Leading job boards for biotechnology and healthcare professionals include:

Biohealthmatics​
CareerBuilder Healthcare
​Doc Cafe
Health Career Job Site
Healthcare Careers 2018 
Hospital Careers
Hospital Recruiting
​Indeed Healthcare
Medzilla

When you find a job opportunity that interests you, apply online, but don't stop there. Go online at LinkedIn.com and search for people who work inside the organization. Reach out to set up an informational interview to discover what it is like to work for the healthcare provider. 

Another strategy is to use Google Maps to find healthcare providers within a 25-mile radius of where you live. Make a list of companies that interest you. Visit the company's website and apply directly.

Our specialty is writing for people who work as healthcare executives and hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals as well as biotechnology and healthcare information technology professionals.
​
Contact [email protected] to discuss your career goals.

While job seekers could claim job search expenses on their 2017 income tax returns if they met certain restrictions imposed by the IRS, this is no longer an option. On December 22, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which significantly impacts 2018 tax deductions related to job search expenses.

As detailed in the 2017 IRS Publication 529, job seekers could deduct things like moving expenses if they were relocating for a job transfer, the investment of working with a resume writer or a career coach, or the cost of transportation and lodging when traveling as part of their job search. These types of job search expenses were tax deductible in 2017 only if the total expenses exceeded two percent of the job seeker's adjusted gross income and the job seeker itemized deductions on his-or-her tax return.
 
All of this has changed. If you are looking for a new job in 2018 and beyond, you will not be allowed to deduct job search expenses on your tax return, even if the costs exceed two percent of your adjusted gross income and you file an itemized tax return.

You may also want to consider the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act when negotiating salary on your next job. With the new tax law, employees will no longer be able to deduct unreimbursed automobile expenses. 

Be aware that unemployment benefits and disability payments are taxable income. 

Good news. There is a silver lining to this dark cloud. The 2018 increase in standardized deductions and the 2-3% decrease in tax rate percentages in each of the seven tax brackets will help many Americans keep more of their hard earned money.

For detailed information, read the section-by-section summary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act issued by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, and read the 2018 IRS Publication 529 when it is released.

Note: This information is not intended to provide financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult with your CPA or attorney for specific guidance.

Today, we're sharing an article "LinkedIn Unveils the Top Skills that Can Get You Hired in 2017."

https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/10/20/top-skills-2016-week-of-learning-linkedin

​The embedded slide presentation is broken down by country with the USA listed on page 17.
It's no surprise that technology skills rank high on each list.
What kind of professional development courses do you see in your future?

Use a sharpshooter not a shotgun approach to zero-in on job opportunities for which you are an excellent fit.
 
In the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall, Quartermaster (Q) provides 007 with a new weapon, a gun with a safety mechanism that requires Bond’s palm print to activate the weapon. Q comments that the gun is “less of a random killing machine, more of a personal statement.” (1)
 
Does your personal statement convey your authenticity, purpose, and value? How do you determine if are uniquely suited for a particular job and develop talking points for a killer resume and cover letter?
 
At Mission Possible HQ, we’ve developed an arsenal of weapons to help you land your dream job fast.
Our newest device, the Fit/Gap Analysis Spreadsheet, will enable you to:

• Compare the employer’s requirements to your knowledge, skills, and abilities.
• Identify where your knowledge, skills, and abilities are an exact match or where there is a gap.
  A gap refers to the space between “where you are” (your current state) and “where you want to be” (the target or optimal state in order to land your dream job).
• Understand how well you fit the employer’s requirements and preferences.
• Identify transferrable knowledge, skills, and abilities that you could present as alternative qualifications related to the job requirements.
• Determine whether you are a good fit for the job opening and whether or not you should apply.
• Develop and prioritize steps to bridge the gap in your knowledge, skills, or abilities. Do you need more knowledge or experience in a certain area? Evaluate the return on investment of an advanced degree or professional development course to the anticipated bump in salary. (Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Salary.com or Glassdoor.com.)
  If it is feasible and there is significant ROI (both in terms of pay and increase in personal satisfaction), prioritize steps to improve your knowledge, skills, and abilities in a certain area for career advancement.
• Conduct research to discover the size of the organization, products/services offered, and geographic location for the position you are interested in landing. Sleuth out information from news sources to determine the unique challenges or opportunities the company is facing. Define how you could contribute to the company’s success. For example, how could you solve specific issues, cut costs, improve productivity, or generate revenue? Develop talking points about how you could leverage your strengths to contribute to a business unit’s or project team’s continued success.
• Gain an idea of the corporate culture. Do a thorough search to uncover information about the company’s CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CMO or the hiring manager to whom you would report. Check employee ratings on Glassdoor.com. Network with current employees on LinkedIn.

