I am interviewing with an occupational medicine company for a Physical Therapist position. The regional director tells me my caseload would be X number of patients, and if the load is X +2 for very long, they will get another PT to help, and I do not have to call insurances, the front desk takes care of that. This sounds good. If I don’t have to sit around on the phone, I can see X patients easy, even with evaluations and doing my own modalities. He told me that I would get diagnosis prescriptions, so I can do evals quick. Two days later the guy who would be my immediate supervisor says the caseload is normally X +2, or even X +10, I would have to do immediate evaluations and call my own insurances. This changes the picture a LOT. You can lose 3 hours a day on hold, and some insurances take a day or two to authorize.He implied I would get prescriptions like “back pain” and be expected to evaluate them into things like “iliolumber ligament strain”. This takes a LOT longer then The prescriptions Regional Director offered. The stories are not congruent. I was so busy trying to assimilate information that I did not say anything during the second interview, but now it is bugging me. What is going on? These sound like 2 different jobs. I may just be being set up. I found out at the end of the interview that 2 people who already work for that company are interviewing for that spot. They do not require the company-specific training that I would. I don’t know if I am more upset that they may offer me the job, or that someone else already has it. Niether Regional Director or Supervisor are even the guys that determine if it will be offered to me! Am I being set up? I have had 2 interviews and no one has even told me exactly what the benefits are, or seemed ready to talk salary! Has anyone been through this or have useful advice to give?
About all I can suggest is, if they offer you a job, ask to meet with all parties involved together in the same room (or at least on a conference call) and get some straight answers. Then make your decision.
I always advise selling yourself up until the point where you get an offer. Once they offer you the job, then it’s time to focus on screening them.
If you’ve been through two interviews and no one has mentioned salry or benefits, they’re still screening you. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself.
The two conflicting stories is more worrisome. It could be that the regional director is going to pull a bait and switch, but it could also be that the supervisor is trying to make the job sound so bad that you wouldn’t take it if it were offered, leaving the way clear for one of the other candidates.
The only piece of advice I can give is, ask the regional director for a copy of the job description. Note on it all the promises he makes and ask him to sign off on it. If he doesn’t want to do that – well, you’ll have to decide what to do in that situation, but at least you’ll know he isn’t willing to back you up.
Thanks. I had wondered if, in fact supervisor guy might have been doing that. It does not enirely resolve the issue: he could always MAKE the job bad, but I would hope that is just my paranoia talking. I was going to ask him for the exact job description, it had not really occured to me to ask Regional Director. Anyway, I may not be stuck with the job. Another PT is jumping ship, which will ease pressure. And I could always try home care