Episode 790: Interview Tips To Attract The Top Talent

 DAT consultants Tiff and Denae break down the best way to hire new team members. They focus on the right mindset to approach interviews with, questions to ask to help the interviewee open up, prepping for a team interview, and a ton more.

Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:01.06)

Good morning, Danae. I think it's still morning there. It's only what 11 a.m. your time now. We're closer together so that I enjoy that. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Thank you so much for um, it's bright and early in my time. It's I mean 9 a.m I consider 9 a.m. Bright and early, um in my world 11 a.m in your time. So thank you for giving me this time this morning for podcasting with me. I love podcasting with you I know I say it often

 

Denae Black (00:09.326)

I'm doing good, how are you, Tip?

 

Denae Black (00:20.398)

I'm sorry.

 

Tiffanie (00:27.7)

But I just love the way your brain works. So I strategically go through and I pick topics for each consultant. And I definitely, definitely strategize which ones I'm gonna do with you compared to which ones I'm gonna do with anybody else because I like to see how your brain works on different things. So thank you for that. Thank you for always asking the questions, for being Dene every single time, for showing up exactly how you are because that's why we love you and we love having you on this team. So let's get started. You ready? Awesome.

 

Denae Black (00:53.983)

I'm ready.

 

Tiffanie (00:55.94)

Okay, Dene, today I have, our topic is interviewing. And we're starting off in a new year, right? New year, new year, new you, new office. And we thought it would be great to start out January with really looking at hiring, onboarding, how to create that culture within the practice and really start to prioritize the team and prioritize how you're bringing on new members to the team. So I thought interviewing would be a great podcast. I get a lot of questions from a lot of clients all the time about the types of interviews, what should I be asking?

 

Um, what should this look like? So I thought, wow, I think a podcast around this would be fantastic. So Danae, what are your feelings on interviewing just in general? Like how do you, how do you, much do you love interviewing? How much do you hate interviewing? Like what are your coming from management experience ideas on interviewing?

 

Denae Black (01:44.842)

So I would say when I first started, I hated interviewing. And truly, I hated interviewing because I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know what questions to ask. I didn't know really what I was looking for. And so once I finally got to the point where I was confident in the candidate I was looking for, I knew exactly who that person was and what I could offer them, I suddenly started to love it. But if before then, I hated it because I

 

what I was doing, I didn't know who I was really looking for, and I was just trying to fill a hole.

 

Tiffanie (02:19.504)

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I remember I was, I say I was thrown into management, like, I think they did the best that they could with what they had, and the amount of time that they had, excuse me, to train me how to do management. But I remember, I remember my manager at the time being like, Alright, tip, this is it, you're going to interview these people, I need you to hire a dental assistant. And I was like, what in the world? Like, I hadn't even interviewed myself anywhere. Like I had not been interviewed in

 

gosh, probably eight years at that point. Like I had been with this practice for a while. So I hadn't been interviewed. So I'm like, what do you maybe want me to do interviews? And I was just so scared and I hired some amazing people and I hired some people that were definitely not fits for our practice that have done and excelled in other practices all over the place in the Valley. But hiring was really overwhelming and it was scary because it's like you sit there thinking

 

You're making the best decision possible, but what if it's the wrong decision? What if you bring somebody on and they hate it or you hate them or the team just hates all of it and it's so much pressure trying to figure out who's the right fit for this position that you're trying to fill and Dene to your point. I think one of the biggest struggles with interviewing and finding the person that fit the position is that I don't think everyone, and I know I surely didn't go into it, like you said, knowing what we were hiring for.

 

Like not only do I not know how to hire or the right questions to ask, but I also wasn't quite sure the position that I was hiring for, I was kind of like in that space of building things around the people that I had and I struggled with hiring for a long time. So the interview process was like, you know, what are your hobbies? Like, what are you, where do you live? Like it was very surface level and we had to get through a lot of people that weren't the right fit.

