Episode 325: How to Get Hired as a Functional Medicine Practitioner
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In a recent Instagram poll, Erin saw that 70% of practitioners want to run their own practice, while 30% do not. This week, Erin speaks to the 30% of practitioners who are looking to work for another company and offers some pointers from her perspective as someone in a position to hire. While credentials matter, being able to apply what you’ve learned and having the skillset to help your clients is non-negotiable. Leave this episode with tangible steps to approach a practice you'd like to work for.
The Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™, our 14-month functional nutrition certification program, opens for enrollment on September 1. We’d love to see your application come through!
In this episode:
The beauty behind not wanting to run your own practice [8:16]
The reason behind why most practitioners want to hire [16:44]
The value behind continuing education [19:46]
Credentials versus having the skillset to help people [23:30]
How to approach a practice you’d like to work for [27:39]
Getting clear on what you do & how you can help [34:48]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™ (Enrollment open NOW!)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Mind (get $100 off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code FUNK)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
Learn more about Functional Nutrition and Strictly Biz
Related episodes:
299: Manifest Your Wealth: Money Mindset
277: Why Talking About Yourself is Not Narcissistic | GET LIFTED
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect.
Erin Holt [00:00:39]:
So I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course, keep coming back for more. Hey friends. Welcome back to the show. Today I'm going to talk to you about how to get hired as a functional nutritionist or a functional practitioner. This is a question that we get a fair amount, and I've been having a lot of conversations with my colleagues, my friends, people in this specific industry, and there's a lot of conversations that I'm having behind the scenes, on Voxer, on Zooms, and I'm going to share some of the stuff that we talk about here.
Erin Holt [00:01:39]:
So if you are somebody who's looking to be hired, I'll give you a little bit of insight into the conversations that we're having about what we're looking for. Now, we do have an influx of new listeners, so if you're new here, welcome. Most of what I talk about here on the show is health stuff. But we also, over the past almost seven years of doing this show, we've collected a lot of health practitioners who listen to the show, and they use it as a resource for their clinical practice, both clinically, to help their clients and their patients. And also from the mindset and business side of things. Twice a year we open enrollment for FNA, the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, which is a 14 month practitioner training and mentorship. FNA really shortcuts your path to a profitable and impactful practice. It is the course to take if you wanna become a stellar functional practitioner.
Erin Holt [00:02:34]:
And right now we are gearing up for open enrollment for our fall cohort. So during this time, for a few weeks out of the year, I tend to lean into speaking to my practitioners more. So if you're new to the show and you're not a practitioner, there are over 300 episodes of health related content that you can tuck and roll into. Personally, when I find a new podcast that I love, I usually just binge the episodes. So you could do that, just dive all the way in. Or if you're looking for topic specific content, we do have a searchable page on my website, so you can search the podcast archives because there are, like I said, over 300 episodes. If you're looking for a specific topic, if you're dealing with a specific health condition and you want support on that, you can use that search feature to find it. And if you don't find what you're looking for, I'm always open to suggestions.
Erin Holt [00:03:30]:
So you can dm us on Instagram or email us. We will link up all the appropriate links in the show notes. So you can just go there and click through to whatever you need, whatever help you're looking for. Right now, personally, professionally, company wide, we're in a season of transition. I hired a consultant who is just absolutely in the bowels of my business, looking at all the numbers, looking at all of the reports, looking at everything inside and out. After I don't know how many years I've been doing this, a lot of years. My goal is finally to make the company a little less owner dependent, meaning that not every single thing that we do and offer is dependent on me and my output. That's what less owner dependencies means. Um, and so obviously that will require me to lean on my team more and even expand the team more.
Erin Holt [00:04:23]:
So we will be going through a hiring process soon. So all really super exciting stuff for us over here. I always like to give you little business updates, business reports from time to time. Um, we're also making some subtle shifts and tweaks in our product suite, our offerings to align with current buying behavior, um, just based off of trends that we've seen and witnessed in the marketplace. And I won't get into the specifics of all of that here. The specifics of that does actually get funneled into FNA, into the business mentorship side of things. I'm very transparent with my students about all of that, about what's working really well, what's not working so well.
