Hiring the Best
- Michael Ling
- Dec 11, 2021
- 16 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2021
ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY
Our hiring process - why and how.
BEST CASE SCENARIO IF WE ARE ALL 100% CONFIDENT
Every time we hire our team gets smarter and stronger. We make a great first impression with our new employees. Hiring is easy and enjoyable.
WORST CASE SCENARIO IF SOME OF US ARE NOT 100% CONFIDENT
We hire mediocre people because we aren't on the same page about what's important. We miss out on great people because we are indecisive and move too slow. We make a poor first impression on new hires because we are disorganized. Hiring is stressful. We all dread hiring because every new hire makes our team a little slower and a little worse.
WHAT DOES 100% CONFIDENT MEAN?
1. You can coordinate the entire hiring process (not including posting ads on Facebook) on your own, getting the right people involved when appropriate.
2. After screening the candidates, you can stand up in front of your team and confidently explain why you chose your preferred new hire.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
We are Better at Hiring than Other Dental Practices Because:
1. We know exactly what we are looking for, and don't rely on "trusting our gut".
2. We have more to offer, including better pay, better hours, and a better place to work.
3. We have a process that has been proven to work. We don't "wing it".
Our Hiring Process:
PART 1: The Job Post
Where do we post our job ads?
Our top 2 places are Indeed and Facebook. So far, these 2 sites have given us the best results.
What do we post in our job ads?
Here are some tips on how to write a good job ad:
- Write a clear, catchy headline. An irresistible headline is one that makes the reader want to click and read more.
- Write in plain English, the same way you talk. Don't worry about perfect grammar (although spelling IS important!). The ad should sound like a real person talking, not like it was written by an HR department or a lawyer. - Read job ads from other dental offices... and then DON'T do that. The ad needs to stand out. It needs to sound and feel different than the others.
- Make it as easy as possible for people to apply. We don't need screening questions, assessments, list of required skills, cover letters, job descriptions (everyone knows what a dental assistant or dental hygienist does!) or resumes (resumes are completely useless anyways). We want as many people to apply as possible. Quantity first. We will screen them for quality later.
- There are no bonus points for being original. If you have an ad that works, keep using it. Recycle old ads, combine parts of different ads, or tweak them and try them again.
We keep a library of our favourite job posts here:
How Can We Promise Better Pay and Better Hours?
One of our most effective job post headlines is "Guaranteed Better Pay and Hours". Would you be able to resist clicking on a job ad that guaranteed better pay and hours? That's what makes this a great headline!
Why does this work?
- People who are changing jobs want to feel like they are moving forward in their career. Nobody wants to make a sideways move, or a step backwards.
- Most dentists are cheap and try to low-ball new hires. They try to pay as little as possible.
- Most dentists try to start new hires at a low wage and then promise them a chance to earn raises later... which likely never happens.
- Most dentists think that they can pay employees with "opportunities for growth" rather than cold hard cash.
- Employees these days are sick of these games. They want to be treated with respect and feel like they are valued.
But how can we make this promise?
Our hours are almost always better than any other office. Even if they're not, as long as their new hours aren't getting significantly worse, new hires are willing to let that slide.
For better pay, it's simple. If you find a great candidate that you want to hire, find out what they currently make, and then offer them a little bit more. If you don't think they are worth that much, then don't hire them. Find someone else.
How Do People Apply?
There are 3 main ways people apply:
1. By filling out a form on our hiring website (www.drmichaelling.com/team). These applications automatically get added to the Job Applications Google Sheet.
2. By applying on Indeed. Indeed has its own dashboard with a list of applicants. These applications do NOT get added automatically to Google Sheets - we need to add them manually.
3. By emailing us directly, or dropping off a resume in person, or through a friend. They don't fill in any formal application form. These applicants need to be added manually to Google Sheets.
Why Resumes are Useless, and What We Do With Them
Resumes are a very old fashioned way of screening job candidates. While most employers still use them to determine which candidates deserve an interview, these days resumes are almost entirely useless.
As you read this guide to our hiring process, you will see the skills and qualities we look for in new hires. These are the types of things you can not find on a resume. In fact, the only thing a resume tells you is how good the candidate is at writing resumes.
There are only 2 things resumes are good for in our hiring process:
1. To make sure the candidate has the necessary certification. For example, Level 2 DA or RDH. If not, then you don't need to waste time contacting them. Just send a "no thanks" email.
2. To see if they've worked with anyone we know in the past. If so, we might be able to get some insight into their skill level from an ex-employer or ex-teammate.
What Happens After Someone Applies?
- Email or call them. If you don't reach them, ask them to email or call you back.
- Enter your contact with them in the NOTES column in the Google Sheet.
- If you don't hear back within 48 hrs, call them again. Sometimes emails get sent to spam.
