Part 2: Know Thyself, Market Thyself
Good scores? Published? President of the interest group? You’ve got this in the bag, right? Nope. Not quite. When a student with a 250+ on Step 1 and multiple publications fails to match in the top field of their choice, this should speak volumes about how you approach bridging the gap between your CV/scores and actually matching. If you want others to believe you are more than just a score, this is where you can make your mark, in those months between the end of M3 and the opening of the application cycle.
The most helpful skills used in applying for a job and interviewing are rarely taught in medical school. You need people skills to bridge this gap. You need to think like a marketing executive. What are you selling and who are you selling it to? You are selling you. You are selling it to residency programs, and more specifically, practicing physicians with lives and experience and bias. Don’t resist it and don’t resent it. Understand it and succeed.
Before you begin marketing yourself, you need to know what your message is. This is the part where you need to be selfish and think more about you than the programs. What do you want? What is your goal? What is your ideal job both during and after residency? You need to spend some time reflecting on what you really want in life and why you started on this path in the first place. Are you lost already?
Start with your passion. What are you passionate about, both in medicine and outside of medicine? What is important to you? Family, friends, travel, art, sports, food, reading . . . . ? Think about how you would frame your life in a perfect scenario. That should be your goal. This is where you start. Then start filling in the pieces.
Here is a guide I put together for my students that highlights some of the points to consider as you think about your goals. As you circle your choices, you should hone in on what you are seeking from your consumer. While it is not comprehensive, it starts a thought process about key points.
My GOALS FOR PRACTICE
- Practice Setting:
- Community – Academic – Employed – Private – Solo – Group – Locums – Multispecialty – Call Burden
- Community Type:
- Large > 1mil – Large > 500K – Medium>100K – Small – Rural
- Academics:
- Bench Research – Clinical Research – Outcomes – Teaching – Publishing – None
- Leadership:
- Community Outreach – Hospital Admin – Group Admin – National Orgs
- Personal Goals
- Family – Kids – Travel – Houses/Homes – Parents – Jobs – Hobbies – Others
- Financial
- Income from Med Alone – Debt – Investments – Insurance – Student Loans – Income Targets
MY GOALS FOR RESIDENCY
- Training Setting:
- Community – Academic – Hybrid Program – Research Track – Global Health – Rural Health
- Community Type:
- Large > 1mil – Large > 500K – Medium>100K – Small – Rural
- Academics:
- Bench Research – Clinical Research – Outcomes – Teaching – Publishing – Grants
- Personal Goals
- Family – Kids – Travel – House/Rent – Parents – Jobs – Hobbies – Other
- Financial
- Income from Med Alone – Moonlighting – Debt – Investments – Insurance – Student Loans
As you see, the goals you have for residency may be different than those you have for practice. That’s ok. It’s important to know that now and focus on applying to programs that offer you a path to your goals. Don’t waste your time marketing your product to a consumer who doesn’t want it. At the same time, recognize that you may pick up skills for your career from a program that may not exactly mirror your career setting.
After sorting out your ideal field and understanding what is important to you, then you can put the story together. I use the word story deliberately also. Human beings are drawn to stories. Don’t believe me? Look at Disney, one of the world’s largest communications corporations built on stories. They have it figured out. When you can make an adult who has held his hands directly on a dying heart cry at the prospect of a garbage cleaning robot losing its “life” (WALL-E), then perhaps you are onto something about humanity. We like stories. So your job as an applicant is to create a story about where you have been, what you want, and where you are going. It should be a story your target audience wants to hear and live with in the upcoming years. You are the star of the story.
Only you know your story well. What you need to do is edit out the components that don’t help you with your target audience and focus on the things that do.
Often, the personal statement is the best place to work on developing your message. It’s not so much that those reading your personal statement will be blown away by your amazing prose. Rather, the personal statement is a great exercise in refining an effective and efficient story board that you can rely on when you are in your interviews. It helps create consistency. McDonald’s has made billions of dollars understanding the importance of consistency with consumers. If you can deliver a desirable and consistent message across the interview process, then you will be much better off than the applicant relying on scores and CV padding. A Program Director who can see an attractive application and be left with a good impression from the interview, consistent with what they seek, will rank that applicant favorably.
There are some very important concepts you should tie into your message and personal statement. Somewhere early in the message, you should establish your genuine interest in the field. Although this sounds like a given, we often see applicants who may be interviewing as a back up or who have confused us and themselves about what they want. This should be brief but direct. If you have research or experience in other fields, for example, those reviewing your application may be misled. So be direct in your personal statement.
The next part of your personal statement should focus on you. Many students are fearful of bragging, but there is a successful way to promote yourself without coming across as arrogant. Think about ways you can describe yourself or your experiences with the following characteristics in mind:
- Grit
- Work Ethic
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Common Sense
- Emotional Intelligence
- Goal Driven
- Experience
- Innovation and Creativity
- Success
Avoid sounding weak and negative. Don’t focus on things you don’t do or know. Focus on interests and accomplishments. Things we don’t want to see:
- Pessimism
- Isolation
- Failure Without Subsequent Success
- Lack of Vision
- Immaturity
- Disruption
- Naivety
- Grandiosity
You should clearly represent many of the positive attributes and none of the negative. The majority of your message should be focussed on why you are the better applicant with examples to support that message. Why are you a good fit for the program? I see too many personal statements that drag on about some sick relative or their amazement with the field while failing completely to give the reviewer any idea of who they are and why they should be “hired.”
Of course, you may have some clear negatives in your application, like a low score or a lack of the ‘extras’ like research and leadership. Be prepared to describe those weaknesses and what you intend to do to overcome them moving forward. You don’t have to dwell on these in your personal statement, but you will likely have to discuss them in the interview. Think about the disclaimer at the end of the pharma commercials. No one really wants to hear them, but often they need to know. “Use of this resident may lead to fatigue, frustration, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, and swelling of the cerebellum.”
Have you already taken actions that are in process? Is there something else you can show that helps compensate? Are your weaknesses too great for the particular field you are applying to? Failing Step 1 pretty much rules you out of many fields, for example, so your goals must have an actionable plan for accomplishment based in reality.
The final piece of the message should be focussed on your goals. What do you want out of your training? Think beyond becoming a specialist in that field. Do you want to teach? Do you want to work in an underserved community? Do you want to be in leadership? Give them some signal that you will be a trainee who understands what they want and the work required to get it. They also understand that you may change your mind on some details as you go through residency. Nothing has to be set in stone.
Once you are done with your personal statement, set it aside for a few days and come back to it with a fresh mind. As you read it, think to yourself, “does this sound like the message of a winner?” If it does, then you are on the right track. If not, scrap it and start over. You will have a narrow window to impress what are very accomplished professionals who think more highly of themselves than others. If you had a billboard worth of space, what would it say to get their attention?
Also important is to stay true to yourself. As you review your message, does it sound like you? Have you created some idealized version of yourself that you don’t recognize? Don’t fall into that trap. Define the life you want to live for you and seek out programs that will align with your goals. Don’t chase name recognition and dreams. Most jobs won’t care where you trained, but only that you did successfully.
So there it is. Now you have your story and message. Next up, do your homework on the consumer so you can sell that message and nail the interview.