For the past several years, U.S. News has ranked the PA profession as one of the top three jobs in the nation. U.S. News states:
“Health care occupations continue to dominate the U.S. News 2019 Best Jobs rankings, with demand in the field highest for workers to fill roles such as nurse practitioner, physician assistant, and physical therapist.”
One of the reasons the PA career ranks so highly is its salary. Physician assistants receive a mean compensation of over $100,000 per year, which is a high return on your master’s education investment.
Another reason physician assistant ranks among the best jobs is flexibility. Physician assistants have a versatile work environment and flexibility in the specialties they choose. With greater personal freedom, physician assistants have a lower level of overall burnout than doctors and other medical services professionals.
PAs add great value to the health system, working in a variety of specialties from critical care to family practice. Plus, the career is growing; the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds the profession will grow by 31% from 2018 to 2028.
There are multiple specialties a PA can enter into—primary care-focused family medicine, emergency medicine, plastic surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, even dermatology. Such a variety of options may leave you wondering where you should look for physician assistant jobs. Keep reading to learn the 5 best places to find physician assistant jobs.
1. Recruiting Agencies
Working with a recruiting agency may be far your best option for a number of reasons. A job search is a time-intensive and sometimes energy-draining process, especially when you’re doing it alone. With a recruiter by your side, you’ll not only have access to job listings but also support through the process, including help with resume structuring and interviewing skills.
linkPAs
linkPAs is designed to do the work to find your next job for you. Physician assistants are highly marketable, and linkPAs understands that because we are owned and operated by PA-Cs. We ensure the needs of our candidates and clients are met.
Our professional recruiters work one on one with advanced practice physician assistants and nurse practitioners to place you in optimal positions that utilize your unique skill set.
You have the option to look through physician assistant job listings or directly contact a recruiter to look for you. You can filter the listings by location and position, and each listing includes a description of responsibilities, background required, and benefits.
It’s easy to apply for jobs directly on our site. If there isn’t a job in the location you’re seeking, submit your resume for future consideration or set up an alert for a specific location.
linkPAs has nationwide notoriety for representing quality physician assistants. That’s why innovative medical care facilities consistently contact linkPAs looking for top-tier talent.
Our company uses a proactive recruiting method to customize job searches and meet the needs of the physician assistant/nurse practitioner seeking employment.
There is no cost to the PA-C seeking a job, and linkPAs does all the work. Whether you are interested in remaining local or in relocating, linkPAs can meet your needs.
If you’re more of a DIY job hunter, these next options may be what you’re seeking.
2. Job Boards
Online job boards began gaining traction in the mid-1990s with the arrival of Monster and CareerBuilder. By 1999, JobsOnline was the No. 1 place to search for jobs. Today, JobsOnline aggregates listings from niche websites, online newspapers, and major job boards. The information they post is limited by the job listings they pull from.
Google Jobs
Google released its virtual job board in 2018, taking advantage of the powerful search engine built to scour the Internet using your search terms. The service allows medical practices and hospitals to post in one place—Google Jobs. The listings are then sent to websites that agree to post from Google Jobs, including large job boards like ZipRecruiter.
The job seeker also has the option to enter a query into Google search including the word “job.” For instance, a search for “physician assistant jobs” + the city you’d like to work in delivers a list of job openings. The listing includes when it was posted, if it’s a full-time or part-time position, and the driving distance from your home. The length and details in the job description depends on how much information the employer entered.
You can save a search and set up alerts to be notified when a new job is posted. Once you’ve received the initial results from your search, you can filter by date posted, job title, distance from your initial location search, and whether the job is full or part-time.
Google jobs aggregates information found on large job boards to help you. The same position may be listed on multiple job boards, and Google provides employer rankings from each of the job boards in one place.
For example, you may find the same job is posted on Indeed, Glassdoor, and CareerBliss. Google gives you the link to apply on each of those sites as well as provides a 0 – 5 ranking for the employer from each site.
Indeed
Indeed launched in 2004, and by 2010, the website had passed Monster.com as the highest-trafficked job board in the United States.
You can upload your resume and set job alerts for your desired position. The search cannot be defined by specialty, such as urgent care or internal medicine. But you can filter jobs by salary, location, and job type.
For physician assistant jobs, you can set salary preference using an incremental salary breakdown from $53,000 to $145,500. Additionally, the job type feature allows you to filter the search to part-time or full-time physician assistants positions.
A quick search reveals the number of positions available in the specified city and its surrounding suburbs or towns. The listings include the company, the job, and if they need an entry-level or mid-level advanced practice practitioner. Since the site supports listings nationwide, it’s easy to find positions when considering relocation.
Additionally, listings are marked if they are easy to apply to, or if the company is urgently hiring. The search engine uses “assistant” in the search, which brings up other job titles, including medical assistants and physician’s assistants. This requires work on your part to verify the jobs and filter out listings that aren’t applicable.
ZipRecruiter
As far as job boards go, ZipRecruiter is relatively young, having started in 2010. You have the option of saving your jobs, and searching by keyword and location. The site also allows you to narrow your location search by defining a search radius in miles.
