In this mini-episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast, “How to Hire Your Next Rockstar Employee”, host Mara Shorr chats directly with YOU to answer some frequently asked questions about the hiring process including where to find qualified candidates, red flags to watch out for on resumes, and how to conduct the interview.

Hiring New Team Members Right Now:

One of the questions that we are getting a lot here at Shorr Solutions, as far as our consulting company is, “am I crazy for wanting to hire more team members right now.” The answer is no, we’re finding that so many of you are struggling with your team and you have been for a while. Maybe you let go of the team members that frankly weren’t working for you during COVID, and use that as an excuse to perhaps clean house, maybe you were forced to clean house. Maybe you’ve had team members that have jumped ship, either because their heart just wasn’t in the practice or because they had other responsibilities at home, but whatever the reason is we want to talk today about how to find the next best rock star to work inside your practice. So, the first thing we want to talk about is, who the heck should you be hiring. Now, the reason that I bring this up is that I find so often, people don’t really know what position they want to hire inside their practice. So, you want to really think about which position is going to solve your problem. If you are behind on accounts receivable, then somebody at the front desk is not going to solve your problem. If you are looking for somebody to assist in Cool Sculpting, then having a patient care coordinator may or may not be doing the trick for you. I know that some of this sounds really basic and really obvious but you would be surprised.

You want to think about a couple of different things when you’re looking at which team member should be coming into your practice. Number one, you want to look at your office hours. Are you limited on the hours that you’re able to be open right now because you have a limited number of providers and you’re looking for a provider that’s going to fill the gap? Are you a solo provider and you’re looking to add on because quite frankly, your time is just not spent doing an additional treatment. Maybe you’re an injector and your time is just not spent doing Cool Sculpting or you’re a surgeon and injectables just aren’t your jam, they’re not your favorite thing you want to be in the operating room cutting, and I completely understand that. Maybe your specialty is very limited right now and so the comfort level of what it is you’re able to provide is just not able to expand your practice, or maybe you have operational issues that as a provider those operational issues are bogging you down so you’re behind on things like billing and you really aren’t passionate about marketing, you don’t feel comfortable talking to your patients about price and quite honestly, you really wish you had a patient care coordinator. I want you to think about all of those different components when you look at which position you should be hiring. Are you looking to bring in a surgeon, or another physician? Are you looking for an exit strategy? Are you looking for a business partner? Are you looking for another objector an aesthetician or MA? We could go on and on with all of the different providers and all of the different levels of team members. The first thing you want to do is get crystal clear about creating that job description because without a job description you really won’t know who you’re looking for. Once you’ve crafted that job description, and it really states what it is you’re looking for and how much experience that person should have. In other words, somebody right out of school and right out of their education is not going to have a following like somebody that is three or five years down the line. Think about what level of education and what level of training, how much industry experience you’re looking for.

What to look for when you are hiring:

I have found that if you’re looking for a non-clinical position, and you’re looking for somebody that’s patient-facing on the admin side, the hospitality sector quite honestly is a really great place to pull from because they are so used to customer service, being at the forefront. I want you to consider looking at hospitality. Now, I’m here in Orlando, so I’m here in Central Florida and unfortunately, there is a significant amount of layoffs that have happened in the hospitality industry because of COVID-19. Now, if we are being honest there is a more amazing job pool of candidates out there than ever before. Really strong candidates are out there in all industries, because of businesses that have had to fold or furlough due to COVID-19. If you would have asked me back in January, all of our clients who are practices just like you all of our clients were struggling, they were struggling to find strong candidates because the good ones are already taken. You want to keep in mind that now there is this really great job pool of candidates to snatch up.

Resume Red Flags:

