Landing a Remote Dietitian Job: What You Need to Know with Stacey Dunn-Emke, MS RDN
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Libby: [00:00:00] If you're looking to grow your business as a registered dietitian, you've come to the right place. If you're not sure what to do or what steps to take next so that you can create flexibility and freedom in your life, then you're gonna learn a lot from tuning into our podcast here at dietitian Boss.
I'm Libby Rothchild, the founder of dietitian Boss, a fellow registered dietitian and business owner, and in our podcast, I share. The highs and the lows, and I talk all about how to grow your business, get it started, and I interview our clients. To date, we've had over 200 interviews from clients who share their journey on our podcast, dietitian Boss.
Hello and welcome today I'm here with Stacey Dunn, M-S-R-D-N. She's a registered dietitian and the founding owner of Nutrition Jobs, a career portal for dietitians and nutrition professionals and dietitian salaries.com, an anonymous salary survey tool. She's the author of the Dietetic Resume Guide [00:01:00] and specializes in boosting professional opportunities for dietitian students and interns with jobs coaching, and courses on creating a modern winning resume for dietitians.
Stacey regularly hosts LinkedIn live events. Spotlighting dietitian, careers and modern employment opportunities, aiming to build confidence and knowledge. She brings her vast work experience to the dietetic career coaching table where she has worked as a clinical dietitian, nutrition writer, outpatient dietitian, clinical nutrition manager, and research dietitian with Dean Ornish.
She has appeared in the Oprah Winfrey Show and M-S-N-B-C tv. She's frequently a speaker, including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Harvard Medical School. She has served on the board of the Bay Area Dietetic Association, including President-Elect and was rewarded.
Outstanding dietitian of the year, and recognized young dietitian. She lives with her family in San Francisco. Welcome to today's episode.
Stacey, I'm so happy to have you here today [00:02:00] on our podcast talking about landing a remote dietitian job and what us dietitians need to know. So before we get started into this action packed episode, can you share a little bit about what inspired you to create nutrition jobs and dietitian salaries.com, and how you've seen the job market for dietitians evolve in recent?
Stacey: Yes. Hello Libby. Thank you so much for having me. Be able to speak to your listeners. I have been listening to your podcast forever, so it's it's really fun to be able to be part of this. You are such a great resource for dietitians and health professionals. But yes, so I started, yeah, nutrition jobs.
Over 20 years ago, I was looking for a job at the time and there was nothing online. There were just like a few resources out there, not much. And I thought that's weird. I'm gonna build it. I loved programming. I loved behind the scenes like creating content in my clinical nutrition job and also in my sort of outpatient positions and loved doing that [00:03:00] part of it.
And so it was like this natural progression like, oh yeah, I'll code a job board. I'll do that. So I did, and it just became like this really fun, amazing, creative outlet. It was something that was certainly needed way back when it has survived over all these years. It's, seen challenges.
It's seen a ton of success. It's been really fun, but it's been a really big part of my ability to give back to our profession. It is just a great resource for dietitians for how to find jobs. There are lots of jobs on the website and lots of resources to help elevate the competence of dietitians when it comes to job seeking and career development.
Libby: I love that you've been doing this for so long, and in terms of the evolving landscape, I would like to touch on that just a little bit. What do you mean by evolving landscape of dietetics and how has that changed, nutrition jobs and dietitian salaries in recent.
Stacey: I've been a dietitian for over 30 [00:04:00] years, and so when I first started, there were just a handful of types of jobs that we could decide if we wanted to go into.
There was clinical nutrition, there was research, there was community just a handful of jobs including food service. There weren't a lot of positions where we were. Directly collecting money from the first party, whether that was outpatient practice, private practice when you work in a hospital, your paycheck comes from the employer.
When you work for another company, it comes from the employer. And I think what's really evolved over the several, maybe the last decade, maybe five to 10 years, is that dietitians are able to connect directly with the person who wants to pay you the consumer, maybe working directly with doing corporate wellness, where you're directly connecting.
And I think that just opens up a whole lot of possibility. It's super exciting. You can really invent. Anything that you want to do, as long as there's a market for [00:05:00] it, we are not really constrained by the silos of career opportunities that we thought that we had. There's just a lot out there because we can get the money from wherever the market is. So I think that's been the biggest evolution. I think social media has really helped with that in showing who we are. I think now with the advent of a lot of the telenutrition or telemarketing venture backed companies that are out there.
