Wouldn’t it be great if someone built an online community where students from diverse backgrounds could network with recruiters, doctors, medical students, and other students? That’d be awesome. WAIT…that’s DiverseMedicine.com!

Relationships are one of the greatest keys to success in life. Often, people who don’t get the job complain that the people who got the job did so because they had strong relationships with the people offering the job. Well, that’s just a fact of life, relationships matter. That’s the strongest thing you can get from Diverse Medicine Recruitment Center, relationships! Our goal is to make it so when you apply to any of the medical schools on this site, you’ve already built a relationship with them.

One of the most important things I tell my mentees is that when they apply to medical school, no matter what anybody tells them, you’ll be looked upon more favorably if someone can say they know you (in a good way) from somewhere else. That’s what Diverse Medicine Recruitment Center does for you. It allows you to build a relationship with people that matter; people that can speak well of you. The other thing I tell my mentees is that after they apply to a school, they should send a message to someone they know at the school and let them know they’ve submitted their application. It could read as follows, “Dear _____, I just wanted to say thank you for the help you’ve provided so far. I wanted to let you know that I just submitted my application to ________ medical school. I’d certainly appreciate it if you could keep an eye out for it.” I’ll be 100% honest here…I’ve reached out to medical schools on behalf of multiple of my mentees and got their applications that had been overlooked, pulled out of the stack to be reviewed. I can do that because I build relationships with people that have influence. Diverse Medicine puts you in direct contact with many of those people so you can build your own relationship.

Here’s how to use the recruitment center in three simple steps.

Step 1: Build your profile! This is a “duh” step but I have to state the obvious. We’ve had people ask questions about being confused with the recruitment site who haven’t even built their profiles. We can’t help you if you aren’t willing to help yourself. If your profile isn’t built, recruiters will not reach out to you. If you don’t have a profile photo, we limit your visibility on the site so basically, nobody will even know you’re in the community. We have to do this because profiles without pictures impact the professional culture of our Diverse Medicine. If you don’t update your profile every 6 months, your profile can be removed from the recruitment center. It is important that we respect the time of the recruiters and as they’ve told us, they only want to see the profiles of the students who take this seriously.

Step 2: Check out the Recruitment Center! We’re working hard to grow our recruitment center. Over the last week, we’ve had 8 new medical schools join. We’ll keep bringing them on for you. You should check out the recruitment center find the schools that you like. All you need to do is hit the “Favorite” button and we’ll send them a notification that you added them to your favorite list. Also, you’ll automatically be added to their list of interested students. From there, that medical school’s recruiter can reach out to you directly via sending you a message on Diverse Medicine. Our job is to get more schools to use the recruitment center. Your job is to build your profile then reach out to the schools so they will look at your profile.

Step 3: Build a relationship! I’ve seen some students on Diverse Medicine do an absolutely amazing job with this part. These individuals mastered the art of using our site to strengthen their status with recruiters and get accepted. This is the key to it all. After you’ve added the school to your list of favorites and are in communication with the recruiter, you need to send them a message periodically (minimum every three months) to let them know how your journey is going or to ask them a question. This is the key! Diverse Medicine Recruitment Center is a neutral playing field where everyone can communicate safely. Recruiters are joining the site specifically for this purpose, to use it to communicate with people just like you.

Bonus: Be active on the site.  When you’re actively engaging with posts and comments, recruiters will see you in the timeline on a regular basis.  This leads to them checking  out your page.  There’s something VERY special on your page that they can see which you can’t.  It’s a big blue button that allows them to add you to their watch list.  This is the special list that you want to be on!

It’s pretty simple, just 3 steps! Build your profile, favorite the schools you like, then foster the relationship. As you progress in your careers and in life, you’ll come to learn that relationship building is key to everything. That’s what recruitment fairs are all about, an opportunity to start building relationships. DiverseMedicine.com just makes it a LOT easier for you!

So, what questions do you have for me? Please don’t hesitate to ask. Our goal is to help you achieve yours! 

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