Job Hunt in Ireland for Doctors

Aspirants to the Irish world: Is it easy to get a job in Ireland?

Me: Yes, if you’re a good enough candidate.

And in order to be a good candidate, you need to have the following:

• Clinical experience
• Foreign exams
• Research experience (not necessary but would definitely increase the chances)
• Good interview skills

Under the previous circumstances when IMC – Irish Medical Council registration process was much faster, I would’ve advised to start the job hunt when you had the “Good standing certificate” sent over. However, now that all the time lines are stretched to their maximum limit so I’m not sure when would be a good time. But roughly when you are anticipating the IMC registration to be complete within 2 – 4 weeks, that would be the right time.

Get a few documents ready to be sent over to the job recruiters; HR department of hospitals and online websites. These documents include an introductory email, CV, cover letter, personal statement (optional) and three letters of recommendation.

Introductory email:

This is a brief email consisting of 3 – 4 paragraphs in which you introduce yourself; allude to the post you’re applying for and how you’re a suitable candidate (just refer to the salient points without too much details).

Curriculum vitae:

For this, many templates are available on google. Choose a simple, concise design to give a summary of your personal history and professional qualifications. You can start with your personal details like name, phone, email, mailing address and residence status (if you have stamp 1G or stamp 4 with right to work or are an Irish/EU national).

After that, write your career objective in less than 20 words. Whether you want to be a physician or surgeon or a clinical/basic science researcher or a medical educator and what are your aims for the future.

Then mention the status and number of your medical registration. For Pakistan, also write about PMC along with IMC.

Next, enlist your educational qualifications with your passing/graduating year and place. This can include MBBS; IELTs/OET; exams like FCPS, MRCP etc. You can mention your grades as well if you want.

Now, comes an important part of the CV i.e. your clinical training. Write your latest position first and work down from there. Comment on your post; location; duration; name of supervisor and all your professional competencies such as history taking; physical examination; presenting rounds; data interpretation (radiology, ECG, laboratory results etc) and procedures like phlebotomy, IV cannulation, nasogastric placement; Foley’s catheter placement; arterial puncture for blood gas analysis, central venous line insertion; double lumen insertion; lumbar puncture; ascitic and pleural fluid aspiration; tracheal intubation and resuscitation. Make sure to write only what you are competent at because you will be questioned about this during your interview. Also, try not to exceed from 4 – 5 sentences per post. It would be better to write in bullet form rather than in a paragraph. Moreover, specify any multimedia presentations that you’ve conducted.

Subsequently, if you have research publications or poster presentations then write about those. Clearly pen down the research title, journal name and date of publication.

Then, give details of any academic honors or achievements you have. That could be your top rank in class; any distinctions or other award that you’ve received academically.

Thereafter, you can elucidate upon any medical courses that you’ve done like BLS, ACLS, CME accredited workshops so on and so forth.

Following this, you can mention your leadership/management positions in extracurricular activities as well as volunteer experience.

At that end, delineate your primary computer skills as well like MS word, excel, power point, SPSS etc.

Cover letter:

This is not compulsory but some recruiters will ask for this so it’s better to have it ready. It provides further detail on how your skills are aligned with the job role; what you can bring to the team and why you want the position. Make it concise with approximately 500 – 600 words and don’t repeat your CV in its entirety. Choose 2 – 3 of your strongest points and elucidate on those.

Try to read the job description and explain how you’re a suitable candidate for that job. Touch upon your communication skills and your ability to adapt into a foreign culture because that can be a major concern for the recruiters.

Personal statement:

This will describe your personality with the help of one or two anecdotes. Select 2 or 3 attributes of your personality and elucidate how they make you a better candidate for this job. For instance, leadership, management, communication, empathy, team work, compassion, punctuality, discipline and many others like these. Again, make it concise. It shouldn’t be more than a page on MS word.

Letters of recommendation:

Have at least three of these. Your supervisor can write them for you or as is the case with most of the consultants in Pakistan, you will be asked to write them by yourself. Read samples on google and try to copy their language but make it more personal. Make sure, they align with your CV, cover letter and personal statement. Lastly, get these LORs from people who can be easily contacted later on. Once you are offered the job, the hospital HR will get the LOR verified from the consultant who wrote it either by phone or email. I wasn’t aware of this fact so I faced some problem here as all my LORs were written by professors and heads of departments who are extremely hard to catch.

The actual hunt:

As soon as you have all the above documents ready then the actual job hunt begins. You start by signing up to some online websites and applying for jobs. These include but are not limited to:

https://www.irishjobs.ie/

https://www.healthcarejobs.ie/

https://ie.indeed.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/home

Then there are some recruitment agencies whose help you can enlist. Some of the ones, I used were:

https://www.frsrecruitment.com/

https://www.ttmhealthcare.ie/

https://exec.ie/healthcare-jobs-ireland/

https://www.globalmedics.com/ireland

Also, you can go the HSE website and look for any job vacancies:

https://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/jobs/

Lastly, you can directly apply to the HR department of hospitals by visiting the hospital websites and applying for jobs there or sending them emails. During my job search, I realized that big hospitals like the ones in Dublin usually do their job recruitments themselves rather than relying on agencies. For example:

St James Hospital: https://www.stjames.ie/careers/

St Vincents Hospital: https://www.stvincents.ie/careers/

Mater Hospital: https://www.mater.ie/healthcare-professionals/job-opportunities/

Tallaght University Hospital: https://www.tuh.ie/Careers-Education/Current%20Vacancies/

Beaumont Hospital: https://beaumontcareers-beaumonthospital.icims.com/jobs/intro?hashed=-625974228

Other hospitals in other cities are:

Saolta group of hospitals: https://www.saolta.ie/jobs

Cork University hospital: https://www.cuh.hse.ie/careers/

There are some private hospitals too, such as:

Mater Private Hospital; https://www.materprivate.ie/careers/current-vacancies/

Beacon Hospital: https://www.beaconhospital.ie/careers/

Bon Secours Hospital: https://www.bonsecours.ie/careers

Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive. You can extend your job search beyond these resources too. If you could share any new information with me, then I’d incorporate that in this blog and make it available to the general public.

You can visit all these websites and apply for any job vacancies present. But remember, it’s a constantly changing scenario so keep checking for updates too. Be prompt with any responses you get. Mostly, you get a phone call before they call you for an interview, so be prepared with your introduction and your strong points as a candidate.

I will explain how to prepare for an interview in my next blog.

Best of luck for your job hunt! See you till then.

P.S. ‘Follow’ the blog if you want to be notified about future posts.

And message me on my facebook page, “Magic with medicine,” if you have any queries.