That has really provided a ton of free marketing for us as dietitians. That's been amazing. Whether you work for them or whether you are doing the same type of work. I think that they have really helped us with marketing and having people understand the role of the dietitian, what dietitians can do.
So it's continuing to evolve. I think there's gonna be a lot of evolution with generative ai or. The LLM large language model artificial intelligence application. So I think, just whatever you [00:06:00] can dream up and someone can pay you for it, go for it.
Libby: Yeah, and we've seen the AI and we've seen also VC backed companies make a huge impact in the therapy space as well.
So I like to look at healthcare professionals, specifically therapeutic practices because there are more therapists than dietitians to see how these changes have penetrated those markets because we're next. So there's a lot of talk in the therapy space about venture backed companies and ai, and so it's interesting to see how that trickles down to dietetics just.
Based by numbers. I know there's I'm gonna have to double check. I want, last time I researched, I wanna say about 70,000, maybe 80,000 private practice therapists, much less dietitians. So I like to see when I'm looking at trends what's happening in the therapy space first. So with that, mm-hmm. I hear a lot of negativity about the VC-backed companies. We have talked about that on the podcast. I'm just gonna ask you that quickly for a moment. You seem to have a positive thought process about them. Is there any negatives to these companies? Again, for context, we're talking fa [00:07:00] nourish these companies that are backed by hundreds of millions of dollars, which means they have more marketing dollars to spend, which is why dietitians are getting a bigger name.
Stacey: That's a great question and a great topic actually, because I do feel like dietitians are feeling threatened by this. Those in private practice are working out on their own and I would just wanna raise the flag and say, these are awesome companies to have out who have tons of money specifically.
On marketing. That's really where their money goes to. It's not building out the platform. It's not like HR trying to, build out their database of dietitians that are available or health professionals that are available. Their biggest chunk of money is going towards marketing, which is just really elevating the name of the dietitian and what those services are.
And so think of it as instead of with a scarcity mindset, I know that's a cliche these days, but instead of the idea that, oh my gosh. There's not gonna be enough for me. Think about, there's no possible way that [00:08:00] all of the nutrition needs can be met by these companies. There's always gonna be somebody who wants maybe more specialized direct whether it's in person or remote care that's not part of the platform.
They will reach a lot of people, of course, but we can still be in that space and thank you to them for doing all the marketing. So I think just pivoting the mindset of scarcity, and that just goes for any niche within the profession is sure. Thinking oh my gosh, there's so many dietitians now in the field of PCOS.
There is just no room for me. And that's just the opposite, right? There's no possible way any dietitian could take on all of the people that need our services, that need our help. So there's so much opportunity and I think just feeling excited about that and part of what my. Role is with nutrition jobs and dietitian salaries is to feel excited about our careers.
Don't feel dampened or this scarcity or just anxiousness. I was just giving a talk [00:09:00] yesterday and there were several students on the on the call. One person asked, they were really worried about the job market right now. Because there's so many layoffs. And I said hold the horses, like put on the brakes on that idea.
I have recruiters that I talk to every single workday that are begging me to help them find dietitians for their jobs. So it may not be in downtown San Francisco at the best hospital that you wanted to work at or in working for a company in corporate wellness that you exactly wanted to. But there are tons of jobs.
So again, like going away from that mindset of. If you think that, or you're reading about that in the news and you're hearing about tons of layoffs, these are probably not companies that you're going to work for or that you want to work for. There are just so many dietitian opportunities. So again, I feel like it's my gig, like I want to empower dietitians and make them feel super excited about all that they can offer, and there is just an abundance of opportunity [00:10:00] for us as dietitians.
Libby: Absolutely. And I love your growth mindset here, which is what we all need as dietitians. Whether we're in a clinical space or we're in a, business or private practice setting, having that abundant mindset is really gonna help us become more well known. So I think that was a great example.
And I know that remote work is more popular than ever, especially as we've mentioned, these VC companies are shedding a light to dietitians. I just. Fact check to myself. And I was close, I said 70,000 therapists in private practice. There's actually 87,000 therapists in private practice and about 5,000 dietitians in private practice.
