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Professional Courtesy: Hire Slow, Fire Fast by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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Hire Slow, Fire Fast
by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine
Finding a new member for your dental team can be a daunting experience. You want to find someone who will be in for the long haul, someone who will fit in with the rest of your team, and, in most cases, you want the person ASAP. The first rule of hiring should be to take your time as it has been said that it is better to "hire slow and fire fast." When you take your time with the hiring process, the hope is that firing someone will rarely be necessary. In my case, the process starts with placing an ad for employment on Craigslist. In my opinion, this is the most economical and wide-reaching employment listing available.

Once the resumes start to roll in you can screen them based on the criteria you listed in your ad. For example, if you really want someone with Dentrix experience, don't waste your time with a candidate who has never worked in a dental office. As an aside, I have had some great success with people I have hired who had zero dental experience; keep an open mind in this regard. I will usually personally call the candidates I have selected because the initial phone impression can be very telling. One of my pet peeves in this area is the people who screen their calls. I call them, leave a message on voicemail and they call back within three minutes saying they are returning my call. If you have a resume out there and you are looking for a job, you should answer every call.

The interview process begins with a tour of the office by one of our team members. I believe that in-person interviews should be as much about us getting to know the candidates as it is an opportunity for them to see if this is where they would like to work. It's not fair to expect them to work in an office they have never seen, but you would be surprised at the number of people who say it was not done in other interviews.

The second key to our interview process is the application. I have a written four-page application that asks for all of the usual information: name, address, education, work history and references. In addition, there is a signature capture for permission to contact previous and/or current employers (more on that in a minute). The most interesting thing to be learned from this exercise is how well they complete the form. Some are very neat and will fill in everything. These are the ones who want the job. Others will fill in about half the information and write "see resume" for work history. They are lazy and not likely to be hired. The reason the work history on the application is so important is the fact that it asks for things that are not listed on a resume - reason for leaving position, pay rate, name of supervisor and dates of employment (resumes often just list years).

During their in-office interviews they will meet multiple members of the team individually for a brief conversation so they can get to know each other and see if there is a match with personalities. Some offices will also consider a working interview at this time but I am not a fan. In most cases, the candidates will not be themselves during working interviews and often they do not know enough about the office to do much anyway. I would suggest a recent article from the May 2013 issue of Dentaltown Magazine on the legal implications of working interviews: www.dentaltown.com/Images/Dentaltown/magimages/0513/DTMay13pg54.pdf.

The final stage in consideration of employment is the process of reviewing references. While I think it is imperative to call references on the resume, it is far more valuable to call previous employers. They are often not the same. In fact, I will start with previous employers. In this day and age, employers are reluctant to share much information, but it is permissible to confirm wages during employment (that was on our application), dates of employment and ask if they are eligible to be rehired. I have found that employers who truly miss the employee will share much more, and when an employer is unwilling to call back or share any information, it's a red flag.

Of course there are exceptions to everything, so let good judgment and common sense be your guide. Do you have an interview story to share? Please add it to the comments for this article online. You can always reach me via e-mail: tom@dentaltown.com.

Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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