AAFP CareerLink: The best job board for family physicians

By Angie Lanigan
AAFP Career and Practice Strategist

Physician jobs are out there, especially in the field of family medicine. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States has a shortage of over 20,000 primary care doctors.

But that doesn’t mean that finding a job as a physician is easy.

In my role as career and practice strategist here at the AAFP, I’ve gotten the opportunity to regularly talk to family physicians about their careers, work history and job search struggles. What I hear again and again is that no two open positions are exactly the same, and that even jobs that were once great fits can evolve into a situation that isn’t right for a physician or their family. And with health system consolidation driving further shifts in the job market, being able to navigate the job market is more important than ever.

Within family medicine, one of the best ways for finding physician jobs is using AAFP CareerLink. This physician-focused online job board is designed to support your unique goals, find jobs and help you develop professionally as a physician.

As the job board for family physicians, AAFP CareerLink hosts job listings from employers who are actively seeking candidates. These listings can be filtered by criteria such as location, experience level, specialty, shift type and employer type. It also allows you to upload a CV, set up job alerts and track applications all in one place.

AAFP CareerLink allows you to curate results to your exact specifications, as well as search by location or within a certain geographic radius.

National job boards, or job boards without a family medicine or medical focus, have relevant jobs. But many such job boards don’t allow you to sort and filter such specifics. AAFP CareerLink, on the other hand, is tailored to and serves a highly specific audience: family physicians. When I talk with physicians about their careers and about AAFP resources, I recommend AAFP CareerLink for three key reasons.

One other benefit of AAFP CareerLink is confidentiality. While other job boards may send your information to recruiters without your consent, AAFP CareerLink does not. You must consent before information is sent to any recruiter, making it possible to search discreetly and without recruiters bombarding your phone or email with communications.

As a family medicine-focused job board, AAFP CareerLink helps you find relevant physician jobs for your situation. But AAFP CareerLink also provides a variety of other helpful career planning services and information, too.

These added features make AAFP CareerLink more than a job board; it’s a career development hub built for AAFP members and job seekers. With its focus on family medicine, AAFP CareerLink eliminates the noise and delivers a curated list of roles that match your credentials and aspirations.

For residents and early-career physicians, navigating the post-training job search can be overwhelming. AAFP CareerLink helps simplify that process by:

With board certification and residency behind you, your job search should be efficient and focused. AAFP CareerLink ensures that your first step into practice is supported by a platform that understands your specialty.

Not all job boards are created equal, and choosing a family physician-specific job board like AAFP CareerLink can help you target the roles you want and save you time to do what matters most to you: providing health care for your patients.

Whether you're exploring your first job or preparing to relocate, join the nearly 50,000 family medicine professionals who have used AAFP CareerLink in the last year to help you find family medicine opportunities that fit your goals.

Angie Lanigan has spent the last seven years of her career at the AAFP as a project manager and subject matter expert on issues relating to career and practice. A contributing editor of the journal FPM, she is also a registered dietitian.