So again, what I see therapists do is I believe foreshadowing what will happen with us because there's so many more therapists. With that being said, what do you think are the biggest advantages and challenges for dietitians who wanna work remotely? I don't know about you, Stacey, but everybody wants it, right?
It's so popular. I haven't come across a dietitian. That doesn't wanna do something remote. I
Stacey: agree. And that's my number one search term. When I look back at my Google Analytics, like that's the number one [00:11:00] search term is remote or virtual or the obvious the greatness about being able to work remote, like both you and I know this personally, is that you just have this incredible flexibility.
You can work whenever you want to, wherever you want to. That said, it's a little challenging to work just within the confines of probably when you should work. I'm up late oftentimes working so that I can spend some time with my family during the mid part of the day. Sure. Or just. Being with them on vacation.
It's not always perfect when you say, yes, we're all gonna go on vacation and I'm gonna, I'm gonna work from there. That's, that doesn't always work. I know there's some dietitians that are really good at that think about what that really means when you talk about,
flexibility. But that is the obvious perk. You get to live wherever you want to, and you can also attract a certain salary regardless of where you live. You can be getting, San Francisco salary ranges living in a lower constant living place like Mississippi, for example. Yeah. There's a lot of advantages that you can [00:12:00] strategize by working remotely.
I have to say though. I highly recommend dietitians really consider working. In person whenever they can. I think especially as you're a brand new dietitian where you're just starting out, oh my gosh, there is so much observational learning that can happen. Collaborations that can happen. The actual networking, like networking.
Online is a whole lot different than networking and person. Sure. Yeah. Remember, you remember like when we worked in the hospitals, we used to have that thing called the curbside consult, where you didn't have to make an appointment with somebody, you just saw them in the hallway because hospitals are like small cities.
You would just see them in the hallway and you had a question about oh, when are you gonna take this person off of NPO? Or you'd have these little curbside events and so you also learn, you get to hang out, you sit around in circles and talk to people and talk about their experience, talk about.
What they're learning next. There's just so much observational learning and experiences that can happen in person. If you can maybe do a combination, that'd be awesome. But, as [00:13:00] our lives evolve, so do our work situations have to evolve too. So I think there's pluses to both obviously.
Libby: And I think that's a great lesson in terms of people listening, the dietitians that you know it's okay to have opportunities that aren't all remote. What's important is to build your skills, because whether you're working remote or in person, you're gonna need to learn boundaries. Especially, as you mentioned, Stacey, working from home and flexibility in figuring out your hours, how to deal with situations, you might not be sure who to reach and how to problem solve.
That can be the boundaries you need to learn if you're working remotely. And then in person you have opportunities that you don't get. In a remote setting, and there's different skills needed when you are virtually networking versus in person networking. I don't think that's discussed enough about distinguishing the two and building both of those skill sets to add to your arsenal of, Hey, this is what I know is my toolbox, right?
This is what I know and this is how I can help people and really grow at my reputation. So what key skills and experiences would you say when it comes to dietetics will make a candidate [00:14:00] stand out when they're applying for a remote dietitian job?
Stacey: I think the number one thing is you need to be able to demonstrate and to be able to show, let's say you're in a job interview and be able to show that you've got amazing time management skills.
You've got great communication skills when it comes to time management as well. So maybe you're working with your manager. You need to keep that person up to date with what you're doing, or you're gonna become irrelevant, or they're gonna think that you're not doing the job. You need to keep like a really good work journal about what you're doing, and be able to show that and demonstrate your impact.
So I think being able to show initiative, being able to show self-motivation or self work is really helpful. And then the other obvious one is that. Have to have some confidence. You don't have to necessarily be competent, but confidence with technology, right? That's just like what it is.
Your microphone your, whatever platform the company is using or that you're using that's HIPAA compliant. You have to be able to, toggle between [00:15:00] being both in person, but also being able to own that technology and feel really confident in being able to learn whatever platform there is.
I always joke that with technology it can seem really intimidating and some people just put up A boundary and I can't do this. Or it's I can't do math. Like I can't do technology, I can't do computers. I don't get it. I don't get it. Or with an application, like I don't understand it.
But I think the beauty of technology is that everything is figureoutable. It might take a little bit of time and you might find some frustrations, but take notes along the way and there's always a tutorial out there, but get to the mindset of feeling that I can tackle this, it's figureoutable and feel positive about it, and have this confidence mindset that I'm gonna work through this even if I don't understand it right now.
