New grad needs job advice/guidance

[zeusfaber]

Hi Forum,

 

I wanted to introduce myself and also seek advice on my situation. I graduated in May 2012, got my -C in June, and was planning to live and work in the large Midwest metropolis where I had gone to PA school. I was quickly offered two fantastic jobs (Urology and IR) and had accepted one of them. In September, when I would have started my job, I decided to instead move back to San Francisco, where I grew up. It was a somewhat hasty decision based on gut feeling & long term goals, and I was assured by a couple of friends/contacts that the job market here was solid.

 

Now it is about 3 months later, and I am at a dead end. One of the most surprising differences has been the apparent unwillingness to consider a new graduate. The second puzzling aspect of my job hunt here is the reliance of employers on generic online applications that are excruciating to fill out and are seemingly going into a black hole. There is no place on these applications to enter a cover letter; previous work experience (mine is non-medical) and corresponding irrelevant data is required to be meticulously entered; there is no indication that a live person is looking at my copy/pasted & unformattable CV, and no one in HR is willing to communicate directly with an applicant. (My previous job hunt experience was "send Cover Letter/CV to person@hospital.org." and Person would contact me directly.) Lastly, there really don't seem to be any jobs posted, besides Ortho (probably my last choice), pain clinics, MedSpas, and ER (not somewhere I see myself but I'll do it if I need to). I have applied to anything and everything regardless hoping for any kind of lead, and I'm pretty open to specialty. I have not heard a peep, except to be told that they don't want a new grad or getting what seems like a robo-rejection. I've looked on the career sites, CAPA, SFBAPA, and even cold-called some organizations that would deign to speak with me and done informational interviews.

 

I feel as though I'm missing some information, I'm not looking in the right place, or I'm not contacting the right people. "Connections" were not relevant to getting my previous job offers, and I don't have any here in the bay area anyway. Unfortunately I can't undo my move, but any other advice/help/guidance would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks for reading this novel!

ZF