Erin Holt [00:05:05]:
Trends we're moving into, trends that we're seeing, things that we're going to start to do, things that we're letting go of. All of that gets baked right into FNA, into the business mentorship calls because like I said, I want to share all of that with my students. I think it's really helpful. Running a business is no joke, and so the more support you can get, I think the better. So that stuff doesn't usually make its way to the podcast, but there are some things that I will share here with you over the next few weeks. I've got some practitioner specific episodes planned for you, so make sure you are subscribed, followed so you get the notifications of when the new stuff comes your way. Today I'm going to talk about a industry specific trend that I'm seeing, and maybe it's always been there, maybe I'm just noticing more of it now.
Erin Holt [00:05:50]:
But it's people wanting to do this functional nutrition, functional medicine work, but not wanting to run their own business, run their own private practice, not wanting to deal with the marketing, the social media, the bookkeeping, the admin, the PR, all the stuff that comes with running a business. They really just want to focus on the clinical work and be really good at that. With FNA, I would say about 70% of students want to open their own practice, and then we have about 30% of folks who don't. Really, their end game goal is not to open their own practice, it's to work for somebody else within a functional medicine clinic or private practice. That was actually Rachel. Rachel's now our lead practitioner on the clinic side of our business, and she's the lead clinical mentor in FNA. She just really wanted to be a value add to somebody else's company so that she could thrive in the clinical work without getting bogged down by all the business stuff. And just recently, I polled you all on Instagram and specifically talking to my practitioners, and the split was about the same.
Erin Holt [00:07:04]:
So 70% of those that happen to see my stories want to run their own practice, and 30% do not have any desire to run their own practice, but they really want to do the clinical work. I will say, just like sort of as an offshoot of this, some people do want to run their own practice. They, like, really want to shine and excel in their own business, but it's lack of confidence, it's fear, it's limiting beliefs that hold them back. So it's a lot of the work that we end up doing in FNA, you get access to a whole set of courses we call them the mindset and business builders. Courses, classes and guidance to grow your functional practice in a sustainable, impactful and non icky way. So it's kind of like a program within the overarching FNA program. So there are some people who are nervous to do it. It's the fears, it's the limiting beliefs that hold them back from just going for it and sharing their medicine with the world and being more visible and expanding and all of that.
Erin Holt [00:08:11]:
And then we just have to work through those limiting beliefs, you know, easy peasy. And then on the other hand, there are some people who just really don't want to. And it's not a limiting belief, it's just fundamentally who they are. They want to thrive in a clinical setting, they want to thrive as a clinician, they love functional medicine, they want to bring it to people and they don't want to market, they don't want to do all the things required to have a practice. They just, it's not for them. And this might be surprising for some of you to hear, especially longtime listeners, because, you know, I'm such an advocate for entrepreneurship. I love it.
Erin Holt [00:08:46]:
I love it. I love entrepreneurship so much. And also I do not believe that everyone is designed to be an entrepreneur, and that can be an unpopular opinion in some circles. But I don't think that everyone is designed to be an entrepreneur. And I think that's okay. And I think that can be a really beautiful thing. So my hope, the reason that I wanted to record this podcast is that me saying that provides a sigh of relief for some of you, and if me saying that does provide a sigh of relief for some of you, that's probably pretty telling. If it feels deflating, then it's probably not for you, and that's okay.
Erin Holt [00:09:28]:
But I don't think it's a problem. There's so much space in this industry. There's so much need for really good, really skilled, really compassionate practitioners. And you don't have to run your own practice or be a business owner or be an entrepreneur to be a phenomenal clinician who helps an insane amount of people. The two can be separated out. And I think the amazing thing is that there's another trend that I'm seeing, and I'm having an uptick in colleagues and other practitioners who do run their own private practice, and they are looking to hire really skilled functional nutritionist functional practitioners. They want to build their team and pull more people on board. So I think this is just a beautiful mashup.