But I think that's an important one. I think another important skill. And there are different ways to word this, but being able to engage the person. Let's say it's a [00:16:00] client that, let's say you're doing remote private practice, that you're able to gather them up, you're able to engage them really well, you're able to make them follow through on their follow-up appointments.
You often get. The first appointment with the patient, but getting the follow-up ones is a lot more tricky. And being able to have those skills, maybe it's systems set up where you're pinging them all the time to make sure they re are reminded that their appointments is coming up, but being I call it like gathering skills.
So I think those are like the three big things that you can both put on your resume. You can also put that on your LinkedIn profile and your skills and. We can talk about LinkedIn as well if you want to, but within LinkedIn you can add your skills within the actual skills section, but you can also add those skills up into each of the work experiences.
So if you are working as a private practice dietitian remote or in person, you can add those skills. Into that work experience section too. Just different ways to highlight. Again, always showing what [00:17:00] you're able to do and highlighting that and don't feel that you need to be, humble or that you need to hide some of your unique skills in that area.
Libby: Excellent. Actionable tips, Stacey. So helpful Of those three tips, which one, if you had to pick, is the most important?
Stacey: Ooh, gosh. I don't, do, I have to pick. You don't
Libby: have to pick, you don't have to. You could pass.
Stacey: I think just self-motivation, right? The curiosity, the want to figure it out it trickles down to all the rest of them.
You're gonna learn the technology, you're going to be able to talk about some of your successes. You're gonna be able to gather up those patients. Sure.
Libby: Yeah. And I would say from my experience, I think communication skills are the most important because if you can practice motivational interviewing, you can show that you can handle working with a patient or a client or interdisciplinary team, then you can gain those retention skills later.
So that's my opinion. But of course, the technology and all those other aspects are highly important too. The willingness to learn is obviously a great and great skill. So we will talk about LinkedIn in another episode that I'm gonna [00:18:00] be airing with you because you're just so valuable that I'm gonna share you twice with our audience.
So that means that the listeners can come back and get more. Stacey. So I would like to ask you, of course we can speak of LinkedIn, but we're gonna dive in on another episode. Maybe you can just tell us a little bit, because you do specialize in resumes on LinkedIn. What are the top resume mistakes that dietitians make and for actionable tips here, what can they do to fix them?
Stacey: I love this question because the number one mistake I see whether a dietitian has been working for three minutes or for 30 years, is that we don't necessarily show our value very well on those documents, on those profiles, whether it's your CV or your resume or your LinkedIn profile. I think the the old way to do a resume has.
Stuck really well, unfortunately. And that old way is laying out what you do, looking like a job description. So it's just showing your duties, not showing your impact. And that's a really easy fix actually. And then looking [00:19:00] at what your job duties are and thinking about how did I actually implement this?
Or What does it look like in my day? And what's an action verb? Maybe a leadership action verb that I can start off. The sentence within a work success bullet point on my resume. You can add those onto your LinkedIn profile too. You don't have to have as much information on your LinkedIn profile. But how can I demonstrate what my impact was?
Use starting off with the action verb and what was the result or what did you do? And then what was the actual impact of that? So talking about maybe that you had a hundred percent follow through on patient follow up appointments that you had, that you saved x amount of money on whatever it was that you were doing could be increases, decreases.
It could be a decrease in certain biometrics or improvement in biometrics. Things that people need to be tracking along, but that's, all kinds of different ways that you can demonstrate your effectiveness. Or if you're doing a lot of like corporate wellness and you don't have access to biometrics you [00:20:00] can talk about how many people that you actually worked with or any kind, number, dollar, any way that you can demonstrate and show your value.
Libby: Really great actionable tips. Stacey. So for those of you listening, if you are looking to update your resume or you haven't in a while and you won a recent one, 'cause your last update was five, 10 years ago, definitely pull out the old resume and make some of these switches really helpful. So I wanna take a shift and ask a couple more questions before we wrap up today's episode.
I know that we've talked a lot, today and in general, I talk a lot about career paths that dietitians can take that are alternative, and you gave that background of being in the field for 30 years and seeing a lot of shifts in recent remote work, VC backed companies, et cetera. Would you say, what are some of the most surprising career paths that dietitians and many professionals might not consider?