 

to find the people that were a fit because we weren't sure how we were supposed to fill that position because we didn't know what the position was. So I know, Danae, you and I have done some podcasts on it actually, specifically. I know I've done a couple with Dana too, like really looking at what the positions are and filling the positions and not building positions around people. So I think the crew here, listeners, like if you haven't listened to those, go back and listen to them. If you're to this point in our podcast and we're to the interviewing level,

 

Tiffanie (04:36.472)

I hope that you've listened to those and you at least have an idea wrapped around who you're hiring Because like Denae said it's much easier. I think Denae to go in and say these are the things that I need from this person This is what I want them to look like. This is how I want them to act This is the culture of my practice does this person fit those things? Because the most amazing person I've experienced it or the most amazing person walks through the door I have practices that call me all the time. They're like Tiff

 

She's great. She's so amazing. She has so much experience, but she just doesn't fit these pieces or she's going to be an awesome TC and I'm like, well, a treatment coordinator would be fantastic, but are we hiring for a treatment coordinator? Are we hiring for a scheduler or a dental assistant? Sometimes people call Danae and I'm like, you were hiring a dental assistant. So now you've got a TC that walked through the door and you're like, well, maybe I can put somebody else in the dental assistant and Danae.

 

Denae Black (05:25.661)

Yep.

 

Tiffanie (05:30.84)

As you're interviewing those pieces and you see people like that come through, your clients, I know you've got plenty of clients that are hiring right now too. They're calling you all hours of the day. How do you work through that and really help them to see and guide them to see that while this person might be fantastic and have experience for a position that could be really cool, if that's not the position we're hiring for, what do we do with that information? Like what do you, what's your suggestion?

 

Denae Black (05:57.03)

Yeah. If it's not the position that you're hiring for, I definitely recommend stay in contact with them. Reach out to those candidates. Make sure that they know that when you do have that position open up, that you'll reach out to them, that you're going to give them a call, but randomly check in and say, Hey, you know, I still don't have a position open, but just wanted to see how you were doing. Keeping a really close relationship with those strong candidates in your area is going to help you.

 

fill those openings when they do come up in the future.

 

Tiffanie (06:28.28)

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Cause there's so many times I think that we get into, like we, we went into it with the right mindset and we're like, we're going to hire the right person. But then this, this unicorn comes across our laps and we're like, okay, now I'm in scarcity mindset because I don't want to lose this person, right? I don't want this person to walk away from me. I would rather build a position for this person be over staff.

 

to not fill the position that I need, my overheads up, like all of these pieces to not lose this person. Now I've gone into scarcity mindset, afraid that this person's going to find somebody else, somewhere else to work, somebody else to work for. But my opinion on that is if they were the right person, they were that unicorn that you needed in your practice, they would come when you needed them, right? And they'll still be there later if they're meant for your practice. If they're not meant for you, they come early, they come late, they come at the wrong timing.

 

Or when you're ready for them, they're not available. So I love that, thanks. Okay, so interviewing process itself. One, we know we've gotta know what we're hiring for. Like what's the position we're hiring for? Who are we looking for and what's our culture? But then nitty gritty on the actual interviewing, Denae, like what are your steps that you guide your practices through on actually getting through the interview process? How many interviews? What do those interviews look like? Like start me at the beginning. If I'm, I've just put the ad out, I've got candidates, I'm ready to call, like what do I do?

 

Denae Black (07:51.33)

So I typically say, especially in today's market, you don't want the candidate to wait too long. And so you want to make sure that you're checking those resumes that are coming through multiple times throughout the day. As soon as you get a potentially good candidate, I recommend anywhere from three to four interviews max. The first one's going to be a phone interview. The phone interview is going to be more logistical questions.

 

What are their hours physically? Where do they live? What are they looking for as far as compensation goes? Because you don't want to waste their time. Their time's also very valuable. So going through some more of the logistics to see, okay, I know that this is what your resume says. These are your skills. Now this is the position and is this something that you're looking for? Then go into an actual phone interview where then you can start to get to know them a little bit more on a personal level.

