Now hiring
For the record I have no qualifications and very little experience but here comes my super non-expert hiring guide for all optometrists! Don’t judge me too harshly because I make these recommendations lightly =). I got the idea for writing this post after reading some article by a more established doctor who mentioned “hiring people who are committed to excellence.” Umm… I’m sure it’s nice to hire people who are committed to excellence but can you be a little more specific? So I figured I’d come up with some of my own.
Some of these tips are good and some are just half-jokes. =)
1. Hire really good-looking people
Good looking people are money in the bank. Seriously. People will come to an office with better good looking people than the office across town with people who wear torn jeans and don’t brush their teeth. So when you interview them, take one good look at them first. If they aren’t very good-looking then show them the door. JUST KIDDING. Don’t do that, that is superficial and wrong but all I am saying is that all things being equal between two applicants, you might as well hire the better looking one who can attract more patients =). I overheard one of my friends say once “Yeah, I’ve been going to see Dr. Matthews for a long time, he’s so good-looking too bad he’s married.”
But make sure to avoid the hot ones. I’ll leave that distinction to your discretion. Hot ones can have that snooty “I’m better than you” demeanor which is a deal-breaker. Hire one of those people who are good looking in a quiet and wholesome way, not great looking in a flamboyant way. Great looking people will attract more patients to your business and help your bottom line in the long run. Hopefully it doesn’t backfire though and you start getting all the creeps in your office!
Tip #1 will get me in trouble someday I just feel it.
2. Diversify your peeps!
Everywhere you see you’ll notice that “likes attract”. When I go to the mall, I see groups and many of them are dominated with a certain commonality. Certain people of a culture stick together. People who skateboard hang out with other people that skateboard. Ever notice that? Likes attract more often than opposites ( in interests, hobbies, ethnicities, height, what have you), I don’t care what Disney might tell you.
So hire people that match your community’s demographics! Do you have a large population of elderly people, surfers, and hispanic people? Hire one of each! That way your staff can relate to your community better. The key is to diversity your peeps so that people in your community more closely identify with your office. Especially when it comes to hiring people who can speak different languages. So don’t hire similar people, diversify!
Diversity is key
3. Avoid the crazies by creating small barriers
Times are getting tough. If you post an ad that you’re hiring for a position that gets paid relatively well in a comfortable environment, you might get a boatload of applications. “Great! That’s what I wanted!” you might say. But then you realize when you’re looking through 300 applications and that 95% of them are garbage. Now you just spent 4 hours reading resume’s, or worst, interviewed some of them and want to tear your hair out because none of them are good. So how do you save yourself time and stop from being bald?
Make small barriers! If they can apply via email,write that they HAVE to send their application from a certain address like gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc. This will filter out all the automatic applications from online services who simply forward resumes automatically to job listings that have “doctor receptionist” in the wording or “medical.” You can delete those who are just spamming everywhere they can because unless the application is from XYZ@hotmail.com you can just delete it immediately because they obviously didn’t read your ad carefully. You want to hire people that are detail-oriented anyway right? Well if they aren’t going to read your job listing in full and follow your rules before applying to a place they might spend thousands of hours at, why would you want someone like that?
Better yet, make them print out the completed job application and mail it to your office. It just takes a few more minutes to print the form and put a stamp on it, but most people are incredibly lazy and just this small barrier will reduce the number “non-serious” applications dramatically. Also, after the interview even, ask them to send you an email with 3 cool things every office should have (no wrong answer). I bet most will never do it but the ones that do are awesome.
Save yourself time, the applicants you’ll get now will definitely be higher quality even if it’s just as trivial as asking them to take 30 seconds to create a hotmail account. You’ll want to work with these people because they are willing to not let small barriers get in their way.
Setup small barriers to protect yourself
4. During the interview, record their voice.
Do you have a friend with a sweet voice that when you hear it, it makes you smile and like that person immediately? It’s like the Geico gecko, he’s even more adorable because he’s got that awesome Australian accent. Obviously you’ll want to hire good looking people, but some good looking people have some real snarky nasally voices.