Erin Holt [00:10:23]:
And there's so much potential for connection here. And by the way, if you're listening and you are a practitioner looking to hire a highly qualified practitioner, send us an email with the job posting because we are creating a jobs board for FNA students and grads to connect them to more opportunities. Some of you have just reached out to me organically through DM's. Totally fine. I will say sometimes DM's get lost in the shuffle so email is the best way to just make sure I see that and my team gets eyes on that. So we can grab that and share it with our FNA students and grads.
Erin Holt [00:12:38]:
So here's what we're going to do today. I'm going to give you the perspective of someone who's in a position to hire. That's me.
Erin Holt [00:13:19]:
Someone who's in a position to hire so that you can be in a better position to show up and show your value. As someone who is about to go through the hiring process, here's exactly what I will be looking for. And also, this is what my colleagues and friends are looking for and founders of private practices because I'm talking to them all of the time. I want you to really understand how to showcase your value. Clinicians who just want to clinician, who just want to like, stay in their lane and do the clinical work aren't always the best at self promoting, right? Would you agree with that? There's probably some of you nodding your heads and like, yes, it's me. But if you want someone to hire you, you really need a way to showcase your value. And spoiler alert, value is subjective. Value is in the eye of the beholder.
Erin Holt [00:14:18]:
So whoever you're talking to, you want to make sure that you're curating your value add to that person. So I'll explain more in a little bit. Here's the general consensus. You ready for it? The general consensus is that practice owners are looking for practitioners to come to them highly trained already. So be sure that you have really good training if you want to be a really good value add. Here's why. Training practitioners is extremely time intensive unless, unless you're being trained in a cookie cutter, template driven medicine type of way, and there are plenty of people doing that. It's very, very scalable.
Erin Holt [00:15:04]:
My prediction, because again, I'm all about trends and assessing trends and watching trends and predicting. That's kind of how I've stayed at the forefront of this industry and keep moving forward, is for this. So here's my prediction. Listen, when I predict things, because they usually come true, my prediction is that, that what I just described is not sustainable because it's not what people are looking for. It used to be. It's not going to be anymore. And I know this because the majority of our clients are coming to us from these places and because we interface with thousands of people on Instagram every single week or month. A lot of people are telling us about their experience with functional medicine. This is a trend.
Erin Holt [00:15:45]:
People are looking for a deeper connection, a truly individualized approach. And clients are getting a lot more savvy. They know what they want, they know what they're looking for. So if you as the practitioner can't explain lab data, if you can't connect it to their experience, if you can't explain why you're recommending what you're recommending, they're not going to continue to want to work with you. So that's not job security for you or for the founder of that scalable, cookie cutter, kind of like box functional medicine style clinic. It's just, there's not going to be a huge demand for that in the future. And I'm also going to go out on a limb here and guess that if you're listening to this podcast, you don't want to practice in that style anyway. So I want to rephrase what I said.
Erin Holt [00:16:34]:
Training practitioners well is extremely time intensive. If you are being trained in a really good way, it's going to take a lot of time. So training practitioners well is extremely time intensive and the reason that most practitioners are looking to hire is to free up their time. Again, I will say that again, the reason that most practitioners are looking to hire is to free up their time. I just gave you a golden nugget. What are you going to do with it? Because I just told you what is super, super, super valuable to us practitioner founders. Time. The reason that most practitioners are looking to hire is to free up their time. And that's because their time is needed.
Erin Holt [00:17:25]:
As the CEO, as the founder, as the leader, the owner of the business, the owner of the company, their time is needed in other places of the business, working on strategy, management, marketing, PR, content creation, all of that. Many founders are straddling their time between being in practice, working with one on one, and actually running the practice. So working in the business and working on the business, and I can tell you from experience, it's a lot. So the thought of having someone come in brand new and train them from scratch is just so overwhelming. It's like it's just easier to keep on keeping on. I'm just going to do it myself rather than think about having to train somebody brand new from scratch. And this is actually why some practice owners have paid to send their employees and their practitioners through FNA. Just as an aside, like I said, a lot of practitioners listen to the show. After seven years of me showing up every single week, sharing my education, sharing my clinical experience, sharing my insights with you, it creates a lot of goodwill and trust.