- If they don't respond to our second contact within 48 hours, then they are not interested. Move them to the NO THANKS tab on the Google Sheet.
How We Keep Track of Job Applicants in Google Sheets
Here is a link to the Job Applicants Google Sheet (if you need access, please ask Mike):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FaPeAnuMbDfaRSx_VYwLVaXQbAl4mGwae67LiYFGWcA/edit?usp=sharing
What We Look For: The 3 C's
We came up with the 3 C's after looking back at hundreds of previous coworkers and job applicants. We examined what our best experiences with coworkers had in common, and what our worst experiences had in common. We discovered that people with these 3 qualities have the highest chance of success:
Chemistry - Do we like them?
Character - We we believe in the same types of workplaces?
Capability - Will they be as good or better than our current team?
PART 2: Do We Like Them? (Chemistry)
Our first contact with the new hire is a quick phone chat. This is not a formal interview. It's 5-10 minutes on the phone just getting to know each other. You can think of it as a 5 minute "coffee date" over the phone.
If someone is completely inappropriate, and there is zero chance of them working out, then send them a "no thanks" email.
But be careful of making a quick judgment. Almost all candidates pass this step. If there is even a 1% chance of them working out, invite them to the next step - the team meet and greet.
(Remember: We want to move quickly. Rather than ending the call, thinking about it, and then calling the patient back later to schedule the next step, just schedule it right away while you are both on the phone.)
The Team Meet and Greet
The Team Meet and Greet is an informal, 1-2 hour visit to the office. The candidate can spend some time watching, walking around, and talking to our team. We want to show them what life is like in our practice. Usually we have the candidate come just before or after lunch, and stay for lunch. That way we can sit down and chat with them without patients around.
If candidates can't come during that time because of their current work schedule, then we can arrange another time during the day, or even after work.
Who Needs to Be At the Team Meet and Greet?
Ideally, if we are hiring a dental hygienist, then at least one of our current dental hygienists is available that day to chat with the candidate. But remember, speed is critical. So it's more important that we get the candidate in as quickly as possible. As long as SOME of the team is there to meet them, that's fine. The rest of the team can meet them some other time, if they continue with the next steps of the process.
What Are We Looking For at the Team Meet and Greet?
At this point in the hiring process, we are only looking for one thing: Are they likeable or not?
Remember the Dinner Party Test from the video above about the 3 C's: Would you look forward to having dinner with this person and their spouse?
The Team Meet and Greet is not a job interview. We don't care about their skills and talent and experience, until we know that we like them.
Do they make a good first impression?
Do they have positive attitude and body language?
Do they have the right level of energy? Not too much but not too little.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
1. Blamers - It's always someone else's fault (their boss, their team, their patients, the economy, the weather, the competition), but never their own.
2. Complainers - They speak negatively about their previous team and employers. They ignore their mom's golden rule: "If you don't have anything nice to say...". It's ok to be critical, but there's a way to give feedback in a positive way, not in a complaining way.
3. Shockers - They speak openly about topics (politics, religion, sex) that are inappropriate for the workplace, and especially for co-workers who are meeting for the first time.
PART 3: Do They Have Enough Talent? (Character and Capability)
We only dig deeper into a candidate's skill and talent level if they pass the previous step and we decide they are likeable.
If we don't like them, then no matter how skilled they are, they just won't fit in long term.
The Team Dinner
The next step in the hiring process is the Team Dinner. At this dinner, we will be a bit more structured than in the Team Meet and Greet. Since we already know we like them, we are now going to investigate their talent.
We prefer a Team Dinner to a traditional in-office interview because candidates tend to let their guard down when sharing a meal. A traditional in-office interview is stuffy and fake. We have prepared questions and they have prepared answers.
A Team Dinner is more of a conversation than an interview. We do have topics we'd like to discuss (see below), but the candidate tends to be much more authentic with their responses.
Who Should Be At The Team Dinner?
Schedule the Team Dinner based on the availability of the key people - the candidate, the interviewer, and whoever else on the team needs to be a part of the interview process. And then send out an invite so anyone else who wants to join can come too.
We define their talent by the second and third C's: Character and Capability
What Does CHARACTER Mean?
Do they believe in the same type of workplace that we do?
We like people who have been through some rough personal or professional situations before. These people tend to have a better understanding of what it means to be part of a great place to work, and what it means to be a great person to work with. They've been forced to develop resilience, grit, and character.
We don't have as much success with candidates who have rarely been forced to deal with adversity. They love their current workplace, boss, and coworkers, but they just want more money or a shorter commute. They haven't developed the character required to deal with the inevitable rough patches in their career.
Questions to Ask to Dig Deeper into CHARACTER
- What's missing in your current job that's making you look for something else?
- What could your employer do to change your mind?