 
Job Seeker, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is threefold.

1. Download theFit/Gap analysis worksheet available as a digital product.
2. Conduct an in-depth analysis of how you meet the employer’s requirements and preferences.
3. Develop talking points to convince your next employer that you are the best candidate for the job!

_______________
Sharla Taylor, creator of the Mission Possible Job Search System, empowers job seekers to conduct thoughtful and detailed fit-gap analysis and create compelling career success stories. Contact her at [email protected] or by calling 912-656-6857.
 
© 2016, Sharla Taylor, Written by a Pro. All rights reserved.
 
Works Cited
1. Mendes, Sam. Skyfall. Eon Productions, 2012.

Job Seeker,

​Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to engage in extensive reconnaissance work.
 
Sleuth out opportunities that match your education and skill set.
Browse company websites and find 10 job postings of interest to you. Print out the job postings and highlight repeated terms and phrases, paying particular attention to the terms following the words “required,” “must have,” or “preferred.”
 
Analyze the employer’s job posting from the ground up.
If an employer states that applicants must have a specific skill set, you can be certain it is required. However, think of preferred skills as the employer's wish list. The employer would like the applicant to have the desired skills, but they are not required.
 
Create a two-column chart.
In the rows of the left column, list all of the required items followed by all of the preferred items. In the right column, describe how you match the employer’s requirements and preferences. If you meet 100% of the employer's requirements and meet 50% of the employer’s desired skills contained in the job posting, then you are probably a strong contender for the job. Use this intel to write a stellar cover letter.
 
If your skills are not an exact match, write about your transferable skills. For example, a stay-at-home parent seeking a job as a staff accountant might mention how she served as treasurer of the parent/teacher association or provided bookkeeping services from home. A schoolteacher transitioning to a position in corporate communications would want to emphasize his outstanding writing and presentation skills. A staff nurse transitioning to a nursing leadership role would want to convey her managerial strengths.
 
To land a great job in weeks instead of months:

• Do extensive recon and analyze the intel.
• Zero in on the employer’s requirements and preferences.
• Write a cover letter that describes how you are the perfect candidate for the job!

 
Happy job hunting!

Are you spending hours of your time sleuthing out job postings and applying online, only to get little or no response for your efforts? Did you know that companies receive hundreds of applications for each online job posting? Not to state the obvious, but competition is fierce.

Would it surprise you to learn that only 25-30% of available jobs are posted online? The vast majority of jobs are unadvertised. Some jobs "are hidden" when a company is conducting a confidential search to replace an underperforming employee. Other positions "are hidden from public view" because they are filled from within the company, through employee referrals, through word-of-mouth publicity, or through recruiters. That means you are missing about 70-75% of available positions by strictly limiting yourself to applying to job boards. Higher paying jobs are less likely to be advertised. In fact, applying online is the least effective way to land a job. The conversion rate of application-to-job-offers is low (only around 1-3%). So, what can you do? 

Don’t rule out online job postings completely, but spend no more than 30 minutes per day searching for and applying to online job board postings. Job postings listed on a company’s website have a better application-to-interview conversion rate, because applications are sent directly to the company’s HR department or hiring manager. 

To maximize your search results, use a job board aggregator like www.Indeed.com instead of surfing a bazillion websites. Automate your job search. Set up job alerts on Indeed.com so that job postings in your field and geographic location come to you. You will be surprised at how much time this will save you! Also, set up job alerts in LinkedIn to receive email messages about employment opportunities based upon your custom search criteria.