Erin Holt [00:18:31]:
Practitioners know that I know my stuff and they want their practitioners to be trained by someone that knows their stuff and someone that they trust, especially if they don't have the time or the bandwidth to do it themselves. Because why? Training clinicians is very time intensive, and this is why I don't do work study. I wouldn't say never pitch work study to somebody, but you've got to also showcase, like, what the value add is. When I hear work study, all I hear is time. That is going to require so much of my time, and I don't. For us personally, it doesn't make sense for us to bring in somebody who has no experience and teach them when I have an entire academy that can do that. I want you for when I'm hiring somebody as a practitioner, I want you to come to me already trained in our methodologies, already trained in our modalities, in our comprehensive, well rounded approach, the ability to meet people where they're at and go deep with them.
Erin Holt [00:19:32]:
That's why we only hire FNA grads in my private practice, because I know the training you have received is up to our standards. The bar is set high for our clients, and we want to keep it high. We want to keep it up there. And another thing that's important to me for somebody that I'm working with, that's working with me, and this might not be true for everyone. This is definitely true for me, though. I want to know that you love this work so much that you have a desire to invest your time, your money, and your resources into learning more. So that's like a little bit of a screening tool for me, and that might be unique to me. I can't say that every single founder feels exactly the same way, but something that is very, very commonplace and something for you to know and understand is that a lot of entrepreneurs and founders carry a belief that no one else can do it as good as me.
Erin Holt [00:20:32]:
I know I have, I know I have people nodding their head yes to that. So I personally could have scaled a lot sooner in my business than I did, but I had built up a very good reputation, and I was terrified of losing that connection and trust with people. I worried that someone else couldn't take care of my clients as well as I could. And again, I know that this is not unique to me because I work with a lot of founders, and I know that you carry this belief, too. I know what level of skill, tenacity, passion, desire I bring, and I know the results that I generate with that. So when I was looking to bring on my very first practitioner, I really needed to see that they could, like, match my freak, so to speak. I wanted them to bring that same desire, drive and passion to the work. Now, I've talked a fair amount about ROI here on the show before.
Erin Holt [00:21:37]:
ROI stands for return on investment. Many of the continuing education programs that I've done, I actually wasn't looking for a financial ROI. I wasn't like, oh, gee, how can I justify spending this money on this program? How will I know I will make my money back? The ROI for me was learning. That was the return on my investment is that I got to learn more. I'm forever a student. I love learning. I think it is such a privilege. I love learning.
Erin Holt [00:22:07]:
I love understanding more. I just love it so much. Some people spend money on clothes. I was spending money on continuing education. Like, even when I didn't really have the money to spend, it was so, such a high value to me that I continued to do it. And obviously, you know, it did pay off financially in the long run, I can say that. But in the beginning, that actually wasn't the goal for me. It was just to learn more.
Erin Holt [00:22:31]:
It was to grow my skill set so I could help more people. And so, so for my very first hire, which was so scary, by the way. It's so, so, so scary when you hire somebody for the first time. I wanted to hire an energy match for that. That was really important to me. So I hired someone who was investing their time and their money into continuing education because that showed me the mindset that they brought to their career, that they brought to this work, that showed me that they have a genuine passion and love for this work. And that was really, really, really valuable to me because that's not something that you can train into somebody that's, like, innately baked into who they are. And I needed somebody to bring that, that energetic match into my practice if I was going to let them work with the clients that were coming in.