Stacey: Ooh, there's so many. Oh my gosh. So I think if I were just to go to the top of the list right now that I find fascinating and super encouraged by is [00:21:00] using ai, so that's in nutrition informatics, dietitians working with the IT department in hospital systems like holy smokes, that's super cool.
There's, lots of different opportunities within ai. I think also within the private practice sphere. There are a lot of different situations, disease states pain points that consumers have that we can help with. That could be in like PCOS, we talked about, other gut health problems, sleep problems, menopause, perimenopause, like that specific niche, not just like all of it together.
Fertility. You can look on Instagram. You can look on LinkedIn and see what other dietitians are doing for some different ideas, but people are finding that there is a population out there that wants our services in all these unique areas. Another one right now is brain health, and I just wrote a post about the ketogenic diet for brain health or.
For mental health diseases, actually [00:22:00] treating them. There's a lot of work being done right now. dietitians are in that space. dietitians working with pets as well. Understanding the nutrition related that's unique to pets. I've seen some dietitians working in that field.
I think in sustainability there's a lot of interest in that. A lot of companies are interested in that. Working with brands, working with companies has always been out there. But I think that there's just a lot more food companies. I don't know if anyone's ever gone to the Food Expo, but holy smokes, like there are so many food companies.
Popping up all the time that need our voice. They need our expertise, they need our brains to help them with labeling, help them with what's on their actual label besides like the nutrient composition, like some of the copy we can help with their copy. We can help with food writing. I was a food writer when I was, in college, I got myself through working with the California Tree Fruit Agreement, and I thought that was like the craziest job ever. It turns out there's, people make that an entire profession now as [00:23:00] dietitians. There's so many different ways that we can work as dietitians, but I think being able to think creatively, think about, maybe you can look at what's going on in Facebook or in Reddit or other.
Areas and here what people are asking. What are they looking for? What, how can we help them In the doctor's office? I, every single time I go to my pediatrician's office with my kids, they're always asking like can you help us with our practice? Actually, I can't, there's lots of other dietitians that can, people want us, they want our services.
It's just a matter of getting out there and finding those people.
Libby: That's amazing what a great thing for you to have, health professionals, practitioners asking you for your contributions. That must feel so rewarding, not just personally, but for the profession as well.
And if you're listening and you're like I haven't been asked that. It could be that you might need to put yourself in more positions. Stacey, you got three kids, so pediatrician, you're there a little more than someone who just has one kid. I think just wanna drive home that if you're not getting opportunities, you're not looking or you're not.
Not networking perhaps [00:24:00] enough, because oftentimes dietitians need to introduce that skill to their toolbox. Would you agree?
Stacey: Totally. And get out of the house. I'm not saying that I get outta the house just meeting with people, talking with people at school sporting events with your kids or with your friend's kids or relatives or whatever it might be.
Just getting out there, being with people. I know I've been harping a lot about. Being in person, and I think that's so important If you're feeling stagnant or you're feeling that you're ruminating a lot on lack of opportunity that you just might need to get out and swim in different circles.
Absolutely. It's out there. Take a class in person class, go to a conference and just whether it's within our profession as dietitians or go to a local dietetic association meeting, like there's a lot out there and you may not. Learn a pearl from somebody, but you might actually get inspired.
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Sometimes I'm not even hearing the words that someone is saying while I'm out on a run or a walk, but it's triggering in my mind, oh, I wanna develop this. [00:25:00] Oh, that's how I came up with the idea of dietitian salaries.com. Just like this idea of we need to have a database where it's totally anonymous and we can all contribute.
And so I just built it. So it's amazing getting out there and seeing what's out there.
Libby: What an incredible story. Thank you so much, Stacey, for sharing your wisdom, what you've built, the contributions you've made to the field and your insights along with so many actionable steps for the listeners.
Whether you're looking for a job in dietetics or you just wanna improve your skillset, which we all do, right? We're all lifelong, continuous learners as dietitians. Thank you so much, Stacey. For those of you listening, Stacey will be back to talk about LinkedIn in a future episode, so make sure to stay tuned.
Any final words you wanna leave us with today, Stacey?
Stacey: I just encourage everyone to feel really excited about our profession. You have chosen a really fantastic profession.
Libby: Thank you. I agree. I agree. Thank you so much.
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