Have you ever thought about a career in health
You’re not alone! That’s because healthcare is one of the largest sectors in the developed world. As such, employers are in competition to attract the best candidates, which can lead to jobs that are highly rewarding. Careers in healthcare are not just limited to doctors and nurses. Instead, wide ranges of opportunities for roles such as accountancy are also available. As a major provider, HCA offers an ample choice of career pathways.
Who is HCA?
Hospital Corporation America (HCA) was founded in 1968 as one of the first US hospital companies. Over the following 50 years, it has also become one of the largest. HCA manages 197 hospitals, 119 ambulatory surgery centers, and operates in twenty states and the UK, serving 27 million patient visits every year.
With headquarters based in Nashville Tn, HCA’s underpinning philosophy is patient-centered care in locally run care settings. As such, one of its core organizational strategies has been applying business expertise to under-served communities, providing both careers and much-needed care.
The corporation also has a formidable reputation for clinical research. It is partnered with Harvard Pilgrim Institute and the CDC and contributes widely to medical literature.
Its website – www.hcahealthcare.com offers extensive insight into its corporate philosophy, mission, and values.
Careers with HCA
Like any major healthcare corporation, HCA offers a large number of career areas. These include:
- Executives
- Clinical healthcare practitioners
- Allied support
- Non-clinical
- Corporate
If you’ve ever visited a healthcare setting, you’ll know that they are like a microcosm, with almost every imaginable job position existing under the same roof.
This means that HCA looks to recruit individuals for a vast array of roles. These include everything from administrators to nurses to CEOs. The modus operandi of HCA is to build new hospitals, or take over and improve existing facilities, so when this happens they recruit large numbers of staff. Therefore, whether your interest is in phlebotomy or corporate finance, there’s likely to be a job for you.
You can find the full range of opportunities here.
Level of study required
With such a wide range of positions available, there are various different study level requirements. These are shown next to each available job title. Simply use the search bar to scope available jobs, and then check the requirements.
Specific recruitment strategies
HCA is particularly focused upon attracting new talent and enabling career growth. As such, they offer both undergraduate internship programmes and full-time paid internships for postgraduates. Their Allied support program is aimed at career development.
They are also very keen to hire military veterans and their families, both in the US and the UK.
Advantages
As with all workplaces, some people are happier with their employer than other. Most of HCA’s employees rate them as a five-star employer. Here’s why.
Job security
HCA is a highly successful corporation, and through its fifty-year history has proved itself more than able to survive bad weather. It’s also notable for its dedication to expansion, providing it with a strong market share. In other words, a job with HCA is not going to disappear from under your feet.
Geographical transferability
Located in 20 US states and in the UK, HCA is an ideal option for anyone who wants to be able to move around. It operates in a wide variety of geographical locations, from the midwest to the Gulf Coast, to the South Atlantic. Locations include:
- Denver
- San Antonio Tx
- Houston
- Richmond Va
- Florida
- Taleo
- Texas
- Nashville Tn
- England
The list is constantly expanding as HCA continues to develop in new areas. It also partners over 300 affiliate hospitals and business offices, which offer a vast array of transfer opportunities and widens your job search.
Diversity
HCA offers diversity, not only of job roles and locations but in terms of the type of settings that recruits can work in. If it’s your dream to work in a gleaming research hospital, HCA has you covered. If you’d prefer to get hands-on with local communities in remote settings, opportunities are available.
This diversity means that careers can be very flexible if you want them to be. For instance, you may want to try several different medical settings so that you can share your skills with many different people, or may want to try international work.
Locally-managed settings
The idea of a corporation such as HCA, with hundreds of hospitals and even more affiliates, may sound faceless. However, HCA recognizes that local areas have unique needs, so they focus on building healthcare settings that are sympathetic to the area and are able to respond to local needs. This means that each set has a high level of independence and a character of its own.
People just “love the work”
Most people are drawn into healthcare because they have a passion for caring and community. This is something that HCA wants to nurture. As such, many employees feel that the working environment is demanding but nourishing.
Disadvantages
Review sites have plenty of feedback from HCA’s army of employees. The majority of employees rate it with five stars, but the overall rating is 3.6.
Demanding work
Long hours can make work-life balance challenging. This seems to vary between settings, with some employees finding the work interesting, flexible, and with supportive management. Other employees have found that management is not always supportive, and this can lead to heavy workloads or disorganized schedules.
This is likely to be a particular downside of the locally-administrated approach, which allows management a high degree of autonomy. Thus, some managers will be better than others, and the demands of the job are affected as a result.
Wages could be slightly better
Some employees have said that the wages “could be better”. However, a detailed analysis of HCA compared to competitors shows that their average wages are actually around 10% – 15% higher than the national averages, and are equal with competitors such as Parallon. Some employees have pointed out that the private healthcare sector has been squeezed by the financial crash, which may explain why they feel that HCA is not paying them as much as they would like.
How to apply
There is detailed advice in the candidate support section here. However, a summary of the process is as follows:
- Search through the job descriptions to find one that interests you
- Click ‘Apply for this Job’
- Create a personal profile, including a User Name and Password. This allows you to log in, and save your profile.
- Upload a résumé
- Upload any relevant documents. These include cover letters, references, and transcripts.
- Sign with an eSignature
- Review, edit, and send
- IMPORTANT: finally, complete the follow-up email assessment survey. Without this survey, the application is incomplete and will not be processed.
How to log in and create an account
You are taken to the account creation screen as soon as you decide to apply for a job. Once you have clicked on the job, you can create your account manually by creating a User Name and password, or use your Google or Yahoo account information.
Conclusion
There are many benefits to working for a large multi-national such as HCA. If you think that a career in healthcare might offer you a future that you can enjoy, then HCA is certainly an employer that will reward you with ample opportunities.