Erin Holt [00:23:30]:
Now, there definitely are some clinics that want to hire based off credentials, and that's definitely true. That's not really how I've looked at it. And again, the more that I'm talking to colleagues, friends, acquaintances in this space, it seems to be that the people that I'm talking to with practices similar to mine are kind of in lockstep with my philosophy. I hire based off of passion, drive and skill. The people that I'm talking to, the colleagues that I speak with, we care less about specific letters after your name and we care more about can you help people? And I'm not saying credentials do not matter and you need education for sure. I'm just saying that when I'm weighing out the pros and cons, it's I'm going for somebody who has the skill set to help people. What we have found is that a lot of practitioners will go through a big functional medicine institution with a big name. I'm not going to name the specific name here.
Erin Holt [00:24:34]:
And they come to us with a lot of really great, super dense information, but without the skill set of connecting that information to clients in such a way that they're connecting with people and can help people feel better. And for me in my practice, for what I'm looking for, for the way I want my practitioners to practice, the way I want our clientele to be served, that's actually unhirable. So just having a bunch of information but not knowing how to channel that information and what to do with that information, that doesn't make you a very hireable candidate for me. And by the way, this is why we bake in so much mentorship to FNA and why practitioners in our space, in our industry really look to FNA as a leading functional medicine training because of the mentorship. Because when people graduate, they not, they don't just have the dense information, but they also have, have this skillset. They know what to do with that information because dense information without mentorship rarely takes you where you want to go. So again, I'm a lot less concerned with how many letters you have after your name. And I'm a lot more concerned with your ability to listen, to connect with people, to think critically, to troubleshoot.
Erin Holt [00:25:54]:
And by the way, even if you're not looking to get hired, if your goal is to build your own private practice, this is how your clients feel too. They're not hiring you for the letters after your name. They're hiring you to help. So credentialing is great, but do you have the skills to help the people that you want to help?
Erin Holt [00:27:39]:
All right? So hopefully that gives you some perspective into what somebody would be looking for in terms of hiring a functional practitioner into their practice. Now, I want to give you advice about how to approach somebody. So if you've got eyes on somebody's practice and you're like, I would really love to work for them, let me give you some advice, because nine times out of ten, people are not doing what I'm about to tell you, and that is be able to articulate the value you are bringing. This is a whole lesson, actually. I think it's two modules in Manifest Your Wealth. Manifest Your Wealth is a 20 day audio training series that I have. We will link it in the show notes. It's a phenomenal program, if I do say so myself.
Erin Holt [00:28:27]:
It's all about money mindset and abundance, and everybody who goes through that program, like, just loves it so much. So go get that and listen to it. Trust me, if you're a practitioner, if you have to, just like I made it for you, I created it for you. Go get it. It's a good one, but. So we'll tuck into this concept a little bit more. But I want you to understand, do not mix up. When I'm talking about value, I'm not talking about worth.
Erin Holt [00:28:53]:
Don't mix up those two things because they are different. Your worth is never up for question, but your perceived value actually is. And I say perceived because it depends on who is viewing it. Value is made up. Value is subjective. Value, like I said earlier, is in the eye of the beholder. So you need to know who you're talking to and what they value, which is why I just told you about some of the things that I value and some of my colleagues value as practice founders and owners. So I value my time, I value my reputation and the trust that I've established with people in this field.
Erin Holt [00:29:29]:
I value my clients a lot. I want them to be cared for in a very specific way. Something that I say in our practice, to my team all of the time, is we don't drop hearts. Somebody is pulling into their chest and giving you their beating heart. We don't drop those hearts. We don't drop hearts. There's a beating heart behind every single person we are interfacing with. We don't drop hearts.
Erin Holt [00:29:53]:
So I value my clients. I value someone who is highly invested in the craft of functional medicine. I want you to love this work. I love this work so much. I want you to match my freak. Okay. And like I said, most of these things are not unique to me. They're very common for founders.
Erin Holt [00:30:14]:
So here we go. You might want to write this one down. Your ability to acknowledge and articulate the value of the work that you have to offer, the value that you bring, and your ability and willingness to curate that to the receiver, to the person that you're talking to, will dictate how seriously people take you. It will get people, if you can do this, it will get people to take you more seriously because you're taking them seriously. There is this idea that it can't hurt to ask and just shoot your shot. People will say, reach out to all of us all the time. I know it can't hurt to ask. Figured I would shoot my shot.