I’m going to talk for a second about when you go through their resume, some red flags, and things you want to look for. Now, when we go through resumes and we help practices hire, all the time. I can’t keep track of how many interviews we’ve had for our clients this past week alone because everybody is on a hiring spree right now. They want to make sure that they are properly staffed when team members have to call out because of family situations because of COVID related situations so they want to make sure that they’re properly staffed. What we’re seeing, again and again, is this influx now when you really sit down and review resumes there’s a couple of resume red flags that I really encourage you to look at. Number one, how long was somebody at their previous, I would say, three, four positions. If you’re seeing that somebody was only in their position for six months at a time, 11 months at a time, 13 months at a time. Now I’m not counting COVID layoffs, and I know I talk about COVID a lot but it’s just a state of what’s happening right now in our world. I’m not counting COVID layoffs but if you’ve seen this history over the past several years, you’re going to be the next short little blurb on their resume and that’s not what you want. You want to take a look at typos because if they’re an aesthetician and they can’t spell aesthetician, it’s going to mean that there are going to be errors in other things that you have going on in the practice, whether that is errors in charts, errors in notes errors and patient files errors and marketing. We want to make sure that we’re really keeping that in mind. If you’re looking for a specific language for them to speak, i.e. you have a heavy Spanish speaking population, make sure you put that in the job description of what you’re looking for. Feel free to ask them if it may or may not be clear, don’t always assume I know that sounds obvious, but don’t assume that they are or are not Spanish speaking. We want to keep in mind that you want to look for other additional errors in their resume. So in other words, are they just doing a copy and paste? Are they saying that they’re doing things in a practice that you might know the practice that they worked for and quite honestly you know that that wasn’t even the service that they offered because we’ve seen this, again and again.

The Interview Process:

Once you’ve scanned through their resumes I always like to set up an initial phone interview and have them call you. Have them call you because if they can’t take the time to schedule an interview and call you on the phone number, that they’re supposed to, at the time that they’re supposed to that’s going to screen them out as a viable candidate, right off the bat. So I use that as a screening technique, quite honestly, and doing that phone interview instead of an in-person interview, is going to help you with your screening. It’s going to keep you from having to waste precious time. Then, I like to follow up with an actual in-person or video interview. Here at Shorr Solutions, when we do the hiring and we assist with the hiring for our clients. We always have a phone interview, and then we always have a video interview. Part of the reason we do a video interview is that quite honestly, our team is located here in Florida, and our clients are all over the country so we really love that video interview as a way to look them in the eye because these are things you’re not going to be able to tell just on a phone interview. Do they look at the camera or quite honestly as close to the camera as we can get, because we know we might be a little bit off the field of vision. Do they look at the camera, are they fumbling around with papers, we’ve had people that there may have been two people on the interview, and in other words, it was myself and Jay Shorr. We had one person that cried four separate times during the interview. We had another person that you could tell they were reading off of papers the entire time your candidate shouldn’t be reading anything during an interview, they should know their stuff. There’s really nothing for them to be reading during an interview. Do they know well enough to send you that resume ahead of time so you also have that electronic copy, where even though they should have it and you should have it, it’s just one of those nice to have. We want to make sure that a lot of these things line up and this is when you’re going to ask them some of the very job-specific questions. Now, during an interview, we always ask, what are your salary requirements, because I don’t want this to be a discrepancy later on, where they believe that the job was going to pay much higher. Frankly, the practice is not prepared. One of the things that you are not actually able to ask and I want you to keep this in mind, are the things you’re not able to ask is, what are you currently making at your current position. It’s not actually legal to ask. Other questions you’re not able to ask are, do you have children, you can ask, are there any time commitments that we need to be aware of. Are there any specific schedules that you need to work around, so you are able to ask that but you aren’t able to ask if they’re married if they have children and you’re actually technically not able to ask them where they live. What you can ask is, do you have reliable transportation. Now, what reliable transportation looks like in New York City is going to be different than LA or Miami, and how far do you live from the practice you can’t ask where they live, but you can say how far do you live or what does your commute time look like from the practice. The reason that I like to ask this, quite honestly is that somebody that has an hour-long commute, it’s going to end up being the majority of the time too much for that. Versus if somebody has a five-minute commute that commute is far less likely to get old. You also want to ask them what benefits. Are you looking for in this position? Now you want to find out about health benefits, dental, vision, are they, needing a 401K, are there specific paid time off amounts as far as the number of days or requests that they’re going to need can they not work past sundown on a Friday and if you live up north right so if you live maybe in upstate New York, it’s going be dark by maybe 4:30 so sundown there is going to be different. Little things you want to keep in mind, and really ask about these things ahead of time because what you don’t want is that you are really settled on a candidate, and you have your heart set on that candidate, and then you find this out. I always like to tell candidates and we always tell candidates that it’s not up to us to tell you what you are worth as a human being. I do know what the practices budget is and what the practice can and cannot afford so somebody that has certain mandates, as far as salary, benefits, etc. This is the time that you want to use this as a screening process where they’re able to screen you out, and you’re able to screen them out. Ask them how they would handle drama and ask, what do your previous employers and colleagues have to say about you. What’s your previous patients have to say about you, ask them why they’re looking to join your particular business. Not just because they want to get back into your specialty, but why your particular practice. Now, I would also look into sometimes a quick Google search is going to do wonders, so I encourage you not only just to do a quick Google search but to check out the background. Now, the background check is going to let you know a couple different things so make sure again we’re talking about a criminal background check. Am I as concerned with the one DUI that they got 25 years ago? No. Am I concerned that they had several outstanding lawsuits with other practices? Quite possibly. You want to just know what you’re getting into. You also, if they are a provider you also want to make sure you know, are they currently in good standing with their boards, are they currently in good standing with their specialty. What are they going to need as far as their insurance, who are they planning on having to cover their insurance, and you want to look into what is their reputation, look online. Do they have a number of different patient complaints, for instance, from their previous practice that says this person is rude, or this person has a series of complaints about their skill set? We want to make sure that we’re looking at all of these things. You also want to make sure you ask them, when are they looking to start. They may not be looking to start until they’re a provider level. After they receive certification or after their residency, or after a fellowship, etc. They may simply need to give two week’s notice we always are okay when somebody has to give notice because quite frankly, we would want them to get more practice and very same courtesy, so make sure that you ask, when are they looking to start. Now, there are a number of folks out there who are currently unemployed, unfortunately, so they may be able to start tomorrow, whatever that looks like. You want to make sure that these are the questions that you’re asking.

