Hiring Isn’t Luck — It’s Leadership. Build Your Dental Dream Team with Strategy, Not Stress

Let's cut to it. Posting a job and indeed isn't a hiring strategy. It's a hope and pray plan. Right? And today's market hope isn't going to get the job done. Nearly 58% of dentists report at least one open position that they can't fill. And finding the right administrative team member feels like finding a unicorn. But here's the thing. You don't need more applicants. You actually just need a better system. Today we're going to get into action. Real proven strategies for finding, evaluating and hiring dental rock stars. Welcome. Welcome to the Next Level Practice podcast where we don't just talk about the business of dentistry, we fix it. I'm Kelly Dahmer and this is episode two of our special series on recruiting, hiring and onboarding. So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, hit the pause button, jump back, dive into understanding industry landscape for hiring that we're currently in, as well as the financial implications for your practice. In episode 10, we broke down the state of the union, the staffing crisis, and the cost of doing nothing. Today we're focused on solutions. How to recruit smarter, how to interview better, and why. Hire SL Fire fast is more than just a cliche. So let's get into it. Here's what we're going to be covering on today's episode. We're going to be talking about why most practices are actually hiring backwards. Right? We talked about trying to fill that leaky bucket last week. How to write a job ad that filters for fits, which is very important, not just a warm body. The multi step hiring system that saves you thousands in turnover. There's a large cost to the turnover that's happening when we're not hiring. Right. And how to hire slow, fire fast and protect your culture that you worked so hard to build and nurture. So step one that we're going to be really diving into to is knowing who you actually need on your team. It's a small business. Every single person is a key person on your team. And I think sometimes it can be really easy to feel like there's an overwhelm. There's a need to just add people to help get a job done. But if we're not managing from a place of facts and the return on investment from our team and we're just filling warm bodies, then that's not a very efficient way to be running the business. Right. Too many practices hire just to fill a seat and we help clients fill a role. The key here is the difference between filling a seat and filling a role that starts with clear role description, result expectations and a personality profile. A common rule of thumb though is two hygienists per doctor. Some of our practices do more, some of our practices do less. It really depends on your comfort level as a clinician. But typically two hygienists per doctor. You want to separate time and money at your front with your administrative team. So we recommend having one team member, who's your appointment coordinator, working to fill the schedule, productive, not just busy and fill blank space. And another person, your treatment coordinator, who is the one closing your cases and collecting the money. Typically, those two team members work well in one doc, two doc, maybe a three doc practice. But if you've got three doctors working per day, it could be that you need an additional person at the front to support with that. One of our most common outsourced roles or responsibilities, I guess I would say would be insurance. Insurance verification, collecting. So that could be something that you might look to outsource. Especially if you've got the two team members up front, there's overwhelm happening. It might be that you want to outsource some of that insurance role, which is very tedious and not always the best use of our team members Time. Again, look at metrics, but are you hitting your numbers? Are you not? Identify the gap and then create a solution to how to close that gap. A lot of times it doesn't have to do with the team size. It has to do with accountability and clarity and roles. Now, let's say you've taken a deep dive at your team roster and recognize that yes, you do need to fill up open position. Maybe you had someone leave or maybe you guys are growing and you're just at that place where you do need to bring another person in. You do want to be very creative with your job ad to make sure you're attracting the right culture fit. Generic job ads attract generic candidates, right? You want to show your vibe, you want to show your flair, your values, your vision. Don't list tasks, talk about the impact, talk about culture. It's really what the younger generations are wanting to see right now. One thing that I want to talk about that is still very new is how AI is playing a role in your job post. Visibility, attracting the right candidates to you. It seems that there's some glitches and things happening where you might have a great ad that you're posting. You're like, why am I getting people applying that have no experience in dentistry, right? Or maybe you're just not getting any resumes in at all. One thing that we're testing out that I want to Recommend is use AI to solve the problem that AI is creating ChatGPT. If you're not familiar with it, go to chatgpt.com make it your friend. Get used to it. Let's say you are in Kalamazoo, Michigan and you need to hire a hygienist. Take your job ad that has vision, purpose and values. That should be your number one thing, by the way, at the very top, drop that into ChatGPT and ask to make it so that your job ad is going to have top visibility. Rockstar hygienists in Kalamazoo, Michigan have it work for you versus trying to work against it. Post multiple different varieties, varieties of the same ad. If you're not getting results, take the