Much has been written for well over a year about the HUGE potential opportunities coming in Healthcare IT. The common theme is that there will be 50,000 new jobs in Healthcare IT in the next 5 years to support ARRA/HITECH and ICD-10 initiatives. To be completely honest with you, until the last month or so, I have been wondering if all the hype was really going to turn to reality. Hospital, Health System and Physician Practice clients were not moving as fast as the government, vendors and consultants said they should be, vendors and consulting firms were not hiring aggressively, and too many of my friends were remaining unemployed. Well, I am now seeing at least 5 signs that the Healthcare IT Job Market is heating up.
1) Many friends and others in my network that were unemployed have found very good jobs at very good companies and health systems including our very own job seeking blogger Danielle Byron.
2) The job boards and my LinkedIn Groups seem to be overflowing with good jobs. For those still looking for a position:
- I recommend http://www.indeed.com because it searches thousands of sites.
- Check out my LinkedIn profile to see the groups that I belong to. Join the groups that interest you or send me a request to connect if you would like to collaborate on a job seeking strategy with me. TIP: <mount Soapbox> Do not send me the default LinkedIn connection request. Include information about what you are looking for and how you think I might be able to help. If you really want to hit a home run, include how connecting might benefit me. <dismount Soapbox>
- Register on and refer friends to http://www.healthcareitcentral.com. Healthcare IT Central offers many resources for job seekers including a free weekly newsletter listing the most current new opportunities, an Employer Directory to research potential new employers, and the ability to sign up for customized Job Alerts.
3) The number of projects at our clients and at potential new clients has risen dramatically. It seems that hospitals, systems and physicians are starting to realize that the deadlines for Meaningful Use for ARRA and for ICD-10 conversion may not get delayed as they had hoped for. My personal opinion is there are a great many hospitals and physicians who simply will not meet the deadlines because they either have not yet started or they started too late, but that will only present more opportunity for Healthcare IT job seekers.
4) I have been contacted 5 times this month by headhunters while I was only contacted 5 times in the last year.
5) The career bloggers, columnists and reporters are writing about “the recovery” and how to get ready for it.
For all our sake, let’s hope the signs continue to turn positive and the boom that has been predicted starts very soon. Let’s enjoy the good times that come with the boom, while remembering that we chose to be in healthcare because we care about things like patient safety and we understand that our job is to deploy technology in a way that the workflow really supports great patient care. Oh yea, and it’s ok to enjoy the salary increases and promotions that will come with the boom as well!