 

more real life situations, you know, how would they have actually worked through different scenarios, that kind of stuff. Then I definitely recommend a group interview with your entire team, whether that's virtual or that's actually them coming in and doing a working interview, but give your team the chance to interview them as well. Once they've gotten to that third interview, if you still feel like maybe we have some more people, right? Depending on how large your practice is that need to meet with them.

 

Tiffanie (08:46.885)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (09:12.322)

Go ahead and do a fourth interview, but I wouldn't do anything more than four. Ideally, once you get them in and you get them in for that group interview, you and your team should be ready to put an offer out, like either on that call or within an hour after it, is what I normally recommend.

 

Tiffanie (09:24.223)

Awesome.

 

Tiffanie (09:28.941)

Awesome. I love that. So the phone interview, I agree. I think that phone interview is crucial. I usually tell my practices, try to get on the phone with them or at least get, you know, a call out to them or a text message. You can throw a text message over and try to get on the phone with them within 24 hours of that resume coming in. And

 

And it kind of stinks because a lot of them will come in over the weekend. But if you're hiring and you're in that interview mode, like you've got to just be on top of it. So Mondays might get a little bit crazy. You might be looking at them on Saturdays, like whatever it takes to find the right person, you guys need to just hunker down and do it. That phone interview is crucial. And I love the way you set that up. I love getting those logistics out of the way first, because within

 

I don't know, a minute and a half of being on the phone, you've got hours, you've got location, and then you've got desired pay. So if any of those are far stretched outside of what that person was expecting to put in, you know right away if you need to move forward or not. I have had so many phone calls myself interviewing someone where I'm like, okay, well, this is our location. It looks like, you know, we're in Chandler, Arizona, and it looks like you're in Tempe, Arizona, and Danae, you know, in Phoenix, like.

 

There's no reason to drive for a dental practice from Tempe to Chandler. So there were so many times where I'm like, are you really going to drive all the way over here every day when there's, I don't know, 200 dental practices between here and there? Like, what is that? And so many times today, you're right. There'd be like, Oh, I didn't realize you were at that far. Like we are, let me tell you, my practice is like South Chandler. It's like on it's almost reservation. If you guys know Arizona. So I'm like getting that out of the way first. There were so many times that I had phone calls.

 

And then I have practices, I mean, I have a practice in Baltimore that she's got so many interviews going on and half the time they're like, oh, I'm 35 minutes away. And I'm like, that seems crazy, but they'll drive that far. So getting those questions out of the way first is brilliant. And the hours are huge, especially for practices, larger practices that are running split schedules or long days. I've got a lot of practices that'll do like three 12s. Well, does their lifestyle permit for something like that? Or are you going to be building those hours around that person? So I love that.

 

Tiffanie (11:32.436)

getting those questions out of the way right off the bat. Get off the phone with them if it's not a fit because you don't wanna waste their time like Jenay said, and you don't wanna waste your time. Questions as far as like, how are you going about either in that phone interview, if you're doing an in-person interview or virtual? I know a lot of practices are doing Zoom interviews now for like the doctor and office managers to meet the person. What kind of questions do you love to ask that really help the person open up?

 

so that you can get to know who they are because I really think surface level information on how to do your job in a dental practice is great, but like we can train that too. So how do you get people to really open up and be themselves so that you can see if they're a good fit or not?

 

Denae Black (12:17.142)

So normally my questions are always going to be centered around the core values. For example, if it's like a self-driven, if one of our core values is self-driven, I'm going to focus that question around, hey, tell me about a time in your life. And it doesn't have to be your personal life or your professional life. Tell me about a time in your life where you had to show or overcome something that was going on and you had to own it, right? Nobody was like pushing you or motivating you to do it.

