steps that I took in between the first episode and today and explain how I went from interviews to actually getting a job offer, as well as the lessons I learned. Because to be completely honest, not many people share this part of the process. They essentially finish training and then they make a video or just share on Instagram how they had their first job as a fill in the blank. But I actually want to go through the both the struggles, the good and the bads of this process and the anxiety that comes from it, as well as excitement when you have your first job offer. So let's get into it. But really quickly, if you are new here, my name is Lex Trivedi. I'm an internal medicine physician and soon to be attending. And here we make content helping people just like you succeed on the medical journey but doing it with less stress. So if you enjoy this content, if you want more content like this on a weekly basis, make sure you hit that like and subscribe on YouTube. And if you're listening on the podcast, follow and subscribe as well. So first, let's start with the process and a few things that I've learned, both good and bad. Number one is there's a lot of interviews to actually get your first job. My initial perception when applying for jobs would be that I'm gonna fill out an application, somebody's gonna probably call me or email me, see that we're probably a good fit and then call me in person or over zoom and say, yeah, you're like the guy for us and maybe do one or two of those. Instead, I found that most people will have one and interview with usually the recruiter who isn't a physician themselves. They just kind of been working to attract physicians to whatever group they've been. And that person is more so interviewing you to make sure that you're a good fit for them. And they don't always have that much information about like the group and how it works and salaries and things of that sort. Again, they're just kind of making sure that you're a check mark before you move to next step. So that's one interview. Most of those were done over phone call. Interview number two is usually with somebody important whether it be a head hospitalist or that's what position I'm applying for or kind of like the director of a specific location. And those varied because of COVID either have been done on Zoom or Microsoft Teams or via phone call. Now the few of the places I interviewed and applied for which I've done about four to five about three of them reached out for a more formal interview. Now one of them transitioned to going from in-person and going back to being another team's interview but it was still kind of a formal interview and the other two were in-person. So ultimately I ended up with five applications and three in-person interviews and two offers. Lesson number two is exact same position can have a variety of different definitions when it comes to job description. Now I'm applying for a position as a hospitalist which is an internal medicine doctor that works in a hospital and the main thing that you do is you admit patients, you discharge them and you usually work on a schedule about seven days on, seven days off. There's some variability but that's usually how it works. So in my head and my experience with residency is like, oh, I'm gonna be taking care of medicine patients and so many other problems but I didn't really think about issues such as post-surgery patients or surgical oncology patients or electrophysiology patients or working at a rehab center or working at a nursing home or an LTAC. These are paces that in residency I don't have too much experience with so I never really considered my role as a hospitalist to possibly also include those. And so as I interviewed and talked with various different groups I realized that my position could be really fluid depending on the group or you work here in the setting with these patients and that's kind of your role. And that brings me into lesson number three which is different expectations from different groups. Some groups for example, we're really excited to having somebody young like myself join their group to just give them a little bit of a different perception as they're trying to grow and improve their patient care. Others were looking at me or more of a we hope that you can figure out this process but we're gonna start you out small here. And then other groups that I interviewed at also just said, this is where we want you and this is where we hope you stay and there's not too much flexibility there. And you just kind of have to ask yourself what kind of roles do you wanna fit in especially when it's your first job as a big boy doctor? Now the final lesson, if you made it this far into the episode is going to be the biggest key especially when it comes to you applying your job is that your network will truly be the reason that you get the job that you want. Out of the two offers that I have currently both of them are due to me getting the contact from somebody I know. For example, the first offer that I got last weekend was given to me from a mentor that had a medical school who knew somebody who used to work in Austin in a hospitals group and I got their email who gave me the contact of the recruiter who I sent their resume to. Again, I don't really know the third, fourth, fifth person down this chain but ultimately got to somebody who says your resume actually looks pretty impressive. Your training's been great. Let's consider bringing you in for an interview and then a snowball from there. Offer number two is the exact same thing. I knew somebody who's working as a doctor in the area I'm currently applying to. I asked them even though they weren't an internal medicine doctor if they could put me in contact with somebody else that they knew who was working as a hospitalist and they gave me an email, that person gave me an email, that person eventually put me in touch with a recruiter who I sent their resume to who eventually got me in touch with the medical director who I just had an interview with and that's the second offer. And so once again, compared to my initial perception where I thought I could just go on all the job boards online on like indeed.com and jobs.com, pretty sure that's a website and just apply for the jobs in the city that I'm looking for, I learned that that's not honestly the case at all. In fact, the places where I did actually apply through like a physical application or like a digital one, I never heard back from. And then that's probably just because they're just growing their pool until they need a doctor hire. But on the flip side, if you can manage to get the contacts of people who are in the decision-making shoes like a medical director, they may say, yeah, we are hiring, give me your resume and then they can make a decision from there. That's the exact reason why I was able to apply for four to five places and have two offers so far. Now, while getting a few offers is obviously very exciting, my wife and I are