Since May of 2020, if you are a dental office, it might already feel like you are always hiring. But if you are one of the lucky offices that are fully staffed, you might want to read on to find out what, why, when, how, and where you should ‘always be hiring.’
What does ‘always be hiring’ actually mean?
When I say, always be hiring, I don’t mean interviewing 24/7, especially when you already have a full staff. What I mean by this is always be collecting resumes, building relationships with dental assistants, hygienists, and front office staff that could be potential applicants in the future. Also making sure your staff doesn’t turn away persons who pop in with their resumes.
Why should I ‘always be hiring’?
Prior to 2020, I didn’t believe always hiring was necessarily necessary. But, still, in 2021, we find that over 80% of owner dentists currently hiring are finding the recruitment of dental hygienists and assistants to be extremely or very challenging. And this is the biggest reason why you should always be hiring. Because hiring in a post-pandemic world is HARD.
But if that doesn’t give you enough reasons to always be hiring, here are some more.
- Your trusted assistant walks out on you or give you their 2 week notice, you will end up scrambling and hiring the first warm body that interviews with you.
- Shortages in staff causes animosity towards you and increases the overall stressors in the office.
- Patient care decreases if you are short staffed.
- Industry averages says it takes more than 60 days to hire.
When should I always be hiring?
Well… always. 😉
How should I always be hiring?
Again, ‘always be hiring’ doesn’t mean you are running interviews 24/7; it is more about resumes/data collection, networking/making connections with potential employees, and building your employer reputation. Here is how to do those things.
Resumes/data collection
DirectDental allows you to post unlimited jobs, search candidates, and request as many temps as your office needs for one low monthly membership plan. There are never any daily rates or placement fees, so they are there for you whenever you need to hire.
The tools DirectDental offers that make it easy to ‘always be hiring’ are as follows.
- All your applicants are saved to one central space. – No matter where the applicant applied from (Indeed, Ziprecruiter, Monster, etc.) they are saved indefinitely into your applicants for that job. At any time you can go back to review and call applicants.
- DirectDental emails you new professionals when they sign up on the site – If you find yourself in a bind, you will have access to persons actively looking for work.
- Temps are readily available for your office when you need them – With no daily rates to use temps, if you find a temp you love, have them work for you as often as you need. You can even mark your temps as favorites, making it easy to search for the ones you love.
- Keep job posts up all year long – With your DirectDental, you can post as many jobs as you need to. So feel free to keep your job posting up (make sure to refresh them every 30 days) so you are always collecting resumes.
Networking
Networking is all about building relationships.
For example, if you have a temp in your office that you think is just great, but you aren’t hiring…
- Message them from time to time to just check in.
- Send them Christmas/Holiday cards or any other cards you send out throughout the year.
- Let them know if any of your colleagues need temps to help keep her schedule full.
- Add them to your monthly email list.
Keeping that relationship growing will ensure that when the time comes that you need to hire, the candidates you stay in touch with are a.) really interested in working with you or b.) if they can’t work with you, they will probably try to help you fill the position by reaching out to their friends.
Meaning, very little (and fun) work could have a huge payoff.
Building your employer reputation
We have a whole post on how to build your reputation. So have a read and start doing it!
Where should I ‘always be hiring’?
I hope after reading this article that you know the answer to this.
On DirectDental, of course!
I hope you found this article very useful, and if you have other ways to ‘always be hiring,’ leave them in the comments.
Smiles,
Holli Perez
DirectDental
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