 

you had to do it because you knew nobody else was going to. So I'll normally tailor those two and I definitely encourage them. It does not have to be a professional situation. I actually prefer to hear about the personal ones when I'm doing those interviews, but I always tie them around those core values because those are what, no matter, like tip to your point, no matter the dental skillset of it, those are things in order to be on my team.

 

I need every single one of the team members to have just innately inside them.

 

Tiffanie (13:16.808)

Mm-hmm. I love that and Denae are you doing that for every position because I know a lot of my doctors will tailor their questions by the position and the office managers are getting this incredible question like what you just said they're tailored around what you expect the office manager to present us and then the office manager is kind of left with this whole team that they've got in still the core values in and try to change and Manipulate and like make these people into someone so I'm thinking you know

 

that kind of a question doctors may not think to ask or office managers may not think to ask a dental assistant a question like that. So are you asking every position those same questions like that built around the core values?

 

Denae Black (13:57.114)

I'm asking every position based around the core values. As far as the like position, position specific questions, those are all going to be geared around their skillset. You know, if how long have they been doing it? Are they, do they know how to do chair side assisting? How long have they been a hygienist? Are they certified to do x-rays? All that fun stuff is going to be more skill set related.

 

Tiffanie (14:04.244)

specifics.

 

Denae Black (14:22.422)

I am so much more interested in knowing is this person going to truly be a core value fit no matter what role they're in, because that's going to tell me, are they going to be a good fit for my team?

 

Tiffanie (14:34.288)

I love that. That's smart. Okay, now team interview. I love team interviews. I love that in person working interview where they're really just hunkering down and getting to know the team and the team's getting to know them. To there's two pieces to that I want to chat around because I don't think everyone's doing team interviews. Another way we call them team interviews, because I think the team needs to interview them, they need to interview the team, but they're also called working interviews.

 

Um, I think we used to do working interviews, like no, if sands or butts, everybody got a working interview, but then the hiring game kind of changed. And we're hiring a lot quicker than we ever did before. I don't think we're always making the time for the team interview. So a couple of things, Dené. First question, how do you prep a team for a team interview? How do you prep a team for the person coming in so that you don't have biases? Right.

 

with that person coming in? I don't want them to know too much, but I don't want them to know too little. I really want to get their opinion. How do you prep a team for that team interview for that person to be coming in? What is your suggestion?

 

Denae Black (15:36.354)

So I actually don't recommend that you give them any of their background. I want the team to go to them and ask them, get to know them. What is their background? How long have they been doing dentistry? Have they always lived in the area? I want them to go and get to know them on a one-on-one level. If you're doing like a front office position, then maybe you could do a little bit of role play. You can encourage them, hey, here's a scenario. We've got a patient on the phone.

 

They've got some questions about insurance, maybe do a quick role play with them to see how would they respond. So there are some skilled things that you can throw into it. But when it comes to the team getting prepped, I do tell them as little as possible. I don't even really want them to know their name before they get started because I don't want them to go and stalk, right? I don't want them to get on Facebook or get on social media and start doing all of the due diligence because I really want them to have a completely biased opinion about who this person is.

 

Tiffanie (16:24.604)

Yeah, that's fair.

 

Denae Black (16:33.814)

before we do the digging, right? Before we go in and we figure out, okay, logistically, who is this person outside of the fact? Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (16:36.241)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah, that's smart. So it's just like Joanna's coming in on Tuesday at 11 and she'll be here for two hours. I love it. I love it. Okay, that's fantastic. Now the second side of that. So the team's semi prepped, right? The team knows somebody's coming in. The team knows I think it's good for the team to know your expectations of that. Like I want you to get to know the person. I'm not going to give you all the information. I want you guys to really give your opinion based on.

 

Denae Black (16:45.874)

Yeah. Yep.