thrilled because we get to one, move back home, close your family and then two, how or choices of what type of job I want to take versus just taking the only offer I have on the table. Really, there is going to be a few things I have to do until I officially become that big boy doctor. So let's break down the next steps. To step number one, both offers have given me kind of a timeframe of when I need to give an answer by, which is completely reasonable. If you are an employer, you want to essentially say, are you going to take this job or not and should I look elsewhere? So I have an X amount of time, a few weeks to essentially be able to evaluate the two contracts or two offers and saying this is the one I'm going to pick with. So the first thing I'm going to do is reach out to people who are currently working at both sites and essentially ask them, like, what do you like? What do you not like? And if I start to hear enough of things that sound amazing, as well as enough of the things that don't sound so amazing, I can make a better decision and contrast the two offers. And if I'm lucky enough to have a third and a fourth offer added to it, then I can do the same process with their employee. Now, once I have an idea of feedback from a variety of different hospitals from the different groups, step number two is to have a lawyer review both contracts and make sure that I'm not missing anything in the kind of the lingo of law that I just don't understand. And so that includes just having the lawyer say, you've seen enough of these contracts for the specific specialty for the specific role in the specific area. Am I getting screwed or am I doing really well? Like, what other type of things should I ask for? If anything, or is this a reasonable contract then should I sign it? And a few things you always have to consider are exactly what your job responsibilities will be in the contract because you don't want something to be written on page 48 of a 600 page contract. That's not that long, I promise. And not even know that that is something you were expected to do and no one mentioned it to you. Number two is how are you gonna be paid and how is it written in the contract to make sure that it's what you were told? And number three is not that you should be planning to ever leave a job, but if you were because you have to move, do your graphic reasons, your spouse got a new job or you just didn't actually fit with the role itself, what would be the process of leaving? How quickly do you have to tell them in advance is there a non-compete? Can you work in the same area in the same role? There's a lot of different things to consider and that's where a lawyer becomes really valuable money that makes sure that I'm making the best decision on the contract and the way that it actually should be looked at. Now, once I understand both the goods and the bads as well as have a lawyer tell me this all looks good, green light ready to go, then it's time for me to make a decision and commit. So hopefully by the time the next video comes around or maybe when this video goes live, I'll already have made that decision. And I'll be completely honest, both offers have pros and cons to it and there is a level of me that is excited but also a huge level of me now to be completely blunt about this that is very nervous because I've never been in the shoes. Usually it's people giving me an acceptance letter and you kind of just go with it, medical school, residency, undergrad or people giving you a score and that's kind of where you are but now you kind of have some choice and some control, some negotiations and I wanna make sure I make the best decision for myself and I'll regret it. And so the first few steps in this process are gonna be really exciting and really important but then when it's time to commit I'm just gonna be looking forward to next August and next September when I'll be working as a full-time physician. And then finally step number four is to get my Texas license. So currently I'm doing my residency in the state of Texas. That's where I plan on practicing for the rest of my upcoming life and so applying for a Texas license is a headache and that's kind of an understatement. There are loads and loads of forms that you have to fill out. I'm just gonna share a screenshot of different things that are on the Texas medical license kind of website. It's really confusing. In addition, it also costs like $800 plus just to apply to get your license and then more additional costs to pay for small things like fingerprinting and the test and it's a big headache. But before I can get credentialed at whichever hospital I choose to work with I have to get my Texas medical license and so that part is currently in process and rolling and I'm likely going to need more documentations that will require another week here, two weeks there, three weeks there. Things just start to linger and that pushes my start date as actual physician later on so quickly I can start now the easier it'll be when residency's over. So once again, learn about the good and bads, have a lawyer review my contract, make a decision, apply for the damn freaking Texas license and then enjoy the excitement of finally getting ready to start my first full-time physician job. But that guys breaks down episode two of the Doc for Hire series. Hopefully you guys are enjoying this kind of in-depth break through. If there's any questions about what the process has been like for me definitely let me know in the comment section down below. Again, if you guys do enjoy this content and you somehow make it to the end all I simply ask is just a quick thank you in the form of a like button even if it's not necessarily this video or episode if there's another episode that you've watched that you've really got some value out of hit the like button, helps the channel out, hit that subscribe button if you haven't done so already in addition to the notification bell if you are listening to this in the form of a podcast definitely consider hitting that subscribe and follow as well as leaving an honest review on iTunes even if you don't need to use iTunes it definitely helps the podcast grow and as always drop your comments down below love interacting with you guys love hearing your feedback what other videos you'd like to see in the future but as always my friends thank you for being a part of my journey hopefully I was a little helped to you guys on yours if you do need even more help on your journey make sure you check out some of the links down below for both our free as well as paid programs to really help you succeed in medical school but doing it with less stress and with that if you did enjoy this video check out this video on how you can use Anki Like a Pro as well as this video on how you can study Like a Pro in medical school step by step I'm gonna let you guys enjoy these videos and I'll see you guys in the next one take care my friends, peace. We got a job, chaos. Okay, now, bye.