Fresh hiring market news and perspectives.
ETS is your greatest resource.

Hiring managers look at more than a resume. Clinical skills matter, and what’s needed depends on the role, the timeline, and the setting. Beyond that, they’re reading for self-awareness, how a candidate adapts and works with the team, whether long-term goals line up on both sides, and how a candidate communicates through every stage of the process, from the interview to the offer.

Our recruiters talk with pediatric physicians and hiring authorities every day, sitting in on both sides of these conversations, what candidates are looking for and what practices actually need. Managing a job search on top of a full clinical schedule, in a market that’s always shifting, is often why a physician and a practice end up in a role that doesn’t actually work for either of them.

Here’s what our team is hearing from hiring authorities across the country, and what it means for you.

Clinical Skills

Licensure

Clinical skills are usually the first thing a candidate checks for themselves before applying, does this role actually match what I do. But the first thing hiring managers check is more basic: are you licensed in the state where the job is. If you’re searching outside the state(s) you’re already licensed in, get that application moving early. Licensing timelines vary by state, anywhere from a few weeks to several months depending on the board, so waiting until you’re deep in interviews to start the process can cost you a role you’d otherwise be a strong fit for.

After licensure, the next thing hiring managers are checking is whether anything on your record raises a flag, malpractice history or disciplinary actions on your license. That’s a standard check across virtually every hire, so it’s worth knowing your own record before a hiring manager finds a surprise in it.

Board certification is different. It’s voluntary through the American Board of Pediatrics, not a legal requirement to practice. But our recruiters see it function almost like one.

“Candidates who aren’t board certified or board eligible really limit their options. If you’re eligible and haven’t sat for boards yet, it’s worth closing that gap, it opens more doors than almost anything else on your resume.” Jaclyn Padgett, ETS Pediatric

Clinical Skills Specific

Hiring timeline can play a role in clinical skills requirements. A practice that needs someone starting soon has less room to train someone up on procedures or volume they haven’t done before, so they’ll be pickier about matching your experience closely. A practice hiring further out can afford to be more flexible.

Scope and practice type shape which specific skills matter. Patient volume, patient population, the mix of general pediatrics versus subspecialty work, and the practice setting itself all change what specific skills are needed. Some roles want specific experience or procedures, others are looking for bilingual physicians or physicians with leadership experience. Our team had a client hiring for urgent care who wanted hands-on suturing experience specifically, which isn’t a typical required skill you’d see. It’s important to look at each opportunity individually when it comes to the skills needed.

“Two jobs with the same title can be completely different when it comes to patient volume, scope, and expectations or level of support.” Melissa Willis, Nationwide Subspecialist Recruiter, ETS Pediatric

A skills mismatch isn’t automatically a dealbreaker. Being able to learn quickly matters just as much as already having done something. For every clinical skill a role asks for, have your relevant experience ready to speak to clearly. For anything you haven’t done, ask specific questions about how they’d train you on it, and point to similar or transferable experience that shows you’d pick it up fast.

Beyond the Clinical Skills

When hiring managers describe their ideal candidate, clinical experience is obviously important, but finding someone who’s easy to work with carries just as much weight. Personality and cultural fit can be the deciding factor, even for a candidate with all the experience in the world.

Every practice looks for different personal qualities too, just like they do with clinical skills. A role with more one-on-one patient time calls for different strengths than a role that’s heavier on staff coordination, so it’s worth evaluating each position on its own terms rather than assuming the same traits matter everywhere. Below are the traits hiring authorities bring up most often.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a trait hiring managers bring up constantly. Strong candidates know their own experience well enough to say plainly what they can handle on their own and what they’re not ready for yet. In medicine, being upfront about your comfort level with a specific procedure or tool protects your patients, your coworkers, and yourself.

This comes up in interviews too. If you’ve changed jobs more than once and you’re dreading the job-hopper question, prepare for it ahead of time. Have a straightforward answer ready instead of scrambling for one in the moment. Most career changes have real reasons behind them that just don’t show up clearly on a resume.

