Four Jobs in Six Years? Death by A Thousand Cuts

Posted on April 17, 2013 by John G. Self

There are more than a few candidates whose job/employment history is less than stellar.

In everyone’s career stuff happens and in most cases these situations can be managed effectively without inflicting major damage to future employment opportunities.

However, when you see a resume with four to five jobs in a six or seven-year period of time, that spells trouble. The candidate with a regrettable history may be an unsung star skills-wise, but has encountered a bad workplace environment, a terrible choice in a bounce-back job or a couple of unforeseen layoffs.

For some recruiters, this type of job history merits red-flag status, meaning that the candidate will not be considered under any circumstance. Why take a risk with their client relationship, these recruiters reason. For well-qualified candidates, other recruiters will at least take the time to sort through the career carnage in an initial screening interview. The bad news for these candidates, they are unlikely to change the employer’s mind about their ability to end this career thread unless they get on top of the problem early in the screening process.

So what to do?

What not to do is suffer death by a thousand cuts, waiting for the recruiter to ask about each job change individually. The number of times a candidate is asked, so why did you leave, what happened there, or did you quit or were you asked to leave can be demoralizing, and usually the kiss of death.

What candidates rarely do is to take a direct approach. Getting out in front of these employment issues with a true but favorably worded disclosure of the various transitions which emphasize lessons learned and framing the recruiters’ inevitable follow-up questions, is the best course of action. This is not something candidates can do on the fly. It takes carefully thought out preparation, including the selection of references that can help add factual context to each transition. What the references will say should be incorporated into the candidate’s “get out in front” explanation.

Drafting a summary answer with a brief reference to each job change that opens the door for a more positive discussion and questions with the recruiter is the best way to go.

When I entered healthcare, an executive who moved every four or five years was a job hopper, someone to be viewed with enormous skepticism. Today, staying too long in one job can hurt an up and coming executive build a broad-based portfolio of experience that will lead to their dream job.

Times have changed, and four jobs in six or seven years is problematic but not career ending if the candidate takes the initiative and prepares for each interview, not sitting back and waiting for the grand inquisition to begin.

5 Ways to Prepare for Healthcare Transformation

Posted on September 26, 2012 by John G. Self

This article should serve as a clarion call for healthcare CEOs.

Medicare Cuts will Cost Nearly 500,000 Healthcare Jobs

09/25/2012 | by Hilary Lau | D Healthcare Magazine

Mandatory spending cuts to Medicare in 2013 will result in large-scale job losses in physician offices and throughout the healthcare system, according to an analysis on the impact of the scheduled federal budget sequester on the entitlement program by Pittsburg-based research firm Tripp Umbach.

As a result of a 2 percent cut to the Medicare program effective over the course of the next eight years (and a result of a lack of agreement between Congress and the Obama Administration regarding alternative spending reductions compliant with the Budget Control Act of 2011), between $10.7 and $16.4 billion will be made in annual cuts to the program, resulting in 496,000 jobs being eliminated in 2013 and a loss of 766,000 jobs by 2021, reports American Medical News.

The study was funded by the American Hospital Association.

While it is likely that the deficit cliff and sequester will be avoided, ongoing reductions in federal spending for Medicare are a certainty, and as the broader economy is slowly recovering (and reports confirm that there are 3 million unfilled jobs in August), these healthcare reform and deficit reduction actions will spell tougher times for health systems, hospitals and physicians, along with other providers.

The smart CEOs know they will need to retool their delivery model while reducing costs and improving performance in quality of care. Sadly, they are in the minority as far too many CEOs appear to be adopting a wait-and-see approach, hoping that somehow it will all work out. It won’t.

Here are five issues healthcare leaders should consider in preparing for these turbulent times.

Most healthcare strategic plans do not factor in a radical overhaul of the delivery model. It is time for a rewrite that incorporates scenarios for drastically lower payments, new relationship and revenue models with physicians, and ways to strengthen the workforce and enhance quality while reducing costs.
Redefine the relationship with the biggest expense item in the budget—the employees. Investor-owned hospitals, which already operate with incredibly tight staffing models, will see this as a call to reduce salary costs. The smart CEOs will see their employees as an untapped reservoir of new ideas and energy to deal with the transformation. While some organizations may reduce their head count overall, top performing healthcare organizations will see their employees as a valuable asset, not an expense.
The war for talent will intensify. The success of a healthcare organization’s transformation to a new business/delivery model will depend heavily on the quality of their employees. Healthcare, information systems and technology are among the notable categories of the 3 million unfilled jobs, job market reports show. Organization’s who fail to strengthen recruiting and retention programs and do not invest in management development initiatives, cannot compete for, and retain, the best and brightest. History shows, rather conclusively, that when this happens, the performance of these hospitals slips.
Make the organization’s culture a vibrant asset, not a neutral or a liability. Quality of care and patient satisfaction will be key indicators in the reimbursement picture. Organizations whose cultures do not passionately embrace those goals will find themselves in a deep hole.
Smart CEOs build strong teams, stand back and let them do their jobs. CEOs must focus on people, performance and relationships. The CEO who is bogged down in daily operations will miss important opportunities and, eventually, the organization’s performance will suffer. Succession planning —building a strong bench of quality leaders, managers and supervisors—will be a critical function.

The Unreported Jobs Story

Posted on September 12, 2012 by John G. Self

Jobless growth is anemic. The economy is sluggish. If you are a Republican, it is President Obama’s fault. Electing Republican leadership will result in great economic gains through tax cuts, spending increases for defense and removal of job killing programs and legislation. If you are a Democrat, your response is that the President was left with a horrific economic mess that was much worse than anyone realized. It will take several more years before the economy recovers from the messy explosion of the mortgage debacle and credit bubble. We need to invest in our future.

The news on Friday that the economy created only 96,000 jobs, well below forecast, followed the predictable partisan path: the GOP standard bearers said too little too late. The Democrats pointed to the sustained job growth under the President but said it was not enough and their plan will succeed. Give it time.

What we did not read or see in the main jobs story last Friday was that there are literally millions of jobs in the US every month that go unfilled because of a dearth of qualified applicants: electrical engineering, software programming, systems design, scientific research, etc. Several estimates suggest that the number is close to 3 million vacant/available jobs.

If employers could find the right people, or if people with those specialized skills could relocate, it would take 12 months with job growth of 250,000 to reduce that number.

Impractical. Not everyone can relocate, not everyone who is out of work is educated or skilled in high demand fields. Many jobs are in the lower paying service industry, unemployed workers that once earned much more in manufacturing and related fields refuse to consider. By the way, we lost more manufacturing jobs in August as well.

In past recessions, even significant recessions, our economy rebounded based on consumer spending. In the early days following the beginning of the Great Recession, that was not possible given the credit squeeze. Consumers were tapped out.

The reason that our economy is not rebounding at a faster pace is that it is different this time. Our problems are structural, and the fact there are 3 million unfilled jobs highlights one of our significant challenges: the United States has fallen from the lead in education. We are not turning out graduates who can fill these jobs.

Until the unemployed, those still looking and those who have given up, get serious about reinventing themselves and their careers with education, job training and probable relocation, our economic doldrums and meager employment gains will not improve.

Now, we come to the pesky issue of student loans, funding job training, etc.