- What do you think they would say if they knew you were looking for a new job?
- Who is the best/worst manager you've ever worked with?
- Who is the best/work coworker you've ever worked with?
- If you could change one thing about your current workplace culture, what would it be and how would you change it if you were in charge?
- What's the #1 source of conflict and drama on your team?
- What makes a really good/bad day at work for you?
- What drives you crazy about your manager/coworkers?
- Who on your team is underappreciated and deserves a raise?
- If you could bring one person from your old job over with you to your new job, who would it be?
- If you were to leave for a new job, who on your team would you miss the most?
- What are some ways that your manager/coworkers make your job harder/easier?
- What are some things about your job that you wish your manager understood better?
What Does CAPABILITY Mean?
Do they have the potential to be at least as good, or even better, than our current team?
We only hire people who make our team better. We don't want people who lower our group's brainpower or talent level.
The 3 main things we look for to determine someone's capability are:
1. Are they coachable? We do things a lot differently than most dental offices, so they need to be open minded, understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and not stuck in their ways.
2. Can they build trust and connection quickly? Our entire practice is based on building trust with each other and with our patients.
3. Do they have enough brainpower? Our jobs require mental focus. We aren't interested in book smarts, but they do need to have street/clinic smarts in order to keep up with the rest of the team.
Questions to Ask to Dig Deeper into CAPABILITY
- If you could change one thing to make your average work day easier, what would it be?
- What pointless rules at work do you wish would go away?
- What kinds of things do you do today that are completely different than last year?
- What are you really good at today that you were really bad at a year ago?
- The last time your team brought on a new hire, what was your role in helping them get up to speed?
- When is it ok and not ok to run behind in the schedule?
- Have you ever had 2 patients show up for an appointment at the same time by accident? What did you do?
- What's the very worst day you've ever had at work, where it seemed like everything went wrong? What would you do differently next time?
- What's the very best day you've ever had at work? Why do you think it doesn't happen like that every day?
- Tell me about your favourite patient from last week.
- Tell me about your worst patient from last week. What would you do differently next time you see them in your schedule?
- What unpopular opinion do you have about dentistry? How would you convince me you're right?
- Tell me about a patient that got really upset about something. What would you do differently next time?
- Tell me about the most boring staff meeting you've ever been a part of. What do you think they should have done differently?
- Tell me about the best staff meeting you've ever been a part of. Why do you think they aren't always that good?
PART 4: Closing the Deal
Only schedule a second interview if absolutely necessary. 99% of the time we have enough information at this point to make a decision. The longer we drag this process on, the greater chance there is that the great candidates get snatched up by another office.
Offer the candidate an employment agreement, based on our template. Be sure to change the highlighted fields in the document for the new hire.
We're Not Done Yet!
Choosing a new hire is only half the battle.
Once they join our team, it's our job to make sure:
They have the support, training, and coaching they need to be successful
They demonstrate the Chemistry, Character, and Capability that we thought they had when we hired them
Hiring is just an educated guess. Use the first 90 days to "double check your work", and confirm whether you guessed right, or whether you need to go back and try again with a new hire.
The test we use to decide if we've made the right hire or not is to ask yourself this question (adapted from how Netflix screens their new hires):
If this person were to give their two weeks notice, would you fight hard to keep them? Or would you secretly be relieved?
WHAT IF...
You aren't getting ENOUGH candidates
- Try other job boards. Our main ones are Indeed and Facebook. But where else can you post the job? Monster or Ziprecruiter or similar? Are there dental associations for hygienists, assistants, etc that have job boards?
- Increase the budget on the job posts to get more exposure.
- Try writing an entirely new headline for your job post. The goal is to have a headline that is short, clear, and makes the reader want to click to read more.
- Try writing an entirely new job post. Give applicants a reason to apply for YOUR job posting instead of all the other ones. Be careful of adding too many job requirements that might be scaring away potential candidates, even if you say those skills are "preferred".
- Make it easier to apply. Eliminate any obstacles like skills assessments, resume requirements, or any other extra steps.
You are getting way too many candidates, and it's taking too much time to screen them all.
- Add some obstacles to weed out candidates who aren't serious. For example, you can send an email asking them to send you a 60 second selfie video introducing themselves and telling you something you can't read on their resume. Only about 1/3 of applicants follow through with this, cutting down your applicant pool by 2/3.
- Use automation. You can set up automated emails that get sent once the candidate applies. That way we only talk to the candidate if they reply to that initial email. About 20% of candidates will not.
- Ask for help. There are lots of people on the team who can help you with many of the stages of the hiring process.
- Do a group interview. If you have 10 or more decent candidates, or people who have at least some potential, then it's worthwhile to do a group interview and meet them all at the same time. We can discuss how this works when the time comes.