 

Tiffanie (17:08.232)

the position that we're hiring for, this is what that position is. These are the core values, you guys remember those, we live, breathe and die by them. So I want you guys hiring for culture, I want you guys looking at that as well. So the team's prepped, the team's ready to go. Now, the interviewee coming in, what kind of prep are you suggesting for them? So what kind of prep? How long do you suggest an interviewee is there for? And then I'll leave my third question for after that.

 

Denae Black (17:34.495)

Mm-hmm.

 

Okay, so before the interviewee comes in, I do give them, I recommend, give them a list of the employees. What are their names? What are their positions? Give them an idea of who these people are, how long have they been working in the practice? What are their roles? What does the setup look like? So that they know what they're going into. And then as far as how long it takes, I normally recommend a half a day, either first thing in the morning or like lunch and afterwards, I normally recommend first thing in the morning.

 

Tiffanie (17:44.954)

Okay.

 

Denae Black (18:07.65)

So they're there during your morning huddle. They get to see and feel what you guys do first thing in the morning. Then they can do a working interview for three, four hours and they stay for lunch. But the whole team stays for lunch. It's more of like, hey, now we're gonna sit down and we're gonna start asking some more of those one-on-one questions before you leave.

 

Tiffanie (18:18.336)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (18:26.332)

Yeah, I love that. Okay, this is the big question I get asked all the time. I mean, multiple times a month I get asked this question. Do we pay for working interviews, for team interviews? What are your thoughts on that? And then I'll give mine.

 

Denae Black (18:41.238)

I do recommend that you pay for working interviews. I think this person is coming in, they're taking time out of either their current job or just their life in general. They're showing you their skillset. To me, it's an investment. You're investing in your future employee. You're investing in finding the top candidate. And so yes, I do recommend that you do pay them to come in and work those four, three, four hours when they're there.

 

Tiffanie (19:08.1)

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree with the investment, I think. And I think it shows good faith, like they can trust you, like they you, you show them that they are worth it to you just off the gates, whether you end up hiring them or not, you showed that you value their time, which is huge, I think, for employees for team members to feel valued and seen and heard. What do you suggest paying?

 

for that. I know what I suggest, what do you suggest payment wise? Because that's the second question. They're like, do I pay him $30 an hour? Well, you know, that's a great question. So what do you suggest for pay wise?

 

Denae Black (19:45.378)

So I normally suggest whatever you're offering for that position. If you're offering $17 an hour for that position, that's what flat pay would be. So yeah, whatever they would be actually accepting the position at.

 

Tiffanie (19:50.269)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (19:59.12)

Yeah, I agree, which you've already had a conversation about because you got that over and out of the way on the initial phone interview. So yeah, I totally agree. I think paying more than like having a flat rate of $20 or $30 or whatever, and it's like this is just the standard for working interviews. I think you can do whatever you guys want, whatever your heart's desire, but I think setting up the expectation for that person coming in by position and by what they're actually going to be receiving.

 

is important because you're really setting the stage for your longevity with this with this team member. So I love it. Okay. Well, I think I think some of the big pieces here guys is number one, know what you're hiring for. Who are you hiring? What are your core values? What's your culture that you're hiring for? You guys should have done that before you ever put the ads out. So you should already know that. And when you're interviewing people, make sure that we're trying to fill the position we're trying to fill. Don't just try to bring on new people to bring on new people.

 

interview I think is crucial and like Denae said getting those preliminary questions out of the way confirm the hours that they'll be working the expected location and the expected pay if you get those expectations out of the way from the get-go you guys are going to be sad I know I used to get super frustrated when people would be hired onto my personal team and they're like oh yeah they're going to work all the hours but then this person

 

didn't work Saturdays. And I'm like, what we work two Saturdays a month and like, when are we getting out of Saturdays? So make sure all of those pieces are covered and that the position, the hours, the pay, everything that you are trying to hire for is hashed out in that first initial interview. Three to four interviews max. I think three is your sweet spot. Phone interview. You can do a Zoom or an in-person with the manager and the doctor and then doing a team interview or a working interview. And during that working interview,

 

Making sure that the team knows what their expectations are and that the interviewee knows what the expectations of that person is. And making sure that they're both prepped on both sides. We do suggest paying for the team interviews, but again, that's not your own discretion. It's not 100% necessary. I just think it sets the stage. And like Denae said, it really lets them know that you have integrity, that you're there for them and that you're serious. So those are your action items, you guys. Get those together. Get a good phone interview sheet together.