You can filter the job search by salary, companies, and job type (full-time or part-time). The website stores your resume, and it has a resume center where you can connect your social media profiles. When your resume and references are stored in ZipRecruiter, you have a one-click apply option that makes the application process quick.
There is no requirement for the job listing, so some summaries are extensive and others are sparse. As you review listings, be sure to weed out any nurse practitioner, registered nurse, or other seemingly-similar positions.
Glassdoor
Glassdoor launched in 2008 with a unique take on job hunting. The site allows previous and current employees to rank their employers. You can see these rankings broken down by benefits, culture, career opportunities, work-life balance, and senior management. This gives you a look into the company, making it a glass door.
To search for jobs, you must create a free account. They have a 5-star ranking system for employers, and there’s a graph of the rankings for the past 2 years. This demonstrates an improvement or decline in employee satisfaction.
The search automatically sorts by the date posted. But you can filter the search by keyword, location, date posted, and salary range. Glassdoor also allows you to set up job alerts.
Creating job alerts is a handy way to be notified when new jobs meeting your criteria are posted. The site also searches on “assistant,” so medical assistants come up in the results, which is time-consuming to sift through.
3. Professional Organization Job Boards
The following job boards are run by PA professional organizations. This means that you can be sure the jobs are specific to physician assistants. Though it’s not always necessary to become a member to search the professional organization job boards, it can help network and improve your job prospects.
American Academy of Physician Assistants
The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) maintains a PA Job Source. The large job board only lists physician assistant jobs.
You can search by specialty, which they call “job function.” You can also choose the type of practice, such as government, academic, medical center, or private. You cannot specify by city; your location search is limited to the whole state. But you can organize the list alphabetically, which may make searching by location a little easier.
At the time of this writing, there were over 900 listings. However, without an easy way to search by location, it can quickly become time-consuming and frustrating.
National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants
The PA-C Career Center is a job board run by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) and hosted on HealtheCareers.com. Here, again, the search is specific to physician assistants, so you aren’t picking through other job openings.
The membership is free, and you can set up job alerts. As with most other job boards, you can upload your resume and cover letter, making applications simple.
The number of jobs posted on this site is limited. For instance, at the time of this writing, there was only one listing for a physician assistant job in Cincinnati, compared to a list of over 30 found on Glassdoor and over 500 on the AAPA Job Source.
4. Hospitals and Healthcare Sites
Before the Internet made it a little easier to find work, job seekers were limited in their options. They could either wait for recruiters to approach them (instead of seeking out recruiters who best meet their needs), look through newspapers and professional journal employment ads, or call the human resources department at hospitals and healthcare facilities.
Today, finding healthcare jobs is a lot simpler. Healthcare facilities place job listings on job boards, use recruiters to attract the best candidates, and list job openings on their site. If you have your heart set on working at Johns Hopkins or Wexner Medical Center, then keep your eye on their site’s job postings.
However, this route severely limits your choices. Plus, you’ll pass over the other unique and prestigious postings you’d get if you worked with a recruiter. And while some of the hospitals and healthcare facilities have large portals, HR often places greater weight on maintaining the listings on major job boards and working with recruiters.
This means their portals may be outdated. The site may show positions that have already been filled, or the facility may have jobs available that haven’t been posted.
5. Social Media
Social media can help develop a list of job positions in your desired location and help you network, which is a crucial part of your career growth. The network of professions you connect with may ultimately lead to job postings, new information, research opportunities, or career connections you may not have otherwise had the chance to experience.
LinkedIn is not technically a job board, yet companies do post job listings. A LinkedIn account is necessary for anyone seeking a job. Setting up or updating a LinkedIn account takes about an hour.
Be sure to write an accurate, descriptive introduction and include a professional picture. Add sections that highlight your physician assistant program, licensure, and patient care experience.
Begin connecting with former coworkers and classmates over the network. Then ask your friends and LinkedIn network for skill endorsements and recommendations. Remember to connect with PA-C peers across the country, as well as professors from your master’s and bachelor’s degree programs.
Each of these strategies is important, as most employers look on LinkedIn after reading your resume. Consider paying for the premium account to see who’s viewed your profile and connect with them.
Search through the platform using keywords to locate open positions. This layer of social networking is beneficial to connect with potential employers, and it allows potential employers to learn more about you.
In early 2018, Facebook rolled out a job board that covers more than 40 countries, including the U.S. Initially, the goal was to address a market of individuals who weren’t being served on LinkedIn. As the job board grew, the market also expanded.
Once you’ve logged in to Facebook, go to Facebook.com/jobs. You’ll find the total list of jobs in your area, which you can filter by type (healthcare), full and part-time, and location.
You can’t filter the jobs any further, so you’ll see anything from hospitalists to direct support professionals and physician assistants all posted together. The search is cumbersome and not efficient, so it’s likely you’ll want to focus your job search efforts on other websites.
Best Places to Find PA Jobs
As you use the various options to search for PA jobs, remember to update your resume to reflect your current education, certifications, and experience. Whether you work with recruiters at linkPAs or apply to positions yourself, your cover letter and resume are the documents that represent who you are and are what the supervising physician uses to determine if you are right for a job interview.
