When you hire the wrong people, it costs you more than money. In this episode of Practical Solutions Day, Kirk Behrendt brings back Michelle Wakeman, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to break down three of the biggest mistakes in hiring that you need to avoid. Start choosing the best candidates — not the least worst! To learn the best practices for effective filtering, listen to Episode 887 of The Best Practices Show!
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Episode Resources:
Main Takeaways:
Quotes:
“What it starts with is needing to hire someone. So, before you even get to that point, I encourage you to make sure that you have a position that needs to be filled. One of my favorite Kirkisms is don't throw bodies at inefficiencies. It's so true. You may not necessarily need to fill a position. So, before you do that, talk to your team. Make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row and that you do actually have the need for another position to fill. Once you've accomplished that, make sure that you have a job description. The amount of times that I see somebody hiring and I'm like, ‘Okay, what are you hiring them for?’ ‘Well, to work up front.’ ‘Okay, awesome. We need somebody to work up front. What are they going to do up front?’ ‘Well, they're going to do the upfront things.’ That can mean a thousand different things. So, it's important to have it nailed down so that you can then narrow it down to the right candidates.” (3:44—4:40) -Michelle
“Decision fatigue is real. It's very real. You have all these candidates come in. If you don't do this right, what you end up doing, which is what I did, is you choose the least worst option. You're not really choosing the best candidate — you're choosing the least worst.” (5:01—5:18) -Kirk
“I see it happen all the time. It's like, ‘Oh, somebody applied! They must be perfect. I'm just going to bring them in. It's no problem. Just get them in the door. Put them in the front. They'll be fine.’ When you're doing that, you're actually just going to magnify your stress level rather than reducing it.” (5:21—5:37) -Michelle
“Do you have a team that you enjoy being with? We want to keep them around. In order to do that, you've got to make sure that you have the right fit with that team. There's that saying — it's trite, but it's true — one bad apple spoils the bunch. It's 100% accurate. If you have one team member that comes in that, for whatever reason, is toxic or not a good core values fit, it might end up costing you some of your great team members that you didn't want to lose or didn't need to lose. So, don't rush. Make sure that you're not just churning and burning through team members. Take your time, have a system in place, and hire the right person.” (8:09—8:51) -Michelle
“This is the number one thing that I see managers and dentists do wrong. So, we post our job ad wherever we post our job ad. Everybody is on Indeed, or dentalpost.com, or Craigslist, wherever you find your people, and you get some candidates. They come through, and you print them off, and you're like, ‘Oh, a couple of these look promising.’ So, you call them, and you schedule them to come in for an interview. And either they don't show up, they schedule it, and they completely ghost you, or they show up and they're not a good fit to work anywhere, much less your office, or they're not who they said they were. So, instead of giving your valuable time to people that might not be worth spending extra time on, let's put some systems in place to pre-screen those individuals.” (10:26—11:30) -Michelle
“Depending on where you're posting, you can actually attach a questionnaire to your ad and put some very specific instructions in your ad. I love to do this for a couple of different reasons. One, it lets me know if you pay attention to detail. Did you actually read the ad, and did you follow the directions? Because if you didn't, I might already have concerns. Maybe you're not the right person for this position that requires a lot of attention to detail. You're going to make some really specific questions that are core to who you are. I encourage you to wrap your core values into some of those questions. If you have a core value of “always be growing” like we do at ACT, you might want to ask something about, ‘Hey, when was the last continuing education course you took?’ Or, ‘What was your favorite one?’ Let's find out if that person actually seeks out opportunities to learn. So, now, before we even pick up the phone, before we even take the time to do that, we've already weeded through a good amount of applicants, and we can now home in on a better pool to focus our time on.” (11:34—12:45) -Michelle
“Have a video submission. See how that person shows up. See how they carry themselves. See how they speak. It also lets you know that they're serious, because if somebody is going to take the time to actually film a short video of themselves for you, it means that they really want to work for you. They're not just going through the motions and filling out random applications online.” (14:01—14:23) -Michelle
“In your practice, when you're looking for a position, ask people to hold up their phone and answer a question and create a video submission. If you can't hold your phone up for 60 seconds and speak into your phone about why you'd be a good candidate for this role, we're not going to interview you.” (14:40—15:00) -Kirk
“Now, you've really whittled it down to candidates that have a decent chance of being a good fit for your practice. So, the next step is — and again, this speaks to the decision fatigue piece — have a system that's written out that your entire team is aware of. Like, ‘Hey, guys. When we bring somebody new into the office to potentially bring them into our work family, this is how we do it.’ So, make sure that you have preset questions that are aligned to the role that you're looking to fill. I talked a little bit about having defined roles. Let's make sure we tell the person what the job is that they're applying for. When we're interviewing them, ‘Here are the items that you'll be responsible for on a daily basis.’ Now, that person knows exactly what to expect, they know what they're going to be responsible for on a daily basis, and you're going to get a better answer as to where their responsibilities may lie.” (17:29—18:35) -Michelle
“It's also really important to have a structured timeline. When are you taking care of your interviews? Are you doing them on Fridays because you’re early in the office Monday through Thursday? Or are you doing them after work? Are you doing them during lunch? Do we have a scorecard to keep track? It gets confusing when you are interviewing multiple candidates and you find that they have similar backgrounds or similar qualities, especially in dentistry. So, you want to ensure that you have a way to keep track of where they fall on your list of the things that you're looking for.” (19:05—19:46) -Michelle