 

Tiffanie (22:16.688)

I know when I was hiring, I didn't always have that. I was just winging it until one day I'm like, I need a sheet, I need something to follow, I need something that's the same every single time so that no matter who I'm interviewing, they're getting the same question so that I'm getting a result I can really narrow down and figure out who I want. So make sure you've got those sheets together. You should have a phone interview one. You should have that secondary interview questionnaire. And then, Denae, something you said was to...

 

ask the questions, wrap down your core values. I think that's huge. And honestly, you guys, we do hiring for the Dental A Team all the time. You guys know that. We've got consultants that we're bringing on. We've got sales team members we're bringing on and Denae asks the best questions. She always asks the most like thought provoking questions. I just kind of sit there and wait. I ask my like simple questions and I'm like, okay, what's Denae gonna make them think of today? So really wrapping them around the core values sincerely helps because I've seen

 

I've seen people open up on our team interviews because of the questions that she's asked and I've seen people shut down and not know how to answer it. And it really helps us be able to take the data that we had prior, take the data from that question and be like, okay, is this a good fit or not? Because when they shut down and they're like, I don't know how to answer that or they get crazy nervous or they feel like they're too seen, that's when we're like, okay, well.

 

In our company for our core values, I'm not sure that's going to fit. And it really helps us to make that extra decision. So, Denae, keep doing that, keep being you, like I said before. Get your interview sheets together. Hire quickly, you guys. Like you've got to be on it in this market. You really got to be on top of those resumes when they're coming in. So try to get a hold of those people within 24 hours. Denae, something I didn't ask that I think is important before we wrap up. Getting the team interview scheduled.

 

Denae Black (23:46.927)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (24:06.592)

can sometimes be a little tricky between our schedule and the interviewee's schedule. What are your suggestions on getting around that and how far out do you suggest you allow team interviews to be scheduled?

 

Denae Black (24:22.126)

So I would say no more than one week. You really wanna get these candidates in because they're actively looking, right? Which means they're actively looking at other practices as well. And if this is gonna be a really good fit for you, it really does need to be something that you guys prioritize as a team. Great way to do it is assign one person for them to shadow. So instead of trying to make it work for every single person that's in the practice,

 

really make find one person that they're going to be able to shadow. And I promise you, it's going to make it a lot easier to figure out where, um, you're going to be able to make that work within the next four to five days.

 

Tiffanie (24:59.872)

I love that. Okay, good. Sweet, so within one week, I totally agree. I think anything further than that, you're still gonna have to wait for a two weeks notice typically. So we're wasting a lot of time in between and there's other candidates that you could be interviewing and other places that they could be interviewing. So get it done quickly. All right guys, you've got all the tools. Go start interviewing. Let us know the successes. I think you've walked away with some amazing tips today. Danae, thank you so much for all of your knowledge, your wealth of knowledge. I know you've done a ton of interviewing.

 

in your positions within the practices. And I know you've actively helped your practices, you're consulting now, do interviews, whether you've interviewed the candidates or walking them through it. So I knew this was a really great one for you. I appreciate your time today. And you guys go rock it out. Let us know how it goes. Drop us a five-star review. Let us know how this interview process works for you. And again, I always tell you guys this, but when you drop us that review and you talk about the content within this podcast,

 

It helps other people to see is this valuable content within this podcast that is relevant to my needs. So drop that information down there. We truly appreciate it. And the people who are listening after you appreciate it as well. You guys go rock out an awesome day. We can't wait to hear from you.