Dental office managers are essential for dental practices to run smoothly. A manager’s tasks include:
- Managing policies and procedures
- Hiring and supervision of team members
- Managing the office budget
- Ensuring that patients are satisfied with their care.
Dental office managers have a big role to play in the following:
- Patient satisfaction
- Employee satisfaction
- Cash flow of your dental practice.
Let’s look at some tips to hire the best office manager for your dental practice, including detailing your job postings, having a creative interview process, ensuring your potential hire is a good fit for your team, and performing background history checks.
List Detailed Qualifications on the Job Listing
One way to avoid a lengthy list of unqualified applicants is to list specific requirements on the job listing. Examples of vague requirements are ‘management experience,’ ‘computer skills,’ or ‘management degree.’ Instead, be more specific about what you want in a perfect candidate. You may prefer a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in management or three years of management experience in a dental practice.
Do not be afraid to list soft skill requirements, as well. Examples of soft skills are: proactive, friendly, compassionate, or an excellent communicator. The goal of having a detailed job description is to avoid unqualified applicants. This will ultimately save you time and money in your search for a qualified dental office manager.
Be Creative with the Interview Process
Consider foregoing the traditional one-on-one interview behind a desk. Reasons for changing up the routine are to see if your potential manager is genuinely interested in the practice, and to evaluate how they respond and interact with the team. One idea for the interview process is to involve other team members in a peer-to-peer interview. This way, team members can ask questions and get to know the potential candidate and then provide feedback prior to hiring.
Another idea is to take the interview away from the desk. For example, consider having the interview in a quiet restaurant or park. It can be helpful to know how a potential hire behaves outside of the office. Things to make note of are the hire’s eye contact with others, behavior towards others and their ability to converse with you.
Ensure the Potential Hire is a Good Fit for Your Office Culture
Dental office managers should be friendly and approachable toward staff. Not only will they be interacting with peers, but also patients and families. If you have a dental office culture that is friendly, reliable and accepting, you will need to look for these attributes in a potential manager. On the contrary, if the potential hire gives short responses to inquiries, seems unreliable and is not friendly with the staff, you should continue searching for a better fit. As mentioned before, doing a peer-to-peer interview or outing prior to hire can be beneficial to see if the potential manager will be a good fit for the practice team.
Perform a Thorough Work History and Background Check
Once you have determined that the person will be a good fit with your team, it is time to perform a thorough work history and background check. A red flag to look out for is a spotty work history. For example, a candidate provides a work history, but has only remained with companies for a short time and has long periods of unemployment. This is not always a tie-breaker, but the candidate should be questioned about their recent employment.
Another red flag to be aware of is qualification and education embellishments. For instance, a candidate lists a bachelor’s degree in management. However, on inquiry, they only completed half of the coursework and do not have a degree. Qualifications can also be embellished. A statement like “proficient in dental software” is vague. The candidate should be questioned about types of software and specific experiences.
The importance of a background check cannot be expressed enough. Potential hires may sail through an interview with flying colors, have a decent work history, and get along well with the staff. But, on the background check, have something listed that your practice would not accept. It would be safer, easier, and less time-consuming to perform a background check early in the process and avoid problems later.
Use a Third-Party Company
Hiring an employee is time-consuming and costly, with the countless hours spent searching for the most qualified candidate. Using a third-party agency like Strategic Dental Staffing Solutions can save you time in the hiring process. SPS will meet with your team to analyze your team dynamics. Then you will be presented with a pool of qualified applicants to choose from. Let Strategic Dental Staffing Solutions help you find the most qualified dental office manager. Call or click today for more information.
