Hiring Super Stars

"Chances are good that up to 66% of your company's hiring decisions will prove to be mistakes in the first twelve months." - Peter Drucker, (Management Consultant)

Every day, dentists tell us how difficult it is to find good employees. Traditional newspaper advertising and posting on Dental Town’s job boards might do the trick for you, but we’ve seen increasingly tougher patterns in hiring over the past year. The prospect of finding someone brilliant to join your team is alluring. Often, however, it’s balanced against the unpleasant thought of having to coach a current employee on their poor performance (in order to turn them around/get a better result) or the daunting prospect of hiring – and training – someone new. While it’s common to attribute a team member’s inability to “make it” in an office to lack of training or low (or possibly no!) motivation, very often the factor most influencing the employees’ success is the process by which they were hired.

A true “hiring process” is more detailed than finding someone who looks good, sounds good and can work the hours of your office. Poor hiring practices create a cycle of attrition. By hiring poor performers, you ultimately ‘reverse-market’ your business by causing patients to wonder, “Why are there different people working there every time I get my teeth cleaned”? In the hiring process, your time is valuable and so is the time of your office manager and dental team. Bringing the wrong person or type of person into the practice can have a seriously detrimental effect.

There is hope! Begin by modeling and implementing a proven hiring system, ensuring you have the best strategy to determine who does or doesn’t need to be on your team, before you bring them in as a new-hire.

1. Empower your existing team to assist in the hiring and interviewing process.
Put the framework in place for interviewing and hiring by creating a hiring committee of at least one person per department in the practice. The dentist should approve any ad before it is placed and review submitted resumes with the hiring committee. The hiring committee will then call potential candidates for permission to check references and then perform reference checks. This will eliminate a great deal of time the doctor must personally spend on hiring new staff.

2. The hiring committee should make a job map for the open position.
A job map merely articulates the skills and personality traits you require for the open position. Most of us who’ve had a bad experience in hiring know exactly what we DO NOT want in a new hire; verbalizing what the new employee must do or be will help you in your search. A job map lists skills, experience and transferable proficiencies required for interview candidates. It also benchmarks easy elimination of likeable (but unsuitable) contenders for the job opening by identifying the core traits the new hire must possess.

3. Review the resumes and have each candidate complete a job application.
Unless the position requires a specific registration or certification, don’t rule out candidates without a dental background. Look for past performance and length of stay at each job over the past five years. When considering applications, get clear on the intended job description. A well-defined job description will let the prospective employee know what is expected of them and also outlines the culture and boundaries in your business. It’s best to have a written, tangible description to ensure all employees have the same rule set governing their behavior. Job descriptions also alleviate the business owner/manager from having to constantly remind employees of their responsibilities; there’s no opportunity to “pass the buck” on any duty if it’s written plainly as an obligation.

4. Call references and past employers.
This is the most overlooked step in the interviewing process. Call the applicant and ask permission to contact current/past employers. It may be understandable if they do not want you to call their current employer, but you must have one or two past employer references. Anyone who doesn’t have the requisite amount of references for contact should be eliminated from your core group of interviewees. Call the applicants who look the most promising after you have checked references, then do a brief phone interview.

5. Schedule a group interview with no more than eight the qualified applicants. This interview should be 45 minutes in length. You will ask similar questions as you would in a one-on-one interview. Pay attention not only to the answers you are given, but also to the level of attention each candidate gives to the person who is talking. This is a good way to evaluate how each individual interacts with a group and how the group dynamic is affected by each response.

6. Administer behavioral/work-style assessments to the top two (or more) candidates.
While it is important that everyone share a similar vision, having a team of people who exhibit mostly dominant and aggressive (or passive and non-influencing) behavior will not make a well rounded team. The assessments we use measure drive, ability to influence, multitasking skills, consistency and attention to detail. There’s nothing more comforting than knowing exactly how a prospective employee is going to behave on the job!

7. Call the chosen individual and offer them a position.
Be sure they understand when you want them to start and get a commitment that you will hear back from them within 24-48 hours on their acceptance of the job. Go over expectations and benefits and any other information they should know before their first day.