Hire Smarter to Practice Better

A dentist’s number one tool is their team, which is why hiring the right person is crucial. When you have the right person in the right seat, it reduces stress and enables you to focus on running a thriving practice and doing what you do best. When you make mistakes in the hiring process and bring the wrong person onboard, however, it creates so many problems. To help you spend more time working on dentistry, prevent decision fatigue, and avoid the monetary and emotional costs of hiring the wrong person, stop making these common mistakes!

Skipping the pre-interview screening 

I’ve seen so many dentists waste hours of their lives interviewing people who are an obvious no right from the start, when a simple screening step would filter all these candidates out. You don’t have time to interview applicants who don’t align with your practice, so use some of my favorite tactics to weed them out:

• A 10-15 min phone or video call to gauge their personality, communication skills, and initial fit.
• A Core Values survey to assess their alignment with your values.
• A video submission in which they record themselves answering 2-3 questions about why they want to work with your practice.

Not having a documented interview system

Too many practices suffer from inconsistent and unintentional hiring, and it’s directly due to their lack of a structured interview process. The best way to create structure is through documentation—like Kirk says, “If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist”—so create a system that includes:

• Pre-set questions that are aligned with the role, as well as your practice’s culture.
• Defined roles in the interview process so there’s no question about the interview format and whose responsibility it is to conduct the interview.
• A structured timeline that defines how many interviews are to be performed, where they happen, and what the follow-up process looks like.
• Scorecards or a rating system to facilitate the process of comparing candidates objectively.

Selling yourself instead of learning about the applicant

An interview shouldn’t be about convincing candidates why they should work in your practice—it’s an assessment of whether or not they’re the right fit. I’ve seen a lot of dentists spend their time pitching the practice instead of gathering information, but with a few strategies, you can avoid this mistake:

• Use the 80/20 rule and let the candidate talk 80% of the time.
• Ask open-ended questions that reveal their values, work ethic, and personality.
• Wait to “sell” them on your practice until the end, when you know they’re the right fit.

You can’t run a practice all by yourself, but hiring the wrong person won’t truly help, so take the time to think better about your hiring process. When you approach it with clarity and intention instead of hiring quickly out of desperation, you’re going to end up with an incredible team that will help you achieve your vision!

To learn more about ACT and how we can help you build a Better Practice and a Better Life, reach out to Courtney!

Tune in next time and learn how to tell when it’s time to fire someone