Erin Holt [00:31:01]:
And what I want to say, as someone who is on the receiving end of a lot of asks, it actually can. If you're coming to me wanting a job, wanting a work study, which happens a lot, but you're not taking the time to curate your pitch to me, into my company, into what we do, to explain the unique value that you would bring to us. That kind of implies that you don't value my time, and I would never, I repeat, never hire somebody who didn't value my time, this is where I'm going to toe the line a little bit with tough love. But I want you to understand, these are the conversations that I'm actually having with practice owners. These are the conversations that CEO's are having with each other when we talk about people who are reaching out to us and people that we might hire. So I'm just bringing the stuff that we're saying forward so you understand what we're looking for. Let me use an example of collaboration, because that's something that we get a lot. A lot of people will reach out to myself or my team about wanting to collab in some way.
Erin Holt [00:31:59]:
Hey, let's collaborate. When I see collaboration, here's what I think. Time, effort, energy, labor and innovation. That is what any project is going to need from me. And nine times out of ten, when people are pitching a collaboration, they're not pitching an actual idea. They're just saying, hey, I want to work with you. So then it becomes my job to innovate on what collaboration actually looks like. So in order for me to know, should I invest my time, effort, energy, labor and innovation into this, I need to know, what value does your collaboration bring to me? So then I can know, should I be willing to invest in this? Where my business is at right now, there's a lot of projects, there's a lot of ideas, there's a lot of initiatives that require my time, effort, energy, labor.
Erin Holt [00:32:48]:
So I have to use a lot of discernment about what actually gets my attention. And this is true for all business owners, for all entrepreneurs, for all CEO's. If you're pitching a proposal to somebody, whether that's a collaboration or you're just trying to get hired, it's your job to show them the value. It's not their job to assume what your value is. So the more likely you are, the more you can articulate this value, the more likely that what you're pitching will get a green light. So if you show up to me and say, I'd love to work with you, what could that look like? Well, you just created a task for me to figure out, gee, I don't know, what could that look like? I've got 82 tasks in any given day. So the likelihood of me getting to that task that you just assigned to me is really, really, really low versus, versus. If you show up and say, this is what I can do for you, this is exactly what it would look like. Here's what I'm thinking.
Erin Holt [00:33:45]:
Here's how it would benefit you in your company. You can speak to the different values that I have that I just shared with you. Now all of a sudden, I am listening. I love a good pitch. I will listen to any good pitch. I love it. It gets my gears turning. It gets the juices flowing.
Erin Holt [00:34:04]:
Hell yeah. You're showing up, telling me what you can do for me. I'm listening. If you're showing up with an ask, I'm usually not, because I have so many asks in a given day. And I am sharing this with you because this is how all founders feel right now. All people who are looking to hire were feeling the same way. So if you can know that, if you can understand where we're coming from. You can come to us with some problem solves for the issues that we're facing, which is lack of time, overwhelm, too many projects.
Erin Holt [00:34:39]:
So what specifically can you pitch? What is the value that you bring? And here's the thing, the last thing that I will say, and arguably the most important, if you are not clear with what you do and how you can help, that will be a problem for you. And that's where you must start. Get really clear on what you do and what you do well. And this is true if you want to work for yourself or work for somebody else, either way, you've got to do this point. And this is so much of what we help you do in FNA. It's not just increasing your value by enhancing your skill set. Obviously, we do a lot of that, but we're also helping you hone your message so that you can articulate that value to the people that need your work, whether that is clients or a founder of a company. So if you're interested in fall cohort, head over to funktionalnutritionacademy.com.
Erin Holt [00:35:41]:
you can fill out an application. I will review it myself. You can get on a call with Rachel, and we can talk through whether that this would be a great fit for you. And if this podcast episode helped you, please let me know. I love hearing from people. It's great. If this got you a job, let me know. Send me a DM.
Erin Holt [00:36:00]:
All right, you guys, I'll check you next week. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for for more. Take care of you.
