Job Hunt Tips for New Dentist Graduates

The date is quickly approaching. Dental students will be graduating in May/June, and Dental Residents will be completing their programs in June. It is an exciting time. New jobs, possible relocation, and the beginning of a whole new life doing what you love to do.

If you are fortunate and have already found a great opportunity, then congratulations. Many future doctors, however, are still on the hunt. As an independent recruiter, who specializes solely in the dental industry (www.etsdental.com), I want to share with you some tips you may not hear often or at all.

Tips to consider:

1. Be open minded.  Dentistry is not the same as it was just 5 or 10 years ago, and it definitely is not the same as it was 15+ years ago.  Group practices are growing at an astounding pace, and a shear minority of new graduates start or buy practices immediately after graduation.
2. Don't base your decision only on what you hear from classmates.  It is great to bounce ideas and experiences off of each other, but here are a few points.  First, you are all in the same boat and have limited experience with what is out there in the job market.  Second, after graduation you are going in all sorts of different directions.  What doctors experience in New England are different that what you would experience in Texas.
3. Look at areas one or more hours outside of major cities.  Go suburban or rural. You will find some great opportunities with successful private practices. I speak with a large of number practice owners in these areas who are looking for new doctors interested in future ownership. Their practices are well established and continue to grow, but they really need an associate to keep up the pace. The challenge for these practices is their ability to promote the opportunity due to doctors not actually looking in these locations.
4. 35% of nothing is nothing!  Dentists for the most part get paid on a % of collections (or production).  High percentages are great if there is a strong patient base, great production, and a supporting owner or managing dentist.  You will be much better working for 28% of collections in a practice with a strong patient base and supporting owner over going into a practice paying 35% where you have to build your own patient base from nothing.
5. Contracts require negotiation.  When you get an offer it will come with a contract (most likely).  I would almost guarantee that it will not be 100% what you are looking for.  Don't just turn it down.  If the practice is what you want, and you have develop a good rapport with the owner (manager) you must ask for what you want.  Negotiating however is not one sided and you will have to give a little to get a little.  Compromise!

Written by Carl Guthrie, Western Region Recruiter for ETS Dental.  Contact Carl at cguthrie@etsdental.com | 540-491-9104 | www.linkedin.com/in/cguthrie | www.facebook.com/carl.guthrie | www.twitter.com/carlg_ets | www.etsdental.com

Organizations Begin to Backfill and Restart Hiring

"Everyone is hearing about continued debt concerns in Europe, but when it comes to not hiring in America, it’s used as an excuse not to hire, rather than a reason,” notes Rob Romaine, president ofMRINetwork. “Except for companies with heavy exposure to the European market, businesses are making hiring decisions based on the customers walking through their front door, not uncertainty surrounding sovereign debt an ocean away.”

A recent survey of MRINetwork recruiters noted an increase over the last six months of employers backfilling positions that had been left unfilled for two years or more. As one respondent said, “I believe [employers] cut so deeply over the past two years that productivity has suffered. Today, they are hiring out of necessity and a belief that the economy has begun to turn.”

The evidence that the economy has turned is mounting. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, the fourth consecutive increase. Total GDP growth in 2011 measured 1.7 percent, not a rapid rate of growth, but a far cry from projections of a double-dip recession.

Such growth numbers are, compared to past periods of recovery, rather weak. Yet, most important is where the growth is coming from. In 2011, MRINetwork saw placements in the construction space grow by nearly 50 percent, industrial placements by more than 30 percent and consumer products and services by more than 20 percent.

“Increased hiring of senior-level talent in these sectors is promising for the general economy,” says Romaine. “It indicates a confidence and a willingness by employers to invest in talent across broad swaths of the economy despite headwinds that still persist.”

But just as employers seem to be ramping up their hunt for senior talent, the availability of such talent may be shrinking as well. Over the last six months, employers have continued to increase their use of counter-offers, hoping to retain top talent long enough to backfill their positions. In highly technical fields, such as chemical engineering or biotechnology, employers have been forced to sweeten counter-offers because there simply aren’t as many candidates as there are job openings.

Indeed, the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher—perhaps the broadest definition of the skilled, professional workforce—fell in December to 4.1 percent, its lowest rate in nearly three years.

“A full-blown, double-dip recession in Europe could have a chilling effect on hiring in America. But, until it does impact the U.S. directly, businesses are beginning to return to more normal hiring patterns,” notes Romaine. “Companies are backfilling vacancies and investing in new positions. We are in the midst of the slow, but seemingly stable, rebound that had been projected.”

Over the past several months, private employment in the U.S. has begun to rebound in an increasingly strong way. Through all of 2011, the private sector averaged 160,000 new positions per month, exceeding the monthly rates of population growth (about 140,000) and labor force growth (only about 20,000).

Relocating for a Job?

Supply and Demand
The dental industry is as beholden to this premise as any other consumer service. As a recruiter, I see this in action as I counsel dentists considering their job options. Oftentimes, the supply of doctors in an area is too great and the best decision is to relocate to an area with more demand. For every underworked dentist in downtown Raleigh there is a haggard practice owner in Fayetteville, Greensboro or any other “boro” or “berg” that is 30+ miles away form a major city.
For those considering relocating to take advantage of a better opportunity, there are many factors to consider. Here are a few key points to ponder as you make your plans.