Adaptability

Starting a new position comes with an adjustment period no matter how much experience you bring, learning a new team, a new workflow, sometimes a new EMR. Having a learner’s mindset makes that transition smoother. It’s not just about whether someone has the skills to do the job, it’s about the attitude and qualities they bring in with them. Being approachable, a good listener, and receptive to feedback without getting defensive are qualities anyone would value in a colleague, and they show up early in how a candidate carries themselves.

Emotional and Social Intelligence

Emotional and social intelligence are hard to teach, but they carry real weight in a field as collaborative as pediatrics. Candidates who can build rapport with the hiring manager, with colleagues and staff, and with patients tend to go further, and someone who genuinely values building lasting relationships with families stands out.

This matters even more in pediatrics specifically. Working with children takes a particular kind of communication, social awareness, and self-regulation. Staying calm and leading with empathy is often what makes an exam or a treatment go smoothly instead of becoming a struggle.

Collaboration

No practice runs well without the team supporting its physicians. Collaboration, respect, and a team-first mentality can make or break how someone fits in.

Team fit starts getting evaluated the moment a candidate walks in the door. How they treat the front desk and the rest of the staff, whether they’re on their phone in the lobby, whether they’re engaged with everyone they meet or only with the hiring manager, whether they’re prepared and ask thoughtful follow-up questions, all of it adds up into a larger impression.

How a candidate talks about a past employer matters too. It’s not unusual to have had a rough experience with a previous practice or owner. Address it professionally and speak about past employers or coworkers with respect, even after a bad experience, it’s not worth risking a new opportunity over it.

Long-Term Fit

Most practices and hiring authorities are looking for a long-term fit, not just someone to fill a seat for a year or two. That makes it worth laying out long-term goals and options clearly on both ends. Be upfront about your own goals, and ask what the position itself can actually offer down the road, whether that’s a path to leadership, ownership, or something else entirely. If any of that matters to you, get it discussed and confirmed in writing early so it doesn’t turn into a conflict later.

Some of the strongest matches we see come from physicians with local or family ties to the area. It gives them a real foundation to build on, and it signals to a practice that this candidate is likely to stay. Practices put real time and money into onboarding, and a long-term fit is always preferable to a mismatch.

Recruiter Tips

During an interview and hiring process, general interview best practices and basic etiquette are incredibly important, and they can be the difference between a strong candidate who gets the offer and one who gets passed over for reasons that have nothing to do with clinical skill.

During the Interview

Show up on time, and if something comes up, give real notice rather than cancelling last minute or not showing at all. Come prepared with specific, informed questions about the practice, it signals you’ve actually done your research. Before you leave, make sure you know what happens next and when, and that the hiring manager knows your general availability.

After the Interview

Close the loop. A short thank-you note or email within a day or so is a small thing, but it’s one hiring managers consistently mention as a differentiator.

After the Offer

Communication doesn’t stop once you’ve received an offer, either. There’s often pressure to sign and return everything right away, but taking time to review the details, with a contract lawyer, with family, is a smart move, not a red flag. Be upfront with the practice about needing that time. Thank the practice for the offer and let them know you’ll have an answer within a set timeframe. That gives you room to review it properly and, if you’re weighing other offers, time to consider those too.

If you accept by the end of that window, congratulations, you’ve made it through the process. If you decide to go another direction, still let the practice know rather than leaving them guessing. The same goes for any other practices you were talking with, especially ones that had already extended an offer. It costs nothing, and it’s the kind of thing that follows you in a specialty, close-knit field.

Finding the Right Fit

Chances are, you already bring most of these traits to the table. What separates candidates who stand out isn’t some rare skill set, it’s following through on preparedness, communication, and professionalism consistently throughout the process.

Beyond that, you don’t have to change who you are to find the right position. The right fit is one that actually matches your clinical goals, your long-term goals, and your personality and philosophy of care.

If you’re starting your search and want guidance finding a position like that, reach out to ETS Pediatric. Our recruiters are in these conversations every day and know the markets you’re looking at inside and out.