When clinical work no longer appeals, doctors and other healthcare professionals often wonder “What other options do I have so that I could still use my medical / healthcare background?”
Let me share a 3-step approach to finding roles that you may not have considered before. For clarity’s sake, I am going to use 2 big employer brands that regularly hire professionals with a medical/science background. Before I do that, here are my top three tips that I want you to keep in mind.
Tip #1
Stop trying to guess the job titles that could be a good match for you. These days, employers are very creative with the job titles and if you are searching by a specific job title, you could be missing out on many suitable roles.
Tip #2
If you are completely stuck for “options”, the key is to start to pay attention to things around you. I shall explain why and how just below.
Tip #3
In my experience as a career coach for doctors, I have noticed that physicians overlook the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry in preference of the more obvious “Big Pharma” and management consultancy roles. “What’s FMCG??”, I hear you wondering. Read an overview HERE – you’ll be amazed how many possibilities the FMCG sector opens up for you as a medic looking for alternative career options.
So, here’s what you can do to generate a list of non-clinical options where your skill set, knowledge and medical background would be valuable.
STEP #1
In your clinical (or academic) workplace, look at the packaging and the labels on the equipment, devices and instruments (e.g. MRI scanner, catheter packs, feeding tubes, implantables, gel for ultrasound, stethoscope, etc), as well as non-therapeutical things that you regularly prescribe or recommend (e.g. nutritional supplements for your malnourished patients, dressings, irrigation solutions, over-the-counter creams for eczema, etc).
Examples.
Most NHS doctors will have prescribed Fortisip on Care of the Elderly, Gastro wards, as well as in HDU, usually on the advice of a dietitian. If you look at the label, you will learn that Fortisip is created by Nutricia. If you then google Nutricia, you will discover that it has two branches – Advanced Medical Nutrition and Early Life Nutrition, and is a part of the DANONE brand (the guys that bring to us Activia yogurts and Evian water). So, just one little bottle of Fortisip has lead you to a multinational company that is “dedicated to achieving health through food for people of every age, in every social and cultural environment and in every part of the world”. Wouldn’t it be great to be a part of their mission?
Also have a look around your home. Each one of us is a “consumer health” customer who has used one or more of the following: Strepsils, Cillit Bang, Dettol, Durex, K-Y, Gaviscon, Harpic, Lemsip, Lysol, Scholl, Vanish, Veet, Bonjela, Clearasil, Mr Sheen. If you read their labels, you will discover that they all belong to “world’s leading consumer health and hygiene company”, Reckitt Benckiser (RB), that gives people “innovative solutions for healthier lives and happier homes” and “invests in research and development to find new ways for people to look after themselves, their families and homes”. Mmm… healthcare professionals could well be a part of that!
STEP #2
Now that you’ve identified a couple of companies that have products in the healthcare / consumer health category, you can be certain that at some point somewhere someone would have suggested, researched, developed and tested those products, created and led a marketing campaign, communicated their value to potential clients/customers/stakeholders, registered them with regulatory bodies, sold them to other businesses (e.g. supermarkets or hospitals), evaluated performance of product portfolios, suggested improvements, dealt with Health and Safety and any other issues that could have arisen, etc etc etc. For each named product, whether Fortisip or Strepsils, there will be hundreds of people working to make them successful, and many of these people will have come from healthcare background. And you can see why.
So, for step #2, go to GLASSDOOR and also use LINKEDIN get more information.
On Glassdoor, you can read reviews about companies anonymously written by former and current employees. You can also find out about salaries and interview questions for various roles. Glassdoor allows you to browse through jobs advertised by a particular company as well as to set job alerts to be emailed to your inbox.
On Linkedin, you can learn about each company, browse through jobs, apply for jobs advertised by that company and look up profiles of current and former employees. You can reach out to these individuals and ask for 15 minutes of their time to learn more about their role and company. This is called informational interviews, and will enable you to gather insights about the pro’s and con’s of a particular role as well as to find out about the company culture. Ideally, you want to be reaching out to former clinicians, because they will know what it’s like planning a career move. Here are 3 easy ways how to find former doctors who left medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEyMwODv9R4&t=162s .
You will notice that the job titles for similar roles vary from company to company. What at Danone is called “Account Manager”, at RB is called “Territory Manager”.
At Danone, Account Managers are assigned to a particular geographical location working across Danone’s prescribed product portfolio. The role is for someone “enthusiastic with a degree in dietetics, nutrition, medicine or science” who will: (1) use their expertise “to educate healthcare professionals and ultimately improve patient outcomes across your region”, (2) have good knowledge of the NHS and the healthcare industry, (3) have excellent communication, organisational and analytical skills, (4) enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people and be competent to work alone. Mmm… is that you?
At RB, there are sometimes roles where someone with a medical background would have a strong advantage. For example “Medical Science Lead”, “Pharmaceutical Physician” or “Pharmacovigilance Coordinator”.
Have you recently done a search for those particular roles? Probably not. Now you can see why identifying companies that are known to recruit doctors (as described in Step #1 above) and setting job alerts from those companies (rather than searching for possible roles on job boards via job titles that you are just trying to guess) will yield more “options”.
There are many other FMCG companies with a strong focus on Healthcare, such as J&J, Colgate Palmolive, Unilever and GSK.
STEP #3
To diversify your list of possible employers who recruit professionals with a medical or healthcare background, you also need to look at the competitors of the companies you identified in steps 1 and 2. To do this, pay attention to what Glassdoor and Linkedin suggest to you on the right hand side of the page under the headings “Others also viewed” and “Similar companies”. You will see that Danone’s competitors are Nestle, Unilever and L’Oreal, and RB’s are Nestle and Unilever (N.B. both Danone and RB have even more competitors which you can google of course).
Owler is another platform you could try to research target company’s competitors.
Summary
You have learnt how to generate a list of career options if you are thinking of moving away from direct patient care into another healthcare related field. All you need to do is to pay attention to what’s around you in your daily work and personal life. You have no excuse for feeling stuck for options now!
I’d love to hear about your experiences when looking for “alternative careers for doctors”. What have you found particularly useful when researching your options for a career transition? Please share below!
