Careers support for F1s Dr Ian Barton, Medical Careers Lead NHS East of England Multi-Professional Deanery Meeting name : date

I use this slide as an icebreaker I use this slide as an icebreaker. Ask the trainees to choose whichever shape appeals to them the most. They can either write it down or put it on a post-it. Tell them that you’ll come back to it later in the talk. You come back to it when you’re talking about psychometric tests see slide 14

I use this is a “fun” slide to illustrate the lack of careers support our generation had. At best it was “Go down to the consultants’ car park. Find out what the consultant who drives the car you most like does and be one of them”

Aims Introduce you to concept of careers support Explain a template for use in career support for medical students and Foundation Programme trainees The template is a locally developed “Careers Support Form” and we would like all trainees to use it

Careers Support What is it? When will you need it? Why is it suddenly so important? What is it? Guiding trainees through their career planning etc When will you need it? Throughout your working life; The need doesn’t disappear when you’ve made your first career choice Why is it so important? Need to make decisions early; Less flexibility to change career paths etc

Ownership Self Awareness Self Determination Locus of control Become an adult learner Reflective practice Every encounter is a learning opportunity This is really important. It’s about encouraging them to take charge of all aspects of their lives. The only person with a 100% vested interest in their career is them. Your role is as a facilitator not to sort out their problems for them

Escalation Pathway for careers support Level 1 Yourselves Level 2 Educational Supervisors Level 3 Trust Careers Leads Level 4 Deanery Advisors/Groups Stress that levels 1 and 2 are most important. Very few trainees need to access Level 3 and only those with exceptional needs e.g. the need for careers counselling should be accessing Level 4

Getting the Most out of Careers Support What exactly do I need at the present time? How can this be achieved? The next few slides are talking the trainees through what is on the careers support form. This slide is about being clear about the trainee’s current objectives

Meeting with an “Advisor” Ground rules: Facilitative Your advisor won’t know everything! These rules refer to level 2 and above support Recognising that the role of the “advisor” is to guide and to act as a gatekeeper. “I don’t know myself but I can suggest how you can find out”

Career Aspirations What do you want to do? What don’t you want to do? Try to get them to make three choices for each and, most importantly, identify what it is about them that either attract them or put them off

Career Decisions Are there any stresses influencing your ability to make a considered judgement? This may be a major life event, pressure from a relative, bullying at work etc etc. One should never be making major life changing decisions when one is seriously stressed

Barriers to Progression Review Person Specification(s) Lack of: Qualification Competency Life Skill Person Specs can be found on Royal College websites or the Medical Speciality Training website. If there are barriers to their chosen career choice they must be addressed before recruitment starts

360° Approach Desires and Fears Personality Qualifications Skills Experience Finances This is about looking at the job from every aspect. Am I the right person for this job? Is this job the right one for me?

Resources Own experience Local specialists/trainees Aptitude / psychometric tests National website (www.medicalcareers.nhs.uk) Deaneries, Schools, College BMJ Careers Medical Forum (www.medicalforum.com) Books etc This is to stress that they should research properly. Remind them that there is a question on this on most application forms. Local trainees are probably the best people to tell them how the recruitment process works and what to expect. Sci59 is an aptitude test; Most Trust libraries have it and BMA members have access to it. It has never been validated and it doesn’t point enough trainees at general practice; the best way to use it is to analyse the answers to the individual questions rather than the final outcomes. Psychometric tests, Belbin or Myers Briggs are best done properly with a face-to-face meeting with someone trained to interpret them. On-line versions are less useful. There is no evidence that particular personality types are more suited to particular specialities. This is where you go back to slide 2; It is a simple psychometric test. Those choosing circles are well-rounded and “people people”; triangles have direction and are the leaders, the squares are ordered and completer-finishers and the squiggles are the creative ones. They’ll all like it as it says something positive about them. Stress how useful the national website is. Medical Forum is a careers service dedicated to doctors and run by a doctor; the careers form was a joint effort between the Deanery and MF There’s a reading list on the Deanery website and on the national website

Action Plan Where do I want to be? What do I need to do to get there? Questions they need to ask themselves

Goal setting and Action Planning You should be leading Immediate and long term SMART targets Specific Measurable Agreed (Achievable) Realistic Time-based Encourage them to set their own goals using SMART targets

This is what the latest version (it took over 25 attempts to get here This is what the latest version (it took over 25 attempts to get here!) of the Careers Support form looks like. It can be downloaded from the Deanery website and contains hyperlinks to all the important resources. There is a scoring system to assess the trainees’ current satisfaction with their career plans

Why and when to use the form Puts you in charge Evaluates where you are Provides a framework Develops a plan Acts as an agenda for a careers meeting Record for your portfolio Explains all the reasons for using the form as outlined above

Keep Building Your Portfolio Buy a box file to keep paper evidence in Get certificates or other evidence for everything you do Thank you cards Complaints Keep your ePortfolio up to date Particularly reflective sections Put something in it every week Stress the fact that their portfolios will be inspected during the interviews (except in GP recruitment) and that it is the reflective practice bit that we tend to focus on Take the opportunity to encourage them to put something in every week

CV Enhancement Career Focussed Relevant experience Attachments, tasters Relevant WPBAs, Audits, Publications Courses Exams Once they have made a careers choice they should try to develop their CVs in a career-relevant way. E.g. if they want to be a chest physician, do chest related WPBAs, audits etc. The best way to get published is to reply to an article in a peer-reviewed journal. Think up a “snappy” title and keep it short. (advice from a sub-editor of the BMJ)

Some Points to Consider Location vs Speciality Speciality trainees vs speciality doctors Expansion of primary care Reduction in training numbers in many specialities, especially surgery It’s very competitive out there! Which is most important: where you live or what you do? If you really want to do a particular speciality, have you considered being an SAS doctor Approximately 50% of training programmes are now GPST Training numbers in hospital-based specialities, particularly surgery, are contracting

Questions

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