Blog for speech and language therapists

Top tips for finding your first speech therapy job

speechtherapy — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:33:00 +0000

As you may know it is increasingly difficult for new graduates to find a job as an allied health professional within he NHS. Latest figures show that 80% of new grads can not find jobs. Within speech and language therapy this figure is growing year on year. Some universities are now recommending that trained therapists take on jobs as speech and language therapy assistants, to gain experience. However, SLT departments within the NHS are reluctant to take on graduates as assistants as they are not likely to stay in the job long term.

What can you do to find a job as a newly qualified SLT?

There are many ways you can try to find a job.

1. Don’t limit yourself to working in one area of the country. This will increase your chance of finding employment.

2. Send your CV out to as many places as possible.

3. Take on as much voluntary work/ relevant paid work as you can to make your CV stand out from others.

4. Make an excellent impression whilst you are on placement. This way if a job comes up in the department you stand a good chance of a least getting an interview.

5. Try not to specialise too early. Even though you might want to work with adults perhaps take a Paediatric job to get a foot into the department.

6. If you can not find a job consider working abroad to gain experience. You will gain far more experience working as a therapist than an assistant. It will also look good on your CV and expose you to different models of therapy provision. Personally I would avoid working as an SLT assistant as you may find it too frustrating not being able to do what you are trained to.

7. Go to your careers centre for advice on how to write an excellent CV and do mock interviews. The more practice you get the better it will be when you are faced with the real thing!!

8. Ask any qualified speech and language therapists for advice such as what they are looking for when going through application forms and at interview.

9. Don’t lose heart! The job situation will improve. Try and keep your skills up to date and keep sending off your CV. You never know what’s round the corner.

10. If you can’t find a job straight away think about getting involved in some relevant research at a university. You should look for employment that isn’t too far removed from speech and language therapy.

If anyone else has some top tips please leave a comment.

Good Luck!

Calling all newly qualified speech and language therapists!

speechtherapy — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:20:31 +0000

Are you a recently qualified speech and language therapist? Are you about to qualify and looking for a job?

Do you have concerns about taking on a job in an area you are not interested in? Have you considered working in private practice? It would be great to get an idea of what it is like to be a newly qualified speech and language therapist in the modern day NHS.

If this is you please get in touch and tell me about how you are getting on finding a job. The more people leave a comment the more valuable this will be for others in your situation.

Jobs for speech and language therapists

speechtherapy — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:52:25 +0000

Here in the UK the last few years has been difficult if you work within the NHS. Many health professionals have taken early retirement or had a career change because of the pressures put on them. This is due to money saving initiatives put in place by managers. Instead of redundancies many posts have been frozen and the remaining workforce has been expected to deliver the same service. Speech and language therapists in all specialisms have been affected by this. In fact some departments are undergoing restructure and therapists face having their jobs re-graded. It is likely that they face a pay cut.

If you are a new graduate the chances are that you haven’t been able to find a job. When I qualified there was a wide choice of jobs you could apply for and very little competition. Where jobs do come up there can be twenty or more applicants. Some graduates are being forced to take assistant jobs just to keep their skills and knowledge up. However there are a growing number of newly qualified therapists who are working in supermarkets and wondering if they will ever find a job. This is an incredible waste of knowledge- especially when the NHS has paid to train them up!

At the other end of the scale being promoted at work is no longer as easy as it was. In comparison to other allied health professionals, speech and language therapists are quite expensive. This means that there are fewer jobs at a more specialist level. In terms of career development this is bad news. If you want to progress now it likes more likely that you’ll have to take a job in management and move away from the clinical. Some therapists have left the country and headed to Australia or New Zealand for better opportunities.

Speech and language therapy can be a really rewarding and interesting job but the pressures of the working environment can impair this. Enthusiastic new graduates can’t even find jobs and are becoming increasingly jaded about whether they will ever be able to embark on their chosen career. Students looking to become speech and language therapists may now be put off by the lack of career structure and ill feeling some therapists have. Will the situation change? There are massive changes afoot in the NHS at the moment and hopefully the situation will improve. As practicing speech and language therapists we have a responsibility to ensure that we encourage people into the profession and to provide the appropriate support to newly qualified speechies. We may need to think outside the box in order to meet the needs of therapists and clients alike.

Hello world!

speechtherapy — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:21:58 +0000

Hi,

This is my first post. I’ve set up this blog so speech and language therapists have a place to comment about issues they are facing in the workplace. It is open to anyone who wishes express a viewpoint. If you have any ideas for posts leave me a message and I’ll see what I can do.