The Difference Between Match interviews and Job Interviews

While  we were in Kenya Dr. J had a change of heart.  Originally he'd planned on specializing in pulmonary critical care, a fellowship that would have required three more years of training.  While in Kenya though he realized his fellowship would almost completely cut him off from peds, something he wasn't willing to sacrifice.  He did some soul searching and talked with his advisers.  They suggested that what he wanted to do could be done without the extra training even better if he instead considered living in a smaller area and so when we got back rather then doing match interviews and waiting for match results we started looking for jobs.  This last two months he started talking with in house head hunters and recruiters as well as sending his information out to areas we want to live.  There are a lot of med/ped's jobs available.  Especially if you want to live in the east or mid west, but the last few years we have really felt a pull to move back toward family and that really helped narrow down our job searches.  Our parents live in Utah, a state we've sort of gone through loving and hating.  Currently we are sort of off the state.  People it is getting so crowded here.  I mean it is a beautiful place to live so I'm not really surprised and the people are so nice but all of this land that used to be open is now housing developments.  In some ways that is nice.  There are a lot more things to do and lot more business to patronize.  In some ways it sucks.  The traffic here is the pits.  I mean the commute up into Salt Lake is a daily nightmare.  Also the air quality is just gross, especially in the winter.  Salt Lake is stuck between two mountain ranges.  With the huge populations of cars on the road, and the fact that smog sinks right into the valley in the winter there are just times when the air not only looks bad it taste bad.  We have two kids whose lungs are a little iffy and to be honest who really wants to be sucking in gray air everyday so instead we've focuses on states that are closer to home but not necessarily home.  There are a few exceptions here, Dr. J has looked at a couple of places in our current home state since we already live there and there is one job he finds really appealing, but most of the other jobs are in the west. 

Since sending his CV out he's had a lot of really positive phone interviews, but today he and I are flying out to his first in person interview.  This first night ever with both of us alone from our kids, made possible by my mother-in-law who is watching the kids and my sister who is babysitting them one day while she is at work.  It's also made possible by the hospital flying us out to visit.  Here is just one of the perks of job interviews versus match interviews.  Match interviews you have to pay to fly out and you also often have to pay for your hotel.  Job interviews you send your info to the hospital and a super nice administrative assistant sends you a list of ticket times, ask you which ones you like and then books and pays for the ticket for you.  At match interviews they might pay for your hotel(something becoming less likely), at job interviews they book the hotels for you.  At match interviews you have to figure out how you are going to get to your interview.  At job interviews they pay for your rental car.  At Match interviews if you want to bring your spouse along you pay for that.  At job interviews they invite your spouse along, pay for her ticket and set her up with a Realtor and a community tour.  At match interviews they are probably going to take you out to dinner at job interviews they not only set up a couple dinners for you but they want you to bring your spouse along.  We are super excited about this job interview.  One, it is just amazing to have someone else taking care of and paying for all the arrangements.  Secondly, the job sounds perfect for what Dr. J wants to do.  Third it hits a lot of what we want.  It is the perfect distance from family to make us coming home and them coming to see us so much easier.  It is a great sized town.  It is big enough to have a University and several other smaller colleges (and a Costco) but not as big or crowded as Salt Lake.  It also would bridge my parents to my sister who lives on the coast so I'm hoping I'd see her a lot more as she comes home if this is where we end up.  Third it is just a little exciting to have a little alone time together.  I love my kids but we've never had any nights away from them together.  This weekend we will have two.  After a month of sleeping with my two youngest I'm looking forward to it!