Resumes, cover letters and applications

Applying for a role can be a stressful and uncomfortable process irrespective of career stage. Very few doctors enjoy the process of writing a resume, cover letter and/or key selection criteria responses. In fact, most find it an uncomfortable, anxiety provoking and extremely challenging task to complete, especially when they are required to sell themselves for an opportunity. 

They often don’t know what to say and how to say it. They find their attempts contrived and unauthentic. Many resent the fact that they even need to sell themselves at all, believing instead that their experience and clinical skills should speak for themselves. Some avoid the task entirely, presenting a list of roles and qualifications as their application, expecting the person recruiting to connect the dots for them.

However increased sophistication and automation in medical workforce recruitment and management, as well as a perceived increase in competition over the past two decades has meant that not submitting a quality application is career limiting!

A quality application will support you to ‘stand out in a crowd’ by demonstrating:

• Who you are
• What differentiates you
• Why you are interested in the opportunity
• Your ‘fit’ for the opportunity
• What skills and competencies you bring to the opportunity
• Why they should hire you.

Our team has extensive experience supporting doctors to create quality applications for all levels of role and specialist pathways. 

As a financial member of AMA Victoria, a good place to start is to is to book one of member benefit career services which will enable you to speak with one of our coaches for 15 minutes about your specific application query.

Not a member? Please click here to become a member of AMA Victoria.

If you know you need more detailed support, please book one of our career coaching consults listed below

60 minutes - Career coaching consult

Career coaching can be utilised by doctors at all stages of their career to explore career opportunities and challenges, make informed career choices, identify their professional goals, gain personal insight and increase their self-awareness, build career management capability and enhance their career potential. If you are not sure what specific support you need or need to talk through a number of things, this is the best session to book. The session will be conducted by Zoom. 

30 minutes - Love your cover letter consult 

This coaching session is designed to support doctors and medical students who would like a targeted coaching session to review a cover letter(s) or an application response. In this session, we will work with you to review as many cover letters and/or responses to application questions as we can within the time allocated. 

If your cover letter is in a rough draft format, it is likely we will only get through one document, with you needing to go away from the consult to do quite a lot of work, acting on the feedback we provide during the session. If it is in a final draft stage, we can do a detailed review and edit with you and could potentially get through 2-3 documents. Please note we won't review the document prior to the session. Instead, we review the document collaboratively with you in the session, providing feedback on its current state, advising on suggested changes and enhancements (content and/or format) and highlight any gaps in information that we see. Resources will be provided after the session. 

The session will be conducted by Zoom. Be ready to share the documents with the consultant during the session or email them to careersadvisor@amavic.com.au at least 15 minutes prior to the session.

30 minutes - Resume review

This coaching session is designed to support medical students and doctors who would like a targeted coaching session to review their resume. In this session we will work with you to review as much of your resume as we can within the time allocated. To get the most out of the session it is best to have your resume in the final draft stage. If you think you will need a lot of assistance, perhaps a 1-hour career coaching session would be more beneficial. Please note we won't review the document prior to the session. Instead, we review the document collaboratively with you in the session, providing feedback on its current state, advising on suggested changes and enhancements (content and/or format) and highlight any gaps in information that we see. Resources will be provided after the session where necessary. 

The session will be conducted on Zoom. Be ready to share your resume with the consultant during the session or email it to careersadvisor@amavic.com.au at least 15 minutes prior to the session.

Workplace relations and career management tips for interns

To those of you who are already AMA Victoria members, we are here to serve you. You can read our workplace relations and career management tips and insights for interns here (member login required). Topics include:

• Resume writing for interns (including our ‘Stand out! Resume writing for interns’ webinar’)
• Professional boundaries in medicine
• Tips for achieving work-life balance
• Sourcing a quality reference
• Know your rights and keep a work diary
• Medical payslips 101
• Commencing your first rotation
• O-Week

Terms and conditions

Read AMA Victoria's Professional Development and Careers Service T&Cs here.

Contact

For more information, contact our consultants between 9am - 5pm, Monday - Friday: (03) 9280 8722 or careersadvisor@amavic.com.au.

Related content

• Strategies for doctors to apply for senior positions
• Click here to learn more about our free student membership and the services we offer