ad down, wait 24 to 48 hours, repost. So those are some different things that you can do to really have your job ad working for you. Because again, if you're just posting it on there and hoping it turns out it's not going to be enough. The other thing that you might want to do is talk to your supply reps, look at schools nearby, even posting on your state dental association website. Get creative. Post in multiple places, have multiple ads, make sure it's impact driven and has your vision on there so that you're really getting creative with your job ads and you're going to find the right culture fit. Step three in the hiring process is to make sure you're using a layered interview process. It's very easy to get duped or maybe get lazy if you're really desperate for the right person to come in place. So step number one, we really recommend in your job post that you have a creative way. Your applicants are actually applying for the position. So one of the things that we really recommend instead of it just being like they click, they submit, they aren't doing any work, is to have them actually email them with subject line, I'm your rock star hygienist. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Talk about why you'd be a great fit. Submit your resume, see if they can actually follow it to a T of submitting three exclamation points. Right? You want someone who's detail oriented. You're showing that you're doing something different and that's going to really weed out people who are just clicking around and submitting a bunch of applications. You want to find those really good Fits who are detail oriented and can follow direction. Right. Number two, make sure you're doing a value screening call. Fifteen minutes, talk about the company, talk about the mission, talk about your culture and a little bit about the position. It should be a 10, 15 minute call that you're doing a screening to really get into the buyer's seat and let them know why they should wanna come work for you. Step three, we would definitely recommend doing a personality assessment. Myers Briggs is a great one. Figure out what sort of personality is going to be coming in to fit inside of your practice. It might be that there's a specific Persona that you're looking for. It might just be that you need to better understand how this person's gonna integrate as well as additional piece of homework so that there's some homework to weed out some of those people who are maybe not as serious about coming in. The last would be having a working interview. Right. So if they don't mesh well with, if they are not competent to get the job done, obviously within reason you can train some skills. Right. But if they are just completely clueless versus what's on their resume, you do want to do a working interview to really test out. I know some practices that'll do like a full week's working interview. Make sure you're following your state guidelines when it comes to the boundaries around working interview, paying them when appropriate. But if they can't handle this process, then they're not going to be an ideal candidate for the role. Step four is one of our favorite mantras. Hire slow, fire fast. Don't rush the hiring process. Make sure you're finding the right fit. Not not just a warm body. Don't operate from scarcity. It's really difficult to do inside of this current landscape for hiring. But it's important to make sure that you're in that mental state when you're going through this process. Now set a 90 day expectation window. If they don't meet it, let them go fast. The longer you wait, the more it costs you in energy, money and team morale. One thing that we're looking at more and more and recommending again follow your state and local guidelines is potentially putting in place a contract to hire so that at first, during the first 90 days they're a contracted employee, you get to really see are they going to work well. And if they're not, it's very easy to just dismiss the contractor and not have to go through any sort of HR processes in the opposite of that. If you bring them on as an employee which is normal and the most popular way to do it. And they're not a fit. You do have to go through certain processes to course correct and it's a little bit more tedious now. It can be done. You just want to have good processes in place if that's the route you're going to go. Right. And then focus on employee retention. Are you investing in things that are going to improve culture, nurture culture? Let your team know that you value and care for them. These are all very important things to look at when it comes to the recruiting, the hiring Next, we're going to be talking more about onboarding. Okay, so actual takeaways. Write the role first, not the ad. Clarify what the role actually delivers, not what they'll do. We talked about this on last week's episode, right? The difference between who they'll be versus what they'll actually do. Okay, step number two, use your job as a filter, not as a magnet for things that we don't want coming into the practice. Make your values loud and clear. Let the wrong candidates self select out. Use AI to your advantage. And step three, layer the interview process right. There should be multiple, multiple steps to ensure that you're finding the best fit for your practice. Not just a quick phone call, not just a quick come into the office. And then there's an offer letter going out. Don't rush the hire. Each step should test for something different. Hiring isn't luck, it's leadership. It takes practice, it takes refinement, and it does take dedication. If you're looking to fast track your next great hire, you can download our sample ad template from the Show Notes. It's written to attract high caliber values aligned candidates without the fluff. What.