On September 18th 2014, the NewGradOptometry.com Executive Team held a round table discussion live at Vision Expo West. It was sponsored by Allergan OPTOMETRY JUMPSTART and the Vision Expo Young Professionals Club. Specifically, I talked about bringing medical optometry to a practice and how to land your dream optometry job. Landing your dream optometry job isn't always easy. One of the steps is to always keep a list of your "network connections" in optometry. Personally, I stayed extremely close with my connections in school because as they say, "it's who you know, not what you know." [Tweet "It's who you know not what you know!"] Here is the step-by-step process to keep track of your connections, both in and out of optometry school. This is a common tactic used in any sales position. You must keep track of all your potential clients in order to make sure you push them to make a purchasing decision. Without proper tracking, you can say goodbye to organization, professionalism and closing the deal. I used Trello to track my optometry job leads and it helped me land a position at Complete Family Vision Care in San Diego!
How to Network and Land Your Optometry Job
I began looking for a position at the beginning of optometry school, literally on day one. I had many opportunities, but one in particular I knew that I wanted. The position was back in my home town of Long Island, New York with a great guy, Dr. Joel Kestenbaum of Optix Family Eyecare. I nurtured the relationship and made sure it stayed strong. During the 6 months leading up to graduation, I realized I wanted to move to San Diego, California. This meant I needed to look for a new career opportunity and I only had 6 months to do it! I did not use any job board or job search engines. I used my network of friends and business partners to find my optometry job. However, if you do want to use a traditional job board, read this article. I spent an entire day gathering every single e-mail address of every friend and connection I made along the way. I put them all into Trello, an online organization platform. I then created a stock e-mail and sent it to every single connection I had. If they didn’t respond, I called. I waited for responses and then followed up with every single lead, making sure I left no stone unturned. Slowly but surely I found hiring ODs and called them all to make my pitch. In the end, only one was a match. The moral of the story is you can use your network connections to help find your next optometry job, but you will have at least 15 - 20 leads and people you are talking with. You do not want to lose track of who is who and you must keep organized or risk losing the optometry career of a lifetime.
How to Organize Your Optometry Job Leads with Trello
- Use Trello to track your optometry jobs so things run more smoothly
- Log in to Trello & create a FREE account
- Create your lists to organize leads
- Enter your leads
- Start e-mailing your leads
- Call leads if necessary
- Send leads your CV / Resume
- Visit Practices
- Sign a Contract
- Start working
Video Tutorial of How I Use Trello
Here is The Stock E-mail to Send to Your Connections
You should modify your stock e-mail that fits your personality, but here is what I used.
Hi [insert name here],
How are you doing? [insert personal comment here to jog their memory, make it funny, fun and upbeat]
I am reaching out to you because I need some help finding a part time position in a [insert your ideal position type here (i.e.) private practice setting] in San Diego, California. [Insert why you want to practice there, add some emotion and passion to it - here is what I did]. Yup, even though I am a New York native and California is a saturated environment to practice optometry, I am 100% set on practicing there. I fell in love with the area when I did my rotation at Dr. Albert Chun’s practice during the winter. After being there for 3 months I knew I had to live there.
I was wondering if you personally knew, or had a connection with any ODs out in San Diego and perhaps through [insert relationship /company here]? I would be beyond grateful if you could introduce me to anyone in the area, whether they are hiring or not. I am confident that if I can just meet some ODs, then I can make the rest happen. I have so much to offer, not only clinically, but also in the area of practice development. I know that there must be at least one OD out there who is ready to take his or her practice to the next level. I just want the chance to share my story, my passion for optometry and more about how I can bring unique value to the table.
Looking forward to catching up. Thanks so much for helping me with this. Any advice or connections would be great.
All the best,
[your name]
p.s - [insert another personal comment]
