Throughout the years, I have had many colleagues ask me how we here at PREFERRED have been able to hire so many good, upbeat, hard-working individuals.  The standard response……”just lucky, I guess” certainly holds some truth, but the reality is far more than luck.

In the H/R world, “performance based hiring” has long been a standard.  Most of us in the healthcare world tend to focus on personality factors and use instinct, which are also important but not necessarily the most successful way to find the right employee for the job.

How do you hire right?  Here are a few tips:      

• Industry Specific Experience:  Find a candidate with proven historical success and the zeal to continue in their chosen field.   There are always exceptions, for example, hiring techs and receptionists for practices may not require healthcare experience, but rather the enthusiasm and commitment to learn and grow.  
• Skills:  If your accounting system is a software program unfamiliar to the candidate, but the candidate tells you he or she is a ’fast learner’, you may have a problem.  In any new job, some training must occur.  Certainly you want to avoid hiring a billing person who has a great personality but who has absolutely no familiarity with CPT or RBRVS.
• Strong candidates:  A candidate’s strengths can be intimidating to other employees.  Finding the right fit for other personalities in the office is one of the biggest challenges a hiring manager must handle.
• References:  Parents, siblings and other family members do not count, under any circumstances.  Objective information must come from former supervisors, teachers, mentors.  Get details on work ethics, commitment to the tasks at hand, and learning abilities.
• Testing:  Inform the candidate that on the second interview, tests will be conducted regarding basic skills and behaviors.  This alone may weed out candidates who state they are qualified, but in reality don’t have the ability needed to meet job requirements.