Are you wondering how to take control of your job search? Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” 

Start by defining your “must haves” for your new job. Is it a pay increase, a certain geographic location, or a preference for a certain industry? Change your job search strategy to attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers. We'll show you how. We highly recommend you sign up to attend a free webinar on "How to Get a Job in 6 Weeks, Guaranteed."

The following online tools will put you in the driver’s seat and rev up your job search: Hoovers, ZoomInfo, Google news alerts, JibberJobber, Google Maps, and LinkedIn.

Hoovers (www.hoovers.com) is a Dun & Bradstreet company. It’s a subscriber service with a monthly rate starting at $50, which you can cancel at any time. It is well worth the investment and could speed up your company research. Recent customer feedback indicates that job seekers can use the advanced search features of a paid LinkedIn account to accomplish the same goal and found a company's LinkedIn page more beneficial in finding updated information about the company and the people who work there. The careers center of your local library may allow you to access Hoovers for free.

ZoomInfo (www.zoominfo.com) is a research tool to use after you've identified your target companies. It uses similar advance search functionality to LinkedIn. You zoom in on target companies, positions, locations, and people to generate insider contacts.

Google News Alerts
Set up weekly Google News Alerts to track industry trends as well as corporate expansions and moves. Conduct keyword searches using search criteria such as “corporate growth + [your city and state]” or “mergers and acquisitions + [your industry]”and see what results turn up. Create a top 10 list of target companies.

Google Maps
If a short commute is a high priority for you, draw a radius of 30 miles from your home. Use Google Maps to find companies in your industry that are located in your area. If you would like to relocate, use Google maps to find companies in the geographic region where you would like to move.

LinkedIn
1.    Take care of the basics. 

• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is optimized with the appropriate keywords for your industry so that it will perform well in a search. Remember, you are writing to two audiences, computers and humans. Written by a Pro, offers LinkedIn profile writing services and a list of resources if you want to do-it-yourself.
• Make sure you have the appropriate skills listed for your specific industry. Get endorsements for those skills. 
• Build your network to 500+ contacts. Connect with LIONS (LinkedIn Open Networkers) in your preferred geographic location. Just search "LION + your industry" and send an invitation to connect. Find Super Connectors, people who have thousands of people in their network and are willing to share their industry connections with others. This will help you build strong third degree reach, which is vital to your job search success.
• Use your LinkedIn network to ask for recommendations from professional associates. Ask them to write about your specific strengths and career achievements.

2.    Follow target companies and their leaders on LinkedIn. Learn everything you can about the company’s products/services and industry challenges/opportunities. In addition, there is a cool way to conduct research on LinkedIn to see the educational background and skills of the employees who hold similar jobs to you.

3.    Make new friends and communicate with the people you meet on LinkedIn.

• Join LinkedIn groups and participate in discussions. Comment on recent news events that you’ve found in your Google news alerts. Help others solve problems they are facing. Offer encouragement and advice to others without expecting anything in return. You have the personal satisfaction of “paying it forward,” and you will attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers who surf industry groups looking for talent.
• Network with other professionals in your industry without asking for a job. This seems counterintuitive, but it is better to focus on building relationships than asking for favors upon first meeting. 
• Identify people in your groups that you would like to converse with and reach out to them. Better yet, if you have a friend who is connected to that person, ask for an introduction on LinkedIn. Talk about what is going on with them, not you. For example, if you see someone in the group received an award for launching a new product, write them a quick message in LinkedIn. Congratulate them on their recent success. Ask them if they would be willing to chat with you for about 10 minutes. If you show a genuine interest in others, they will usually find time for a brief conversation with you. 
• Communicate with people in novel ways. Consider sending an old-fashioned card with a news clipping enclosed or a genuine letter via snail mail referencing an online article you read. Your letter will stand out like a sports car in a parking lot full of mini-vans, because not too many people take the effort to write a letter. Again, do not ask for a job. Do not enclose a resume. Chances are the executive's administrative assistant will forward anything that resembles a resume to the HR department. Simply congratulate the person on his-or-her newsworthy achievement. Ask the executive if he-or-she would be willing to chat with you for about 10 minutes. If you show a genuine interest in others, they will usually find time for a brief conversation with you.

