Best Practices for Hiring Dental Staff

Most dentists readily admit that they’re amateurs when it comes to recruiting, selecting and hiring dental staff. They typically base hiring decisions on generic applications, embellished resumes, rushed interviews and unproductive reference checks. There is a better way, and the time to implement it is now, before you’re faced with an unexpected job opening that tempts you to fall back on old practices.

Here are five best practices for hiring dental staff, guaranteed to improve the results of your next hire.

1. Define the minimum, job-specific knowledge, skills, abilities and other personal attributes that candidates must have to perform successfully. Getting input from all staff members will help flesh out the details. In fact, it is a good practice to have each employee write up a detailed job description for his/her own position, that is reviewed and updated at least once a year.
2. Establish and implement a systematic process for gathering candidate information and measuring qualifications against job criteria. This should include:
   
   • Detailed Job Ads: Spending a few more dollars for a longer, more detailed ad will reduce the number of unqualified applicants who apply, improve the quality of those who do, and ultimately save time during the evaluation process.
   • Job-Specific Employment Applications: You’ll vet candidates much more quickly when you use applications that focus on the specific dental skills and requirements for each job within your dental practice. You’ll know exactly where to find the critical information you’re looking for, rather than having to search through resumes.
   • Objective Tests: To supplement the self-reported information on applications and resumes, the use of professionally developed tests help you objectively evaluate ability and personality traits that directly impact job performance.
   • Structured Behavioral Interviews: Professionally developed, job-specific interview guides reduce personal bias during the interview process and reduce the risk of asking inappropriate and illegal questions. By focusing on open-ended questions, you’ll better understand how candidates are likely to react in job-related situations.
   • Reference Checks: Why are reference checks so important? A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management showed that 53% of HR professionals discovered falsified information during reference checks of job applicants.
3. Compare and contrast all candidates using the objective, job-related criteria first, to select the top few you move on to the interview process.
4. Conduct formal interviews using a consistent, structured approach for each candidate. Candidates should be doing 80% of the talking during the interview. Make sure everyone conducting interviews is familiar with equal employment opportunity laws regarding the questions they can and cannot ask.
5. Select and hire the most qualified dental candidate, with employment contingent on appropriate background checks.

Whitepaper: Screening Job Applicants to Minimize Employee Theft