During high demand, dental practices can increase their staff by hiring temp workers to cover the additional work. This allows them to meet patient demands without exhausting their existing team and paying for the associated benefits. Maintaining communication with dental staff and making them feel valued and respected when considering increasing their numbers through outsourcing is important. Here are a few tips to help you do just that.
Consider Your Practice’s Needs
Finding staff is a major challenge for many dental practices. With an aging population, the shift to a service-based economy, and fewer young people joining the workforce, many dentists struggle to find qualified employees to fill vacant positions. One way to overcome this obstacle is to rely on employee referrals. This can reduce the time it takes to hire by up to 50 percent. It’s also a great way to find candidates well-suited to the practice’s culture.
In addition to using traditional recruitment methods, such as posting job ads on online job boards and local newspapers, dentists should be open to alternative ways of recruiting. For example, they may consider using social media to post job opportunities and partnering with a dental billing outsourcing company that specializes in hiring dental hygienists and assistants.
Make the Right Decision
When hiring dental professionals, making the right decision makes all the difference. A good dental recruiter will take the time to understand your practice’s culture and find dentists, dental assistants, and hygienists that fit your team. They will also help you develop a plan for recruiting and onboarding new team members.
Staffing shortages can lead to frustration, lack of productivity, and patient dissatisfaction. In addition, they can result in lost revenue. A well-designed dental staffing plan can reduce these problems, saving money on unnecessary expenses and allowing your team to focus on patients. A good dental staffing firm will provide an innovative, scalable talent solution that will meet your long-term business goals and allow you to convert the best temporary or locum team members into full-time employees. They can help you make smart decisions to ensure your patients have access to the care they need while improving team morale and reducing turnover rates. They can also help you avoid costly mistakes that damage your reputation and financial stability.
Identify Your Hiring Goals
Clear hiring goals can help you streamline your search for the best candidate. This will allow you to identify candidates based on their skills, experience, and compatibility with your practice’s culture and values.
For example, if your dental practice emphasizes a patient-centered approach to care, you should prioritize candidates with empathetic communication and problem-solving skills. These candidates can contribute to your patient’s overall experience and satisfaction, positively impacting your bottom line.
You should also consider whether you need full-time or part-time staff members, as this will affect your budget. In addition, you should include a comprehensive job description that clearly outlines the role and its responsibilities. You can also include a compensation package that is competitive within the industry.
You can consider partnering with a recruitment agency if you struggle to find qualified candidates. These specialists are dedicated to simplifying the hiring process and connecting you with top talent in the shortest time possible. They’re especially useful for filling higher-level positions, like dentist openings.
Develop a Short List of Candidates
It’s not practical or fair to interview every applicant who applies for a role, so shortlists are essential for managing the hiring process. They are a clearly defined way to select candidates that you will consider for the position and help you make smart decisions about who should move forward in the recruitment process. List essential criteria, such as education level, skills, and experience. These are the minimum qualifications you must require to fill your open role. You can also create a second list of desirable criteria, such as professional certification or specialized experience in the industry.
Once you have your list of essential and desirable criteria, review all applications and decide how many candidates to shortlist. This should be based on the time you have available to conduct interviews and the number of candidates who meet your essential requirements. When screening applicants, always be honest with them. It’s not good to lie on an application or brag about achievements that aren’t true, and you may want to double-check some information like education credentials or work experience.
Conduct Multiple Interviews
During the interview process, it is important to note the candidate’s personality traits, energy level, and temperament. Often, these are more important than the applicant’s skill set. For example, an overly confident or aloof candidate may not fit into your practice culture.
Listening to how the candidate explains their background and experience is also important. For example, if an applicant has switched jobs several times, it is important to find out why. This can reveal a lack of commitment or an underlying reason, like family problems. In addition to traditional panel interviews, the MMI (Multiple Mini Interviews) format is becoming more popular. This involves a series of short interviews that assess candidates in different stations. Each station lasts about 10 minutes and usually assesses different attributes. For example, one station might ask applicants to discuss their statements, while another might assess teamwork and communication skills. A variety of interviewers typically conduct these stations. MMIs can be a more time-consuming interview process than a traditional panel.
