Step #6 to Recruit for Your PT Practice: Manage Interviews Effectively

Interviewing candidates for your private practice can take a significant amount of time, and sometimes they may need to be interviewed multiple times before you find the right fit for your team. Whether you are conducting an interview via a phone call or a social media platform, keeping the interview process organized and well-structured is key to efficiency.

Interviewing Candidates Over the Phone

By conducting a phone interview prior to allowing candidates to step foot into the clinic, the hiring administrator can minimize time spent on ineligible candidates.  Setting the expectation that the interview will be under 20 minutes allows the interviewer to end the call if it is not likely to lead to the right fit for your team.  Of course, if all goes well during the phone interview, additional time can always be added to the call.

The second step would typically consist of inviting potential candidates for an in-person interview. This should then give you a pretty good idea of how you want to proceed and whether or not you are interested in hiring your candidate. And even if the candidate does not become a part of your team, you can find comfort in knowing that you have explored all the available options.

How Social Media Can Help

We’re all looking for ways to bring to our businesses the best talent our market has to offer.  To achieve this requires that we know who we’re looking for, and this is where social media can also prove to be valuable in the hiring process.   

By turning to social media, we can quickly vet any incoming applicant through an interview of sorts. Before even our first email, phone call, or response of any kind to an applicant, we can look to see what social media has to say – or more accurately, what they are saying via social media.

Here are a few things to look for:

• What is the applicant saying?  
  Applicants who are too vocal and opinionated may sometimes not be the best fit.  Ask yourself if the comments you see would be cause for concern if they worked for you at the time of reading.
• Does the applicant overshare?  
  Applicants who exhibit good judgment will often self-impose limits to what they share via social media.  If an applicant has their photos and posts locked down for “friends” eyes only, then kudos to them – they have a right to such privacy.
• Does the applicant exist online?  
  More and more, a complete absence of an online – or social media – presence can be a red flag.  While it’s important to consider what factors are behind a lack of online presence, a person who is completely absent online may not jive with a practice who embraces such technologies as part of their competitive strategy.
• How diverse is the applicant?
  Diversity of interests, education, and social engagement can bring to your practice a spark of energy that pushes you forward.  Evaluation of an applicant’s social presence is a good way to look at their diversity, and how it can affect your private practice, and perhaps even help it grow.

Stay tuned to next week as we conclude our series and offer suggestions on how to attract top talent through different company benefits you may not even have considered.