Cost of living difference
Don’t want to live in a shoe box in order to afford to live in town? It will be tough to do in San Francisco and New York but you may be able to afford more than you have right now. Housing is not the only factor to consider, though. Relative cost of living includes basic price differences for a variety of goods and services that you will be using in your new digs. Here are two free calculators that will help you understand the difference in cost of living between areas:
http://tools.gmsrelo.com/ToolsFAS/Tool_CityProfileState.asp;
http://www.bestplaces.net/col/


Salary Equivalence
Taking cost of living into account, how much will you need to make in order to maintain your current standard of living in your new hometown? Here is another useful calculator: http://tools.gmsrelo.com/ToolsFAS/Tool_SalarySurveyState.asp


Moving Costs
The actual cost of moving has increased substantially over the past decade. This includes the cost to hire movers, ship possessions, rent storage space and gas up the rental truck. This site will help you determine how much cash you can expect to spend: http://tools.gmsrelo.com/ToolsFAS/Tool_MovingQuoteState.asp


Home Sale
If you already own a house you will need to meet with a realtor to get an accurate home value and sale timeframe. In many cases, it will take you longer to sell your home than your new employer is willing to wait. If you are considering a move, you should talk to a realtor sooner rather than later. If you need to plan on paying two home payments simultaneously, you should know how much your dream house is going to cost you per month.
This site offers a breakdown: http://tools.gmsrelo.com/ToolsFAS/Tool_MortgageCalculator.asp


Personal Impact
There are other factors to consider as well. Are you active in any local organizations? Are your kids going to resent your decision? Do your research. Being close to family, friends, and lots of activities is great, but it is hard to enjoy all of that if you are not in a position that offers you a fulfilling and stable career opportunity.

For more relocation planning tools, see our website at: http://www.etsdental.com/candidate/relocation.htm

Posted by Morgan Pace, Senior Dentist Recruitment Consultant with ETS Dental. To find out more, call Morgan at (540) 491-9102 or email at mpace@etsdental.com.

Economic Outlook is Modest, with a Chance for Surprise

In the final moments of trading on the final trading day of the year, the S&P 500 dipped .04 points into the negative for the year, or -0.0032 percent. In many ways it seemed like a fitting conclusion. The questions and concerns that investors, consumers, employers and employees faced in the United States and abroad over the last year have been both foundational and astronomical in their scope, with many left unresolved. 

In Europe, a growing chorus of critics has brought into question the future of the world’s largest currencies. In Asia, countries with a massive slice of the world’s global population have started to remove the term “emerging” from their economies’ status. Many Latin American countries, for the first time in modern economics, seem to have survived a crippling global downturn with successful monetary policy. In the United States, we saw a credit rating agency report that America’s debt, for the first time in more than 70 years, was not without risk and economists began to build economic models for how the global economy might function without the U.S. at the top of the pile. 

“For the last few years, we’ve gotten to December, looked back and had to admit it wasn’t as good a year as we were hoping it would be. Now, no one wants to risk being too positive about 2012 and what it could mean for the economy and jobs,” notes Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. “At the same time, there is enough information to at least say, ‘this is one that could surprise us.’” 

A recent survey by the Conference Board said consumer confidence rose from 55.2 to 64.5 points between November and December, while its Expectations Index rose from 66.4 to 76.4 points. The Conference Board also cautioned against optimism while reporting a 1.28 percent increase in its Employment Trends Index from 102.42 to 103.7. 

“In the management and executive ranks, we’ve seen an increase over the last six months of employers seeking to back-fill positions vacated because of resignations, showing an improvement in the portability of talent in the labor market,” says Romaine. “Employees are finding and accepting new jobs, and their former employers are discovering they can’t leave those positions open.”

Top employed candidates sticking their proverbial foot into the labor market have added to the pool of available talent over the last half of the year. The demand for candidates has also increased, with the number of job postings calling for a bachelor’s degree having risen by nearly 20 percent in the last year. Many employers’ processes for screening and interviewing mid- and senior-level candidates has continued to elongate and the amount of time top candidates remain on the market has actually shrunk, while multiple offers have increased in frequency. 

“There aren’t any large single events on the calendar in 2012 that are going to take up the slack in the labor market, and we have no reason to expect that issues hanging over the global economy are going to come to an immediate or even a positive resolution,” says Romaine. “At the same time, there is a pretty solid foundation of reasons to suspect that the economy will maintain a modest pace of growth and that total employment will continue to slowly improve. And, there’s even a chance that the economy could do better than we expect.”

Hiring and Developing Talent in your Office

Are Top Performers Born…or Made?

K. Anders Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida State University, has spent years studying top performers from many different fields - science, mathematics, sports, the arts, business, etc. and has come to the conclusion that experts and high achievers are made far more often than born and the driver of their performance is deliberate practice.

The researchers found that deliberate practice develops expertise when it incorporates specific goal setting, gives immediate feedback and focuses on technique equally with results.

Deliberate practice drives expert performance. Passion provides the motivation necessary to practice rigorously. The link between passion, practice and performance suggests two fundamentally different kinds of talent recruiting and development approaches.

One strategy is to focus recruiting efforts on attracting talent that has already discovered and demonstrated what they love and excel at and to provide them with a compelling place to stay at the top of their game.

The other approach is to create an environment that helps people find work they can love and develop the skills and expertise to become top performers.

Are Top Performers Born…or Made?

You Can’t predict Talent – Foster it!

Establish a corporate culture where the conditions allow everyone to grow by:
1. Providing an Open Atmosphere where any ideas about improvement gets attention
2. Making an effort to employ a Diverse Workforce
3. Being flexible regarding the workday schedule - Hours are not what count; productivity is
4. Setting goals, then stretching goals, and celebrating the achievements.

You Can’t predict Talent – Foster it!

Posted by Rob Knezovich, Regional Account Executive/ Dental Recruiter. To find out more, call Rob at (540) 491-9107 or email at rknez@etsdental.com.