7 Questions To Ask The Career Placement Department At A Medical Assisting School

After you’ve found a medical assisting school that offers quality hands-on training and small class sizes, you need to take a close look at their career placement department.

The reason why you want to become a medical assistant is so that you can find a good job, so the career placement office is vital to your success.

Here are some questions to ask the career placement department:

What Percentage Of Medical Assisting Graduates Find Jobs In Health Care Upon Graduation?

Many schools might tout their placement rates by saying that 80% of their students find jobs after graduating, but you need to ask specifically about their medical assisting students. How many of their medical assisting students are getting jobs? And more importantly, how many of their medical assisting students are getting jobs within the health care industry?

Placement percentages can be deceiving because you don’t know whether the student actually found a job in the career field they trained for. If they trained to become a medical assistant, you want to know if they found a job as a medical assistant—not just a job in another industry.

How Will The Career Placement Office Help Me Find A Job As A Medical Assistant?

This is a broad question, but it will give the career placement director a chance to highlight the various things he or she does to help students find jobs.

Try and follow up with questions to whatever the director says they do for students. For example, if the director mentions they post local job listings, ask if the director ever calls employers to set up interviews for students. Ask if the director will submit your resume to employers for you. And ask if the office will help you write a quality resume.

You want to find out everything they will do to help you find a job.

Will The Career Placement Office Help Me With My Resume And Interviewing Skills?

They will probably answer yes, but find out what they currently do to help students with their resumes and interviewing skills. Do they offer workshops? Do they have a sign-up list for student to practice interviewing skills? What else will the career placement office do to help you with finding a job?

Do You Have Relationships With Local Employers Who Hire Your Medical Assisting Graduates?

The career placement center should have relationships with local offices and hospitals that hire graduates. These are the same medical facilities that probably offer internships to students.

What’s The Job Market Like For Medical Assistants In The Area?

The U.S. Department of Labor gives a promising career outlook for medical assistants. But what about the job market in your local area? How does the U.S. Department of Labor’s opinion on a national level relate to your local community? How many doctor’s offices and hospitals do you live by? How easy are students finding jobs as medical assistants? What other types of jobs are medical assisting students finding?

What Do Local Employers Think About The School’s Graduates?

This question will hopefully give the career director a reason to brag about why the same employers keep hiring their students. It would be even better if the career director provided you with emails or phone numbers of employers who have loved hiring the school’s graduates. This question will help you find out what employers think about the quality of the training the school provides.

How Soon Can You Get Involved In An Internship?

The sooner you can get hands-on training in a real job—the better. Find out if the career placement office facilitates internship programs, and how soon you can find an internship through them.

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