Career Services is your resource for both maximizing your clinical externship experience and ensuring that, upon graduation, you are hired or well on your way to employment in your chosen field.
Here’s how:
Adviser Support
Throughout the duration of your program at Pima Medical Institute, you will be working on a draft of the resume you’ll need to find work in your chosen medical field. An adviser from your Career Services Department will visit your classroom to walk you through the components of a job search portfolio – the ideal tool to aid in your interviewing process.
Workshops that Prepare you for your Job Search
As you progress through your program of study, Career Services will be conducting a series of workshops on topics such as professionalism, building your foundation (the cover letter, resume, reference letters, credentials, etc., you’ll want to include in your job search portfolio), and how best to ‘brand’ and sell yourself, including information about how to improve your social media presence. You’ll also receive handouts on topics including a job search checklist, networking tips and interviewing approaches.
Clinical Externship
A few weeks before your clinical externship experience is to commence, the Career Services Department and/or your clinical director will meet with you to determine your preferences and, while we cannot guarantee to fulfill your every desire, we do have a vast network of medical practitioners dedicated to hosting Pima Medical students. We strive to meet your requirements, such as availability, specific medical specialties, location of the site and hours of operation. We also work to maximize the number of externship clinical sites who are looking to hire, therefore increasing your opportunity to utilize your externship as a working interview. This is your chance to shine, many times resulting in employment by your clinical site.
Job Search Assistance
The Career Services Department and/or your clinical director will be communicating with your clinical site supervisor(s) and, if the site is not in a position to hire you, we will be there to help as you begin your job search. We are committed to helping you pursue your career needs and we will begin the process of sharing available healthcare jobs and setting up job search interviews for you. If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by the interviewing process, not to worry! Your Career Services team will be happy to put you through a regimen of mock interviews to ensure you’ll feel totally confident and comfortable as you go through the real interview process.
Established Employer Contacts
Career Services has established relationships with potential healthcare employers, developed over many years in the medical community. We attempt to match our graduates’ specific skills with the employers’ defined parameters and preferences. As a result, your job search process will be more clearly defined, much easier for both you and your potential employer, and much shorter in duration.
Our goal is to get you working as quickly as possible! We measure our success by the success of our graduates. While we cannot get you the job, we can do a lot to assist you with landing the job you dreamed of attaining upon enrollment.
Deb Van Scoyk is the Corporate Career Services Manager at Pima Medical Institute. She has worked with Pima Medical students in a variety of roles over the course of 14 years with the school, including as Associate Director of Pima Medical’s Albuquerque, N.M. campus.
