The Job Searching Strategies That Schools Don't Teach...
Network, network, network
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Speaking of your network…
Your network is one of the most valuable resources you should cultivate throughout your career.
Referred candidates are 7x more likely to be hired than ones applying via online job boards, according to Pinpoint’s analysis of 4.5 million applications.
Especially when hiring managers and recruiters are inundated with job applications, having someone who can speak to your work experience or who can let you know when a job posting will be dropping at their company, is key to your job search strategy.
First, a recognition that this is a long (and sometimes painful process) and the work is never complete. I recently attended an alumni event and met people from all different backgrounds. In my experience, spending the time to build my network and practicing my communication skills, over applying to jobs that might not match my experience, has had a greater payoff.
This is not to say you should completely write off applying for jobs through LinkedIn and Indeed but there has been a trend called the “spray and pray” job searching technique, where people apply to everything and anything and I think your energy could be better used growing your network.
How do you go about growing your network?
I would start to see if your program has an alumni network, see if you can reach out to people who graduated from your program on LinkedIn and ask them how they obtained their first entry-level role. This will help you to understand if there are already existing organizations who tend to provide opportunities for new grads or those new to the health informatics field.
Search large health informatics organizations for opportunities.
Organizations such as HIMSS or AMIA might have relevant opportunities for new grads, you can also volunteer at a chapter near to you and grow your network by meeting people at various different career stages.
You can also check out the International Medical Informatics Association where they have a Student and Emerging Professional Group, to see if there are any volunteer opportunities for you to connect with participants.
Search for research opportunities within your university/college or your neighbouring institution.
Reach out to professors via email in a relevant discipline (e.g., health informatics, health administration, health IT etc…) to see if they are looking for research students over the summer, to help them out with their projects. I would contact several professors as they are notoriously busy and get multiple emails asking for opportunities. Make sure to tailor your email and read their published research papers so you have an understanding of what projects they are currently working on.
Attend health informatics events and competitions to network and meet potential future preceptors
Summer is here! Get outside and attend relevant health informatics events (you can search for them through Eventbrite, Meetup and/or Facebook Events) or healthcare data competitions. I have had the opportunity to attend several Hacking Health events where I worked on a clinical problem with clinicians and developers, this helped me to connect with people from various backgrounds. As you grow your network within this discipline, this will allow you to reach out to people to see if they know of opportunities.
Document a health informatics research portfolio project you are working on through LinkedIn or a Blog Site
With all of the job layoffs this year, I have seen several LinkedIn posts of individuals working on self-guided projects and documenting the data skills they have learned. This could help hiring managers and recruiters who are on LinkedIn become aware of your technical and clinical skills. If you are looking for a portfolio project to work on and show to hiring managers, check out my course and upskill in Power BI and SQL by building your own Hospital KPI Dashboard!
In addition, here is a list of healthcare data competitions and volunteer opportunities that might be of interest to you, also try and find offline events to get the benefit of in-person collaboration.
Healthcare data competitions:
AI Competitions
Big Data and AI Events
Driven Data Competition
Kaggle Competition
Healthcare Analytics Case Competition
Volunteer opportunities:
Broad Street Institute
Catchafire
VolunteerMatch
Public Health Institute
JSI
EncompassWorld
Clinton Health Access Initiative
Metrics for Management
I-Tech
WiDS Datathon
Tech Volunteer Opportunities
Data Science Volunteering
Resources
To get ready for #SeptemberSurge I will be going over key components to add to your resume to secure your first role in Health Informatics! I will be going live on my YouTube channel on August 2nd 11 AM EST and answering YOUR questions, bring your resume 😊
Check out all the great speakers who will be presenting on data topics for free (myself included) here
Looking to get Epic experience without having to be Epic certified? Checkout this helpful video
Looking for job opportunities? Check out this LinkedIn post from Sachi Chan for a list of newsletters and resources.
Coop Intern – Product Content Development (12 months - September 2025 - Remote/Ottawa/Montreal)
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What are you looking forward to most this summer?