Close your eyes and listen to their voice. Give them a script to read that they might say when answering the phone and have them read it aloud and record it. Play it back to your other staff, your spouse, whoever without them knowing what the person looks like and have them grade the voice on friendliness and clarity. Can’t have a mumbler. You want someone who smiles as they speak even if they are on the phone and the other person can’t see their smile.
Hello how can I help you?
5. Check out their ride. Is it nicer than yours or is it too nice?
You have to check out what kind of car they drive. It’s sort of a good thing when they ride a car nicer than yours. Because they can’t hate on you for making the big bucks when you drive an old Toyota Corolla, and they’ve got something much nicer. But be careful when they are riding a $100,000 car and park it in front of your office. Patients can be haters too (hater is a super technical term widely accepted in the optometric dictionary =) ) and will resent the fact that you’re making the big bucks off of their money.
So their car can be nicer than yours, but not that much nicer than your patients. While your at it, watch what type of bling they’ve got going on. In urban slang: You dun want the haters to diss your practice cuz you fools are all frontin’ mad jewelry.
So... why do you want to work for me?
6. Gotta have a high likability index. >80% of success if based on how well you deal with people.
A practice management professor once mentioned that she is often guilty of scoping out the local Denny’s for potential employees. If you can find someone at Denny’s who works their butts off, deals with dissatisfied customers all day long, and does it all for a meager paycheck but still manages to keep a genuine and sincere smile on their face all day long, that person is money in the bank if you hire them.
80% or more of your success will come from how well you deal with people, not how smart you are or how much you know or the fancy education you have. Before you hire that expert optician or even associate optometrist, the main thing you have to consider is how likable they are. You should like them a LOT and your staff should like them tons before even considering hiring them. That is really the number #1 criteria for hiring PERIOD, you have to honestly ask yourself “Do I like this person?”
Sounds funny and obvious but I bet you there are people who hire people in a hurry just because they are qualified and rush through the interview. More important than their technical skills sometimes are the seemingly harmless questions like “what do you like to do for fun?” You want a person who can carry a conversation.
The answer shouldn’t be just “yeah… I like to hang out and stuff… that’s it.”
Sorry miss your answer just got you DENIED.
7. Check them out
In a non-creepy way. If your practice is higher end and has many designer frames, hire someone who you can tell right off the bat is fashion conscious. You don’t want a guy in jeans and an “Obey Andre the Giant” T-shirt selling your anti-reflective coating and a Fendi frame. You’d rather have the stylish optician give the recommendations who is well kept and professional.
Tell them to NOT dress up for the interview in formal interview attire but more business casual. That way you can have more of a taste of how they will present themselves everyday, not just on interview day.
8. Friends, relatives = generally BAD IDEA.
Not always, just generally. Don’t hire someone who can make it a pain in the ass to fire if you have too.
9. Hire Sales people
This is very important if you have an optical. As you’re looking through the resume’s, look out for people with past experience in sales (Nordstroms, wherever). Some people are nice but are too meek to make strong sales recommendations. This doesn’t just pertain to selling goods, they must be comfortable selling your practice too. They have to have the ability to genuinely sell things like the value of an annual eye exam without the sidenotes of a “yeah, I don’t get my checkups either!” Being comfortable with selling is not something everyone can do well, so hunt for those that can.
10. Ultimately, hiring is like dating.
It might be hard at the start. Then you’ll feel great because you’re getting a lot of interest and flattering letters like a pretty girl at the bar. But then once you in the middle of it, it can get frustrating as heck because none of the applicants are “right”. You interview some and none of them work out and you want to tear your hair out because now you’re staying up until 11pm grinding lens at night all alone.
But don’t lower your standards and get desperate. Like dating that might just put you in a bad relationship you might have just caved into that might even last a long time just because you didn’t have the moxy or psychological inertia to dump them (aka fire them). You knew early on that it wasn’t perfect but decided to go ahead with it because you were desperate or got talked into it by your friends or even yourself because it was “good enough”. Don’t do it! You’re just wasting time.
But like relationships, it only takes one person for it all to come together. And when that one person finally walks through the door, life is AWESOME. If you hire the right people, life will certainly be awesome.
Finding the one amongst a pile of failed dating attempts = priceless