Where to find strong candidates:

I’m going to go through just a couple of different ways, people ask us all the time, how can they find a really strong candidate. A couple different ways and it’s not necessarily that one is better than the rest. We personally love indeed.com, there’s a couple different ways to use indeed.com. You can either search for candidates, or candidates can search for you I really encourage you to explore both options. They are doing more with pay to play and you will have to have a little bit of a budget. Check with your colleagues, if they know of somebody in your area that is looking. That could be colleagues and other practices that you may have great relationships, or check with your vendor reps as well. You’d be surprised how many people tell their vendor reps that they’re open to a new possibility, or they reach out to their vendor reps, when the current practice that they’re at has closed, or that they currently were laid off. I would also go to conferences, start to occur in person, again, and I know that right now this is may not be the ideal time to utilize this option, but if you’re looking as you are at conferences as your industry events. Check with your colleagues, while you are there together in person. Finally, if your practice is openly searching for a new position now about if you’re looking to replace somebody that is currently still employed with your practice but if you are openly searching, I was on your social media newsletter past patients to friends, if they happen to know of somebody, any of your social media channels are also really great ways to check and see who is it that is looking in your particular industry, especially if you’re not necessarily looking for a provider level. It could be that you’re looking for somebody at the front desk. You know that we love to call that position, the director of first impressions so you really want to make sure that you leave no stone unturned and don’t think that just because you tried one avenue that you’ve checked the box and now you’re officially on as your current team. If they know of anybody that would be a great fit with your practice because they might know somebody that they would love to bring into the practice, it could be looking, especially if you already have a really great team, and to trust their judgment.

Proper Onboarding for Your New Hire:

Finally, once you find that perfect Rockstar make sure you onboard them correctly, I see this so often that once the onboarding starts and once they’re actually in the practice everything falls to the cracks, and by noon you’ve left them to go out on their own. Make sure you have a strong onboarding checklist we do this with all of our clients we make sure that we know who’s creating their email address how we set them up on payroll, who’s taking them on a tour around the practice, how long are they going to shadow somebody at the front desk. I think every single new hire should spend at least a half-day shadowing someone at the front desk. Who’s going to make sure that they are able to download all the software onto their computer and it gives them a password list, think about all the components that you want to include in your onboarding checklist, and I encourage you to have an actual checklist that you are able to go through to make sure that no stone is unturned. All of these tips are quite honestly going to help you to hire your next Rockstar. If for whatever reason, and there are so many reasons that this is just overwhelming to you. This is just it’s too much to think about and you’ve had bad experiences of bad hires in the past. Let us know let me know, always feel free to reach out, you can always reach me at, info@shorrsolutions.com where you can go ahead, contact us online on social, so we’re  @Shorr solutions, and we’re here to help.

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