Congratulations! You’ve found an opportunity that resonates with you and you want to take the next step in reaching out to the company.

But before you do that make sure you give yourself the best chance of success by following these important points.

What does expressing your interest mean?

Yes – most job boards require you to send over a CV on the first step, however we recognise that CVs alone do not necessarily reflect the applicant’s (ie. YOU) buy-in into the opportunity or company itself.

There are doctors who could theoretically DO the job, and there are doctors that are RIGHT for the job.

This is a hugely important differentiation when making a good hire.

Therefore this is a pre-step before you fully commit to applying to the role – enabling you to seek further information as to whether you’re the right fit for the company. A soft application.

Nevertheless – this is still a differentiating step because it assesses many things which will be relevant to the opportunity itself which include:

Your attention to detail – how well have you read the job description?

Your ability to communicate with clarity and concisely

Your ability to outline your unique selling points beyond being a doctor

We will go into these in a little bit more detail below.

Put yourselves in the shoes of a busy hiring manager

They are extremely busy people. Most of the time they’re doing their day job which doesn’t always involve recruitment.

So your job is to make their lives a lot easier – make it EASY for them to take things forward with you. Don’t leave things to ambiguity and avoid waffling on.

They could be reading 10s to hundreds of expressions of interest. Sometimes all at once.

It’s commonly quoted that most employers will take an average of 6 seconds to read a CV.

Yes.. 6 seconds.

Why? Because they know what they’re looking for and it’s fairly obvious when you’ve done something thousands of times before.

Think about when you assess a patient. You can tell pretty quickly whether they’re a well or require urgent medical attention just by looking at them.

Why? Because you have experience in making quick clinical assessments as part of your workload triage process and you know what to look for.

So – applying this principle – what would you want them to SEE and UNDERSTAND about you in 6 seconds in relation to the opportunity?

Read the job description carefully

You’d be surprised how many doctors don’t fully read the job description.

How can we tell?

For example:

Consulting firm XFactor have stated they are seeking doctors at a minimum of registrar level or 5+ years post graduation of medicine.

Patriz is starting his FY2 and decides to apply as it sounds like a fantastic opportunity…

..although he is clearly not eligible.

The reality is – if companies are flexible, they won’t be specific about which grade they want.

However, if they have stated eligibility requirements, it’s important to accept that as a hard boundary.

Yes, some doctors like to try their luck – but unless you have something exceptional to add to your interest application, there is a very high likelihood your interest will not be progressed.

Important note:

There’s evidence to indicate that women are unlikely to apply for roles unless they’re 100% qualified. For men – it’s about 60%.

Read through the job description to determine what the hard boundaries (no-go) and soft boundaries (flexible) are.

We do want to encourage you to apply as we would not expect you to tick every box they’ve asked for (some companies have a habit of asking for people that just don’t exist!), but at least meet some of the core minimums.

We do our best to make this clear as possible – if it’s not then feel free to contact us.

Provide a brief high level introduction to who you are which is no more than 2 sentences.

How do you sum up your career in 2 sentences?

Yes, it’s hard – but it’s important you perfect this – for all applications and for any work you do.

Hi, I’m an Occupational Medicine Consultant and Founder of Medic Footprints – a global organisation connecting doctors with diverse careers.

Describe your interest in the role with direct reference to the role requirements and the company. Be as specific as possible.

Pick some points in the job description that relate to your interest or what excites you about the role. Then write a few lines with direct reference to these and why your skillset matches.

For example – if you applied for an industry role looking for someone with entrepreneurial skills you could say:

I’m a doctor with experience running a small business of 8 employees with an annual turnover of £500k.

Or if there was another role who is looking for an academic with strong research skills you could say:

I’ve been the first author on 4 publications, 2 of which were in high impact journals Nature and The Lancet.

Both of these examples don’t require many words, but allows the hiring manager to come to conclusions about your abilities with respect to the opportunity.

Describe your most relevant skillsets in relation to the role succinctly.

Similar to the examples above, you don’t have to write continuous prose. Simple bullet points could suffice and be easier to read:

• First author on 4 publications
• Published in Nature and Lancet

Aim to write no more than 1-2 paragraphs for your expression of interest.

Writing one line, in most cases is unlikely to be sufficient for a hiring manager to make a decision on your suitability. This can make it easy for them to decide to eliminate you – especially if there has been lots of interest.

Do not spam

For the purposes of this article, spamming is doing any of the following:

• Copy and pasting exactly the same thing for several jobs on our website
• Copy and pasting extensive pieces of information that’s not directly relevant to the job

If you spam, we can block you from using our forms and remove your application from the process.

We hope you’ve found this guide useful for your career planning – if you have any further questions, please do contact us.