There are two kinds of CVs: Those that go into a recruiter’s pile of possibilities and those that do not. Obvious reasons for your curriculum vitae making it into the pile of no return include misspelled words, glaring layouts and poor organization. Factors for moving forward as a viable candidate include sending it in response to a specific posting on a job board as opposed to sending the CV without a clean format and the inclusion of relevant competencies in which you excel. 

Competencies are hard and soft skills relevant to your job you’ve honed through training and previous work experiences. Concrete skills are a growing request from physician recruiters, making them vital to every physician CV. For your CV to stand out, however, go beyond simply listing your skills by integrating them into work experiences so they have context. 

Physician core competencies

Core competencies are different for every job. For physicians, they are a combination of the essential skills needed to administer a high level of care to patients and relatable people skills needed to interact with patients, their families, your coworkers and your team. Often referred to as hard and soft skills, your mastery of specific abilities not only illustrate your capacity to do the job but also whether you might be a good fit in the hospital, within the community and among the patients. 

Hard skills refer to practice-based abilities, patient care, procedural skills and medical knowledge.
Soft skills include leadership, teamwork, communication and creativity.

Identify your top competencies

Start with the expected competencies outlined by your individual medical governing body: the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) and the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA).  

Also helpful are online searches and an assessment of job postings. Use a search engine to discover “what are hard skills, what are relevant soft skills for a doctor or what skills should an anesthesiologist have?” By visiting PracticeLink.com, you can go beyond an AI-generated list to see exactly what healthcare recruiters are looking for.

Do an honest critique on whether your skills are just acceptable or excellent and if your performance is occasional or consistent. The skills for which you give yourself high marks are the ones you should include in your CV. Categorize them into hard and soft skills and assign them to a specific role you played at work.

For instance, one of the hard skills expected of pediatricians is to effectively and efficiently use laboratory tests. Assign this and other responsibilities you performed well to specific rotations and roles. 

Set aside the skills with less than stellar levels because they can be repurposed later during the interview. Recruiters often ask about your weaknesses. Having a solid answer along with a follow up of what you’ve done to improve those weaknesses will help your interview stand out as well.

Integrate relevant skills into your CV

This is when the old adage, “show don’t tell,” comes into play. Your strongest competencies should be integrated within the text of your summary and experiences in a way that confidently show the impact of your skills rather than only presenting them like a checklist.

To begin, pull language from your medical organization and three to five of your most desired job postings to help frame your own assessments. This will help center your thoughts and ensure AI-powered CV scanners will pick up certain keywords. 

Think about instances when your skills and duties shined. When you “effectively and efficiently used laboratory tests,” think about it in terms of accuracy, how long it takes you on average, how quickly you made a difficult diagnosis based on lab tests or how you stepped up to mentor colleagues who were struggling. 

Use action words and data or metrics whenever possible. For instance, “quickly read lab tests with 98% accuracy” or “accurately diagnose procedures based on lab tests within two minutes of receiving results.”  Other examples are: 

Basic use of action words         Crafted integration of action words

Able to nurture patient trust       Consistently nurtured the trust of severely traumatized patients

Strong commitment to                   Patient feedback scores of 4.5 to 5 stars demonstrate strong commitment to quality patient care

Edit for consistency and flow

Inconsistent use of tense, punctuation and typeface will throw off all your hard work. Alerts in Microsoft Word and other text software check for spelling and grammar but can’t track whether the use of bullets in one section and hyphens in another or a semicolon for one break and parentheses for others. Additionally, be mindful of using bold and italic typefaces as well as abbreviations and dates. 

Flow is also important. Detailing your work experience on physician CVs can sometimes be a stream of consciousness. It’s easy to focus so much on one thing that it’s easy to overlook the proverbial forest for the trees. The best way to check flow is to, first, step away and second, read over it in a different format. Try printing it out or emailing it to yourself and reading it on your phone. 

These little tricks are calming and offer different perspectives, allowing you to review your CV through a more objective lens.

Upload your CV where it will be seen the most

Format your CV so at first glance physician recruiters can easily identify who you are, what your specialty is and how you’ve leveraged your experiences to hone relevant skills. Save your CV as a PDF, naming it with your first and last name. Then, upload it to PracticeLink.com. Doing this ensures your information will be housed on a reputable job board specifically for the healthcare industry. 

If you have any doubts, reach out to PracticeLink’s provider services team for free advice. They’re also available to discuss what you’re looking for in terms of a practice, community and worklife balance. With your permission, this informal insight will be shared with recruiters to help put you at the top of their list.