Personal Networking
No matter how great computers are, there is no substitute for human interaction.
1.    Go to conferences, industry meetings, and local civic club meetings. Most organizations will allow you attend their meeting as a visitor once or twice without joining.

• Arrive 15 minutes early. 
• Go prepared to introduce yourself and make new contacts. (more on this in our next blog). Ask for their business card. 
• Write notes on the back of the business card to remind yourself where you met and if you had a common interest. 
• Follow-up within a week of meeting to express how much you enjoyed making their acquaintance.

2.    Build your contacts. Never underestimate the power of friends, neighbors, hair stylists, church members, realtors, civic club associations, college alumni, and professional association members.

3.    Join a job search support team. If you are a college student, take advantage of your university career services department.

4.    If networking is your weakest job search skill, I highly recommend that you read Network for a Job: The PeopleHirePeople® process to build a job-specific network available as an e-book at Amazon.com for $4.99. This book by Kathleen Conners contains smart, actionable advice. It takes the fear out of networking and helps you learn the most effective ways to contact people on the inside track who can lead you to hiring managers.

Job Seeker, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take control of your job search, use job search tools to your advantage, and lure recruiters and hiring managers to you.

• Make a list of 10 target companies.
• Conduct your research to find 1-2 contacts within each target company.
• Join 3 new groups on LinkedIn this week.
• Participate in at least 1-3 group discussions each day.
• Show a professional interest in others. Reach out to at least 5 new people each day to talk about industry news, technological advances, upcoming conferences, etc.

Questions? Ask us anything. Send an email to [email protected] or use the contact form on the website at https://www.writtenbyapro.com/contact-us.html

A frustrated job seeker told me, “Shoot the Resume Robots! Can’t they see I’m qualified for the job?”

Although I shared her pain (computers have dehumanized the job search), I had to laugh. Her statement conjured up a vision of steely Resume-bots sorting through mountains of professional resumes and asynchronously reporting, “Applicant does not quality … does not qualify … does not qualify.” It had all the makings of a job seeker’s nightmare, or a B-rated movie.

For better or for worse, computerized resume screening tools are here to stay. While Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) make employers’ lives easier, they pose yet another obstacle for job seekers to overcome. What can you do to satisfy the gatekeeping robot? The answer is simple. Feed the computer the data it craves.

1.       Make sure you meet the minimum requirements for the job posting.

 If the job posting states, “Applicant must have x number of postgraduate credit hours” or names a minimum of specific courses required in order to be considered for the position, and you have none of the coursework, do not apply for the job. It will save you from receiving a computer-generated rejection notice.

If, however, the job posting reads “an applicant must have a bachelor’s degree in a particular field or equivalent work experience” and you lack the educational requirements but have plenty of relevant work experience, then apply for the job. Send a resume and cover letter showing that you have the exact skill set the employer is seeking and why you would be a good fit for the position.

 
2.       Pack your resume with truthful accomplishment statements that correlate to the job description. Focus on core competencies (think technical skills) that relate to the job posting. Omit irrelevant information. Customize each resume to the specific job posting but state genuine facts.
 
Front-load your accomplishment statements with quantifiers such as revenue gains, amount saved, or percentage increases in productivity. A job posting for a senior supply chain director asked for strong analytical and negotiation skills.

The job seeker listed “Global Distribution & Transportation Networks” and “Vendor Sourcing & Contract Negotiations” under his professional skills then went a step further to describe several accomplishments that showed his analytical and negotiation skills in action. However, he made the mistake of placing the results last.

Instead of writing, “Developed tools, processes, and reports used to analyze international small parcel shipping costs and led negotiations with carriers, which saved $1.2 million in small parcel shipping expense across all business units.”

Front load the quantifying terms. Rewrite the accomplishment statement to read, “Saved $1.2 million in small parcel shipping costs across all business units by analyzing international small parcel shipping expense and negotiating discounts with carriers.”

Do you see how moving the quantifier to the front of the bullet statement and shortening it makes it more powerful?

In summary, submit your application to those postings where you meet the minimum educational and experiential requirements, pack your resume with quantified accomplishment statements, and watch your interview rates soar. Satisfy the gatekeeping Resume Robots by spoon-feeding them the precise data they crave.

© 2014 Sharla Taylor – All rights reserved.