You are losing good candidates to other offices
- Sometimes it's ok to lose candidates. We want people who REALLY want to be part of our team. If they prefer somewhere else, good for them!
- Other times, candidates choose somewhere else because they are afraid of being left with no job at all. So make sure that you are moving FAST through the process. Make decisions QUICKLY - within minutes, not days. And make sure the candidate knows where they stand - if we tell them that they are one of our favourites and that we expect to make a final decision within a week, they are more likely to wait.
- Did you do a good enough job selling the candidate on what we have to offer? We truly believe this is the best place to work. Why would someone choose somewhere else? If they do prefer somewhere else, then either they aren't the right fit for us, or we didn't do a good enough job showing why we are the best.
You have more than one great candidate
- Is there an opportunity to hire them both? Sometimes it's better to hire someone 6 months too early than to lose out on someone we really like.
- Is there an opportunity in another one of our practices?
- Is there an opportunity to hire them for a different role in the practice for now, and then move them to their preferred role later?
- Ask for input from someone else. Present your case for and against each candidate, and ask someone to poke holes in your theories. Sometimes they can see something that you missed.
- If you can only hire one, and can't decide, flip a coin. Hiring is just an educated guess.
You have a great candidate, but it didn't quite work out this time
- Keep them on our Prospects list on the Google Sheet. We will stay in touch and reach out to them next time.
- Invite them to follow Mike on Instagram or LinkedIn (@drmichaelling). That's where they can be the first to find out about future job openings. But more importantly, that's where they can see posts about what it's like to work at Smiling Dental, and what kind of workplace we believe in.
You found someone who is awesome and you want to skip the rest of the process
Our hiring process is like cooking with a recipe. First you have to learn the recipe and understand why and when you need each ingredient. And then you will also understand when it's ok to break the rules and improvise.
Good cooks know how to follow the recipe. Great chefs know the recipe by heart, but don't need to follow it step by step. They know how to adapt the recipe for the best result in each situation.
There are times when we:
Skip the hiring process entirely
Tweak the process
Add extra steps to the process
For example, if we know a candidate really well, and we already have enough information to decide whether they possess the Chemistry, Character, and Capability that we are looking for, then why make them jump through extra hoops?
You skipped the process, went with your gut, and the new hire worked out great
If you skip the entire process, without even talking to the candidate you can flip a coin to decide whether or not to hire them and you will be right 50% of the time.
If you just chat with the candidate, don't follow any process, and "trust your gut" because you can read people, you will probably be right 60% of the time. (Be careful of the misconception that you can "read people". Have you ever met someone who didn't think they could read people? But if everyone thinks they have a sixth sense for reading people... the laws of statistics say that half of us are wrong and are grossly overestimating our skills.)
The reason we have a hiring process is to remove some of the uncertainty and stack the odds in our favour. If we follow this process, our success rates with new hires rise from 50% to 80%.
Hiring is an educated guess. There is no way to be certain someone will or will not work out. But an 80% success rate saves us a lot of time, money, and stress compared to a 50-60% success rate with no process.
The danger is that you don't follow the process, get lucky and win the coin toss, the new hire works out great, and then you decide that you don't need a process next time. Hiring is too important to "wing it" and leave to chance.
You followed the process, but your new hire didn't work out
See above. Our success rate with this hiring process is about 80%.
Think back to the new hires who have joined us. We are always very excited when we hire them - if we weren't, we would have chosen someone else.
But after working with them for a couple months, we realize that about 1 in 5 of them don't work out. This is normal. It doesn't mean the process doesn't work.
Remember the Netflix question from earlier in this document:
If this person were to give their two weeks notice, would you fight hard to keep them?
If the answer is NO, then it's time to let the new hire go and try again. You can either go back to your pool of candidates, or post a new job ad.
As we get smarter and better, over the next 10 years we will continue to refine our hiring process so we can increase its accuracy from 80% to 90+%.
The hiring team can't agree on which candidate to hire
Before starting, agree on who will make the final decision on the new hire.
The rest of the hiring team is encouraged to provide their feedback, and to help you look for blind spots and biases.
Seek feedback from others in the structure that we've established - Chemistry, Character, and Capability. Remember - there are dozens of skills, qualities, and mindsets that contribute to a candidate's long term success. It's easy to get distracted and over analyze. That's why we established before we started that THESE 3 things - Chemistry, Character, and Capability - matter the most. If the candidate checks these 3 boxes, they have a VERY high chance of success.
Remember that this is not a democracy. In case of disagreement, we don't hold a vote or go with the majority. If YOU are responsible for making the final decision, then YOUR vote counts 100%.
You will never be criticized if you follow a good process and your new hire doesn't work out. We already know that even the best candidates fail 20% of the time. If you can confidently defend your decision in front of your peers, then it is a good decision.
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