Job sites: Working the Web

It's more than spinning a wheel of fortune. Here's what to know before cruising the Web to get a job or to fill one.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Aug. 27, 2001.

Fed up with managed care, Patrick Martin, MD, decided to give up private practice and become an employed physician in the spring of 2000. The internist immediately searched online for a clinical job in his hometown of Denver.

"It was the handiest, quickest, most accessible source for me at the time," Dr. Martin said. "It did not involve a financial commitment with a head-hunting agency. Basically, it gave me the information I needed right away without spending any money except for my dial-up service. I could use it anytime, get the information fairly quickly, and it let me screen opportunities without having to spend a lot of time in discussion [with a headhunter] about what I was looking for.

"It was just right there."

Increasingly, physicians are surfing the Internet for jobs. In recent years, numerous physician-employment sites have popped up on the Internet.

Online recruitment sites are generally divided into mainstream job sites or industry-specific ones. The sites that are most useful to physician job seekers are those that focus entirely on physician-employment opportunities, said Gigi Hirsch, MD, founder and CEO of MD IntelliNet, based in Brookline, Mass.

Some of the sites are operated by medical societies and publishers of medical journals, including the AMA, which posts help-wanted ads from its print publications -- American Medical News, Journal of the American Medical Association and specialty journals. Others are operated by independent entrepreneurs, recruiters or both. [...]