“[Define] who does the interviewing. If you're a dentist and you're just looking to fill some, and you haven't really had a good track record, it is time to give that responsibility to someone else or a group of somebody else. We've had many practices in the BPA where dentists will assign team members or a group of team members to identify two candidates. Then, they go to lunch with them, and then they offer suggestions on who might be the best fit. Now, the psychology behind it is powerful, because if I'm a team member that works for you and I've taken these two candidates out to dinner or out to lunch and I've picked Michelle, I'm going to be more invested in making sure Michelle is successful because I was behind that decision.” (19:50—20:35) -Kirk
“That third pitfall of hiring is trying to sell yourself to the applicant. It's crazy, right? Like, why am I trying to sell myself to you? You want to come work for me, right? You want to hire someone that really does have a desire to be where you are. I tell my teams a lot, ‘I want you to become a destination workplace. I want you to be the practice that you hear about out in town where it's like, oh, nobody ever leaves there because it's the best.’ Why is it the best? Well, it's the best because you've intentionally created a culture that supports your team and takes really great care of the people that you see. So, in order to do that. You’ve got to talk about yourself a little bit less. Let that candidate talk a little bit more. We talk about the 80-20 rule. You really want that candidate to be doing about 80% of the talking. Again, open-ended questions, power in the pause. Just sit back, let them go. And like you were just pointing out, Kirk, sometimes you'll get more information than you wanted. It's probably good to have that information on the front end rather than three months into training, and now you're finding out things that aren't ideal about that candidate.” (23:08—24:28) -Michelle
“Why this is so important is that when you get the right team members in place and you get great hiring processes, it doesn't affect your life — it changes everybody's life. Having the right team member and coupling them with a second right team member, it doesn't become one plus one equals three. It's one plus one equals 11 because those two people can do so many things together that you could never do. So, finding the right person, having a process in there, not being quick, and giving them every opportunity to succeed is so important.” (26:18—26:51) -Kirk
“If this is a candidate who likely is gainfully employed somewhere, you do want to sell them on the position a little bit. But wait until you're sure that that's the person that you want. That's when you bring in the big guns of like, ‘Okay, let me give you the real deal about how amazing this place is.’ That is probably my biggest tip. Know what you're looking for before you even get started. Don't go out there just casting a wide net, trying to find a body to stick behind your front desk. There's more to it than that. Make sure you're finding the cultural fit, the core values fit. I love it when my clients use their core values in their hiring because that's who you are. The right candidate is going to be really excited to know that you have core values, and to know that you hire by them, and you hold your team members accountable to them. So, share that with them.” (27:33—28:30) -Michelle
“Make sure your system is documented. Have it on paper so that you know exactly what to do every single time. Hopefully, you're going long periods of time in between needing to hire, so you're not going to remember what you did last time. Have it written down. Make sure that you have that system.” (28:40—28:55) -Michelle
“Try not to hire out of desperation. I love your tip of having a bench. Always be accepting applications. Always be accepting people who might be a good fit for your practice. Network constantly because you never know when you might have some sort of life circumstance that comes up where you need to find someone to fill in your team. Keep your eyes open and don't hire out of desperation. Just don't be desperate. And be cognizant of being open with your team about, ‘I know you guys are spread thin. I know that we're all picking up a little bit extra right now. But it's important to me that when I do get someone in here that they are a help, not a hindrance. So, we're going to wait until we get the right person.’ Bring your team into it. Make sure that they're part of that process.” (28:59—29:52) -Michelle
“Hiring is harder than ever. I see no day where it's going to get easier. And I don't mean to freak you out, but this is the stuff I hear. People can go to Indeed right now, copy your ad off of Indeed, put it into ChatGPT 4.5, and say, ‘Write me the perfect resume for this job. Oh, add a cover letter too.’ You'll get that, and you'll read it and go, ‘This is amazing. Wow, this is perfect.’ I'm not going to say everybody's going to do that, but you have to have a higher level of thought in this whole process because finding the right people just isn't easy. So, try to avoid these three mistakes at the end of the day.” (30:42—31:34) -Kirk
Snippets:
0:00 Introduction.
2:10 Why this is an important topic.
3:36 Make sure you have a position that needs to be filled.
4:59 Choose the best, not the least worst.
6:34 Create an efficient system.
7:53 One bad apple spoils the bunch.
9:40 Perform pre-screenings on candidates.
13:44 Pre-screen with a video submission.
15:59 Pre-screen using a Google phone number.
17:22 Have a documented interview system.
19:49 Create defined roles in the interview process.
20:48 Use a scorecard to make objective comparisons.
21:39 Ask open-ended questions.
23:04 Spend more time learning about your candidates.
24:54 Pay attention to the quality of candidates’ questions.
26:53 Final thoughts.
31:38 Learn more about Bent Ericksen.
Michelle Wakeman, BSDH, Bio:
Michelle Wakeman, BSDH, brings nearly 20 years of clinical dental hygiene, administrative, managerial, and sales experience to the table. She has a passion for people and a natural aptitude for communication that has led her to develop meaningful relationships throughout her career in dentistry. As a coach, she seeks to help dental practices develop systems that enable them to enhance their patient experience, leading to better relationships among owners, team members, and patients, along with profitable outcomes.
In her off time, Michelle can usually be found at the ice rink supporting her son, Hunter, in hockey, the ball field cheering on her son, Carter, or the gym, reliving her days as a gymnast with her daughter, Leighton.