Published in Non-Clinical

Job Description Template for Hiring an A+ Optometrist

This is editorially independent content
11 min read
Utilize our free Microsoft Word optometrist job description template to attract the best talent for your practice and hire an optometrist with confidence.

Organize and make your listing inviting 👋🏻

Too often we see optometrist job advertisements that feel as sterile as an operating room. Your practice and your team have personality and amazing things to offer. Don’t be afraid to show them off!

Information to include 🧐

Keep it balanced. For every fun fact about your optometry practice or location, make sure you have another one or two pieces of information about the job.

Talk about benefits 💸

It is not just about money - show off the fun, personal, and social benefits of working in this area and for your practice.

Talk about your mission statement 💥

You finding the right candidate is just as important as the candidate finding the right employer.

It takes dedicated work to find an OD who can fit perfectly into the world of a specific practice, and there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to hiring. Our hope is that these tips and template for building exciting job descriptions will help to draw in the ideal candidate for your unique practice!

When it comes time to hire a new employee, everyone wants to find the perfect doctor to join their team. Someone who fits in with the office culture, someone who is sociable and kind with patients, and in most cases someone who will remain a part of the team for years to come.
Unfortunately, star-studded optometrist employees aren’t likely to fall into your lap.
It takes dedicated work to find an OD who can fit perfectly into the world of a specific practice, and there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to hiring. Our hope is that these tips for building exciting job descriptions will help to draw in the ideal candidate for your unique practice!
Here’s how you can best advertise your position to find the perfect fit for your practice.

You can download the optometrist hiring template which will teach you how to construct the perfect listing!

How do I organize my listing?

One of the most common issues we see with job listings is that they lack “flow.” Luckily, there are a few easy fixes for this. Try dividing the description into sections that focus on specific but distinct value propositions. The duties of the job, the benefits (if any), and some information about the team are great details to include!
Once you have the sections set out, another helpful way to organize the ad is to split up smaller sentences into bulleted lists. Having dense paragraphs of text makes an ad difficult to read, especially for the increasingly large number of seekers who are browsing for jobs on their phones and tablets.

How do I make my listing inviting?

Far too often we see advertisements that feel as sterile as an operating room. Your practice and your team have personality and amazing things to offer. Don’t be afraid to show them off! Adding in that your practice is in a great school district, for instance, or is near some beautiful beaches is always welcome and helps give the ad some flair.

How much information should I put in a listing?

As an employee (or owner) of a practice you will have plenty of love and excitement for your business and the area where you live. Being able to highlight great cultural benefits of the area helps you to stand out, but keep it balanced by information about the role. For every fun fact make sure you have another one or two pieces of information about the job.

Don't worry! We created this template to make it easier for hiring ODs by constructing the perfect listing! Download it for free! 📒

What else can I do to make my advertisement stand out?

While the tips we have here are essential for putting together the perfect body text for your job ad, building a job listing online usually extends beyond writing the text itself. Here we’re going to talk a bit about the Eyes On Eyecare platform — but don’t worry, our template will be useful for any job posting!
It’s important to consider other facets of the profile as tools for customizing your ad. Eyes On Eyecare offers adjustable sliders for various elements of the practice and drop-down options for practice equipment and software proficiencies.
Enter the profile photo: a commonly overlooked tool in any employer’s arsenal that goes hand in hand with “keeping it personal.” Adding a profile picture to the ad may seem like a minor step, but attaching a recognizable brand name and having an image available makes a statement to job seekers that there’s a human element behind the text.
With marketing in any field, it’s important to understand that no one style or strategy will work for every person. Our pointers here have been compiled from working with hundreds of optometrists who are on the lookout for amazing opportunities like yours, but not every doctor will be looking for the same highlights.
Some are more concerned with where they can raise their family while they work than they are with what patient load they have, and others will want to know about every piece of equipment in the office before walking in the door. You won’t be able to optimize for every type of person, but with these pointers you’ll be off to a strong start!

Now let's talk about the actual construction of the job listing!

