In our last post, we discussed the qualities you might want to find in your office manager. This begs the obvious question of “how do I determine up front, whether or not a candidate for the job has the skills I seek?” The skills could be the ones we discussed earlier or a skill set that you find to be appropriate for your practice.
The classic solutions are rather limited in their benefit. Anyone can fluff a resume and interview questions elicit only so much information. A short trial work period is usually impractical, especially for an office manager who has to be able to be productive from day 1. You cannot lose valuable patient trust or potential new patients while someone is in the trial phase (note: this may work better for an entry level position less critical for the daily operation of your practice).
Here’s one oft-used solution that has provided substantial benefit to us in the past, no matter what the available position or required skill set: a test. With a test, you provide a standard set of written or oral questions that the interviewee can respond to orally or in writing. For us and our practices, the resume is usually the first hurdle. The number of candidates can be narrowed substantially from the resumes. Those who make that cut will get the test.
Some ideas for setting up your test:
Ask questions, in the form of scenarios, which will give you useful information
Some companies, like Microsoft and Google, test their potential hires via somewhat abstract questions that allow them to get to multiple levels of understanding for each person. In your practice, you can afford to be concrete in your scenarios. For example, if you want to test the person’s attitude about marketing, you may ask a question like “You notice that the practice has shown a decline in new patients for 6 straight months. What would you do to solve the problem?” That’s it. Very simple. Open ended and open to interpretation. You don’t want to make the questions so narrow (or of the yes/no or true/false variety) that the answer doesn’t tell you anything.
You want to force the person to think about the question, frame the scenario and then answer the question based on that person’s knowledge and skill set.
Some other possible questions:
- To test facility with numbers, give the potential hire a range of numbers (fictional or real) and ask them to find the problem areas. A numbers person will see something to interepret.
- To test technology, ask what features they like about the latest smartphone. Even if the person doesn’t own an iPhone 5S (or the latest Samsung offering), even a minimally technologically oriented person has paid some attention to the advertising out there and should be able to have some opinion on it.
There is no “correct” answer to the questions
You are not necessarily looking for spot on accuracy, here. You are looking for the person’s ability to think through a situation and whether or not the thinking matches the attitude you want to have. For example, here are some answers we’ve gotten to the decline in new patients question:
- One respondent wrote that he would flood the airwaves with advertising to let patients know about the practice. This may be someone who wants the practice to spend a lot of money to bring in business – which may not be a practical option your practice doesn’t have a large budget. But this person does have an appreciation for the power of electronic media. If you believe in it too, this person might move on to the next step. If not, you will probably move on to another candidate.
- Another potential hire wrote that she would visit all businesses within a 3 mile radius to get them to promote our business. On the one hand, this is a somewhat impractical decision as visiting that many businesses and getting them to do a deal is tough. On the other hand, you have to like this person’s hustle and willingness to get out there and do some hyperlocal advertising.
As you can see, there are pros and cons to just about every thoughtful answer, but what you want is someone who fits your mold and attitude. These questions will elicit that type of response.
Some questions might require more correct answers than others. For example, if you are interviewing for an orthodontic assistant who has to start right away and that person cannot tell the difference between a bracket and a wire, you might want to look elsewhere – no matter how cleverly they might dance around the question. Or, if you are hiring an IT person in your group practice and you ask them to write some sample code, it would help if that code actually worked (or close to it).
Limit the number of questions to 5 – 10
If you stick someone with 1 question in 27 parts (Back to School reference, there), your top candidates may look elsewhere or the respondent might be so fatigued at the end of the test that he or she isn’t able to display their talents. Maybe you want to challenge their stamina or ability under pressure, but this may obscure other valuable information from coming to the forefront.
Consider a time limit on the response
Just about every piece of literature on being a good team member involves effective time management. Here’s a way to check that. Maybe you give them a timed test in the office or a deadline to get a written result back to you. In either event, you can at least get a feel for how well they manage time and prioritize. If you e-mail the test to a person and they take 3 days to get the responses back to you, your job is probably not a priority to that individual. Minus points there. Again, use all aspect of the test to get a feel for the type of person you are hiring.
Look out for the “too perfect” answer
When we hired in our corporate office, we would send out a test and on a regular basis, we would get back responses that required an inside knowledge of the company’s operation and relationship with a practice. Clearly, the people in this case had inside help.
Again, the point here is not to get the complete right answer or understand 100% of your practice’s policy. Systems and policy can be taught. The ability to think and have an attitude that fits are not easily teachable – if at all. When you give a test, you are looking for thought and attitude. Specifics about your practice can come later.
If you are trying to develop questions or interpret answers, feel free to ask us about it. We have done a fair amount of hiring at each level (including the corporate level for group practices) and are more than willing to give our thoughts. Contact us here.
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