August 2006

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How to Conduct
Great Job Interviews

Dental offices that use “best practices” in interviewing, and are extremely effective in consistently hiring top performers, have developed and documented a great systematic job interview process. Utilizing an effective interview process will enable you to objectively select the person that is the right fit for your practice. Finding individuals whose strengths enhance your practice is a top priority. All the best systems cannot be nearly as effective without great team members to put them to use.

Whether someone is the right person for your practice has more to do with their soft (interactive) skills than their hard (technical) skills. Hard skills are specific, can generally be easily taught, and include things like being able to read a book or read a dental Xray. Hard skills are the minimum skills necessary to do a job and can be readily improved with on-the-job or short-term training. Most people with the same level of education and experience should have roughly the same level of hard skills.

Soft skills, such as how to deal with others effectively, are often intangible, and as such, are not as easily taught. Soft skills tend to be more of a function of personality characteristics such as motivation, interpersonal ability, accountability, and work ethic. Hard skills are the first screen used to weed out applicants who are obviously not qualified for a job. Beyond this, in the competitive selection process, soft skills are generally used to differentiate one candidate from another.

Identifying Your Ideal Candidate

By knowing the ‘have to haves’ and the ‘nice to have’ traits in your ideal candidates, you are more likely to end up with a good fit for your team. While soft skills are the key to a good fit with your team, it’s also important to let potential employees know the technical requirements of the position they are applying for. By letting them know what your expectations are prior to hiring, you give them the opportunity to decide if the job is in fact a good fit for them, and if it is, they know what will be expected of them if they are hired. Be sure to update your job descriptions and task lists as necessary so they are a true reflection of the requirements for each position in your practice.

Conducting the Interview

By following a systematic approach you will be able to conduct well organized and professional interviews, which will help to ensure you won’t lose good candidates due to poor interviews. Especially considering the ever increasing shortage of workers, you want to be the practice of choice for star performers. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a shortfall of 10 million workers aged 25-44 by 2010.

Keep in mind that how you conduct yourself on the interview is as important as how the interviewee conducts him or herself. It's as much about the potential employee deciding if this place is right for him or her as it is about you deciding if the candidate is right for the job. If this isn't a good match, from either party's perspective, it's best to find out now.

Tips to keep in mind when conducting job interviews:

• Be polite and considerate. Keeping the candidate waiting, taking phone calls in the middle of an interview, or checking something on your computer reflects poorly on you and your practice.
  
  
• Reviewing resumes, verifying the information on resumes, and reading between the lines, can offer a lot of information about the applicant. For instance, have they been jumping around from office to office? Was it due to valid circumstances, or are there underlying issues that might likewise impact their tenure in your practice?
  
  
• Use the same interviewing process with each applicant to ensure fairness and to gain consistent interview results that will assist your decision making. Ideally the same person should perform the interview and the same questions should be asked of all candidates. For example, if you say to one candidate, “Tell me about your career," and to another say, "My, it looks like you've had quite a career so far!" you are compromising the process. You are asking a very neutral question in the first instance, and outwardly providing encouragement in the second instance. When it comes time to interpret the data from these interviews, your information will be awry; you will be comparing apples and oranges. Not a good idea.
  
  
• To increase the odds of making the right hiring selection, be sure to use a combination of traditional questions and behavioral based interview questions to help you get a feel for the applicant’s true personality. Behavior based questions look at past behavior as the best predictor of future performance. This systematic approach helps reduce turnover by selecting people whose skills and motivations match job requirements.
  
  
• Ask open-ended questions such as: “What strengths would you bring to our practice?” and “Why did you leave your previous job?” Avoid "yes-no" questions.
  
  
• Don't ask questions about race, nationality, age, gender, disabilities (current or previous), marital status, spouses, children and their care, criminal records or credit records.
  
  
• Don't rely on your memory – ask permission from the interviewee to take notes.
  
  
• Talk for less than 25% of the time – for the rest, listen.
  
  
• Ask if you can get and check references. Have the candidate sign a reference release form.
  
  
• Tell candidates about relevant policies, such as probationary periods.
  
  
• Ask what compensation and benefits they would like to receive.
  
  
• Find out when they can start if offered the job.
  
  
• Tell the candidate that you will get back to them soon, and be sure you do.
  
  
• Schedule 5 minutes immediately following the interview to record your impressions of the candidate.

Working Interviews

Never rely entirely on one interivew. Hold a second interview, either in conjunction with, or separately from a working interview to help you hire the best possible candidate. Working interviews are a powerful opportunity to see candidates at work; they also give you a chance to see how well this person interacts with other employees and with your patients.

Pay attention if one of your team members tells you they have a negative gut-feeling with a candidate. This uh-oh feeling may speak volumes about the way the candidate would get along with your existing team.

By using a great systematic job interview process you will significantly increase the likelihood that your interviews will give you the information you need to make great hiring decisions. It’s well worth doing everything possible to ensure you make the right choice when you hire.

Points to Ponder:

• Do you have a well documented, systematic process for conducting great job interviews?
  
  
• Do you ask behavior based questions in your interviews?
  
  
• Do you conduct working interviews?
  

Our next PracticeProsperity newsletter will offer ideas on how to hire the right person for your practice.

About the Author

CoraMarie Clark, BSDH MBA is recognized as a highly effective dental practice strategist. She works with dentists that want to optimize their potential both personally and professionally. Her collaborative approach has helped teams develop dynamic competitive strategies and achieve high impact sustainable results.

If you would like to explore the possibility of having CoraMarie work with your Dental Practice or speak for your Association or Group, contact us today.

CoraMarie Clark
phone 403.686.6136
email coramarie@strategix-ltd.com
web strategix-ltd.com

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