Athena Consulting: Dental Practice Solutions

While working with several clients to get new staff members hired recently, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the importance of the hiring process. In the years that I’ve worked in dental offices, I’ve seen many doctors take that process for granted – and then pay the price for doing so.

Instead of a good, solid interview process with lots of well-thought-out questions, way too many doctors use what I call the “is she breathing” method. As long as they meet with a reasonably presentable live human being, she’s hired.

They then settle back, content that “that’s over with,” and wait for the magic to start. The magic they’re hoping for will make a marginal candidate into an exemplary employee. Rarely, if ever, does that happen.

The more common scenario is that after wasting three months of time and energy on training (and possibly losing some patients in the process) the doctor is looking to replace this staff member and start the process all over again.

I’ve even seen this play out in offices where you would never expect it to happen, excellent offices with systems in place to cover every eventuality – except hiring.

I recently worked with a doctor who met with an interviewee on the weekend, hoping to “get this over with.” When I asked how it went, he looked sheepish and said, “She seemed nice.” Pressing for details, I found out that the entire interview consisted of the doctor giving the potential employee a tour of the office. This is not a great interview plan. In fact, it’s a recipe for failure

With all the expense an office goes through to hire and retain employees, it’s imperative that the hiring process be extensive and thorough. This process can feel like a major burden to offices that do it “in house,” and I strongly suggest letting a trained consultant do most of the work as part of his or her due diligence to your office.

That said, let’s discuss the steps needed to ensure a good hire.

• Create an excellent newspaper/on-line ad. Advertising is so expensive in our current economy that most doctors try to keep their employment ads very short and to the point. Brevity is a good financial plan, but it’s very important to get key words into the ads that speak to the heart of the practice. Before placing the ad, we need to brainstorm about what qualities we want in this new employee. What are the core values or skills we need? Be sure to get words that reflect these into the ad.
• Once you have gathered resumes from your ad, review them carefully. Typos tell you a lot about the person’s attention to detail. A list of many different jobs in a fairly short period should be a cause for concern.
• Have a form prepared with preliminary questions when you make that first phone call. Ask a lot of open-ended questions designed to elicit conversation which will help you get a better feel for the job seeker.
• Having narrowed the resumes down to the best possibilities, it’s time to set up face-to-face interviews. These first interviews can be done by just the consultant or office manager, who then brings the top two or three back in to meet the doctor. However, the doctor can join in on these initial talks to expedite the process. Either way, plan them well. Allow at least 45 minutes, or preferably an hour, per interview and have a series of much more detailed and skill-oriented questions prepared.
• Once you’ve decided on the top candidate(s), bring them in for a working interview and have the entire staff (without doctor) take them out to lunch. Meet with your staff after lunch and see if they think you’ve found a good fit. Rethink your decision if your current staff is not comfortable; they frequently learn things at lunch that you were not privy to at the interview.
• Finally, if you decide this is the right person to join your team, make a clear offer including salary, benefits, hours, and all other pertinent information.

Every doctor would like to find excellent employees who stay with the practice until retirement. A great hiring process is time-consuming and detailed. However, nothing good comes easy, finding good staff members is worth going the extra mile.

Remember, a hasty hire is rarely a good hire, and the time you saved on the interview process will be time you’ll use wishing you had worked harder on hiring and repenting a poor choice.