Job Title

The title of the ad should be made up of the basics of the position.
For example: Optometrist - < Full-time / Part-time / Fill-in > - Private Practice - < City, State >
If there is something specific to your practice, or special opportunity within the position, this could be a good place to include that as well.
For example, if you are looking to hire an associate and intend on offering partnership at some point, you could reference that within the title. Your job title might instead look something like this: Optometrist - Full-time - Private Practice - Opportunity for partnership - Pittsburgh, PA
Including the title in the body of the ad ensures that your keywords like “optometrist” are repeated an extra time which can aid in visibility when folks search for positions in your area.

About the practice

Here is your chance to tell the world about your practice! When constructing detailed listings, it can save you time and improve your discoverability by copying over some text from your practice’s “About Us” page!
A bit of biographical information here is as useful to your prospective candidates as their bios are to you as an employer. At the end of the day, the point of the ad is to bring you together with your perfect new team member. This is a great opportunity, for candidates to get an understanding of what your practice culture is like, and can be a good place to incorporate your practice’s mission statement.

About the optometrist position

The key for this section of your ad is made up of what most would consider a full job posting: the daily duties, specific qualifications, and benefit details of the position.
Your description shouldn’t be too short, but neither should it be a dense block of text—as we noted earlier, that can make it inaccessible for those reading job listings on their mobile devices. The ideal middleground is a blend of the two: introduce the position in a way that aligns with your practice’s mission and attitude, then break down some of the other facets into easily browsable lists!
The list of duties does not, by any means, have to be comprehensive. Jobs change every day, and you want to allow for some level of flexibility in the post, but including a list of four to six responsibilities can give a potential candidate some insight into what they can expect to do on an average day around the practice.
Qualifications will also vary greatly from position to position, and many of them for doctors are a given. Ideally, candidates applying to the position will have degrees in optometry, but beyond that, it’s nice to customize your listing with specific certifications or specializations you may be looking for!

Lastly, this section is where your compensation and benefits information will live.

The star of the ad is meant to be your practice’s personality, but anyone who is seriously considering a position will also be considering the financial impact of their new job. This section can be fairly straightforward and formatted in bullet points.
One key exception to this is if you are leaving the salary up to negotiation. If you feel the compensation you are offering is substantially higher than average, you may want to advertise it clearly, but if you’d rather leave it up to discussion, you can say that in place of an exact value.
That said, a paragraph shortly after can be a great space to also include some cultural benefits as well! Is your practice right in the heart of the city? What awesome landmarks or city centers are nearby? If you live in a suburban area, does your practice sit in the limits of a spectacular school district? Maybe it’s a short drive out to a scenic campground? Take a moment to show off the personal and social benefits of working in your area.
With that, you’re just about done!

The final step is to give your new doctor a call-to-action.

Give them a thank you and a farewell followed by some tangible information. Include your practice’s URL if you have a website, and clear instructions on how to apply—whether it’s by email or through a platform like Eyes On Eyecare!
We’ve provided examples here that you can use to start piecing your own listing together!

If you’re still looking for some more help, and want to paint your own hiring picture - stop reading and start downloading our customizable template now! 👇

This template will be a huge help!

The job title

  • Full time / Part Time
  • Type of practice
  • Location

About your practice

  • Information about your practice and mission
  • What is your practice culture like
  • Consult your "About Page"

About the position

  • Duties and specific qualifications
  • Compensation
  • Other benefits

Call to action

  • Give a thank you and a farewell
  • Include your practice url
  • Identify exactly how candidates need to apply
📚

Download your template and start getting ready to hire an A+ OD!

Just pick your favorite sections of the job description template, modify it to meet your need, and use it to make the perfect hire for your practice!
Matt Geller, OD
About Matt Geller, OD

Matt Geller, OD is the co-founder and CEO of Eyes On Eyecare—the #1 provider of clinical and career education for the next generation of optometrists and ophthalmologists through our all-in-one digital content platform.

Matt Geller, OD
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