So you’ve got a degree and license. Now what?
School won’t give you everything you need to get your first hospice social work job, though your internship may help to some extent. After you graduate, you will still need to gain connections, experience and a good story about your connection to hospice. You can obtain all of these things easily by following the right steps.
In the post coming up Monday, I’ll share specific hospice operations that you should know about before an interview. For now, consider the following actions that will increase your chances of being hired.
Step one: Volunteer in hospice.
You don’t know that you want to work in hospice before working in hospice, and volunteering is a good way to take a look around. Providing emotional support for terminally ill patients is not for everyone, and neither are the quirks of a hospice team.
As a guest speaker from a Vet Center once told us in graduate school, there’s no excuse for having no experience in the field you are wanting to enter. Volunteering is not paid work experience, but it is admirable work experience.
Step two: Volunteer in the veteran-serving community.
I interact with terminally ill veterans every day, and so it makes sense that hospices like to have social workers with veteran-serving experience. It’s good to get to know what veteran-serving organizations are in your community, and expressing willingness to help a hospice pursue the We Honor Veterans program (a nationwide program aimed to support hospices in providing veterans with optimal care) will get your hirers excited about how good you will be for their company’s marketing.
Step three: Network.
Make good connections through all of your volunteering. You will interact with volunteer coordinators and patients, but you may also rub elbows with several other team members. Two of my longer-term hospice positions came to me thanks to a volunteer coordinator I volunteered with.
Step four: Know why you want a hospice social work job.
What brought you to hospice? This question tends to come up during interviews and when getting to know new team members.
Many people have a connection to hospice because a family member died when receiving hospice service, but this didn’t even occur to me when I was applying for my first job. It actually didn’t even occur to me that my mother had spent several years as a hospice nurse.
I started considering working in hospice when one of my instructors in grad school told me that it’s one of the more satisfying fields for social workers. That was inspiring, because job satisfaction was something I was truly hoping for. I had volunteered in hospice in my early twenties. It was emotionally challenging but inspired me to reflect. I decided to start volunteering in hospice again and I appreciated how purposeful it felt. And all the stories patients would share were fascinating. Just listening became incredibly enjoyable.
My story is not the most fascinating of introductions to hospice, but it’s the truth and I got the job.
It also helped that even though I had not yet worked in hospice, I could outline some of what I would need to know. This probably helped my future boss trust that she would not have to start at square one with me.
Head on back in a couple of days. I’ll share exactly what I think an aspiring hospice social worker should be able to talk about during an interview.
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