By Roy Munk

Conducting a search for a key role within your healthcare organization is a lot like ordering a pizza.

Remember last time you and a group of friends went out for a few slices? You all agreed on that trendy new spot downtown, got seated at the big booth, and opened the oversized menus.

What next?

You discuss the pizza toppings, right…Suzie wants light cheese, Bill is allergic to olives, Lisa has to have pepperoni, and you just hope to have a taste of their signature sauce. After a half hour of in-depth discussion, bartering, negotiations (and a few drinks) you order the agreed upon pie. And, when it arrives, everyone is blissful with the decision you made together!

So, why doesn’t your hospital spend as much time discussing the qualities of your dream candidate before beginning the interview process?

Have you ever had a candidate go through the interview process only have the CEO pass because he doesn’t think the candidate is assertive enough? Or, the Senior Team loves her but the Physician’s feel she needs more “for profit” experience?  Or somebody gets a “gut feeling” that the candidate won’t fit the hospital’s culture? How about this one – you find the “dream candidate” but the CNO decides at the end of the process that maybe this position should be split into two roles!

Has your organization accepted this as the norm? That this is all part of the process? That this is how everything works itself out in the end?

NO! NO! NO!

These are signs that your process is broken. Or, that you don’t really have a recruitment process at all. You are wasting time, money, resources, and hurting your organization’s reputation.

The key to a successful recruitment process is to have a plan from the beginning, just like in the pizza ordering example above: a strategy that incorporates clear, concise, and measurable feedback from all decision-makers. Your search team must all be crystal clear on the type of candidate you want and need. And, just as importantly, you must all be on the same page BEFORE one resume is scanned, one ad placed, or one recruiter called.

But how?

Your system needs to have several elements including key competency questions, behavioral testing, and objective assessments that allows the guesswork and subjective nature of the interview process to be removed.

This allows the decision-making process to become more scientific and less based on the various wants and needs of each individual. In the end, a proven method will increase successful hires and retention rates, save time and money in your recruitment process, and keep everyone from some unnecessary stress. You generally don’t order pizza ingredients that you know will give you heartburn, so why put up with similar issues in your hiring process?

To help overcome these challenges, GHS Recruiting offers a unique and innovative candidate assessment tool with our “Intuitive Recruiting Information System” or IRIS for short, that puts all the information about candidates at your fingertips.  IRIS offers things like in-depth candidate assessments, reduced costs and down-time, increased new employee retention, taking the guesswork and subjective nature of the interview process and much more.  The platform features include behavioral based assessments, video introductions and initial video screening questions, full CV/resume access with consultant comments and key facts of each candidate to name a few. To learn more about this great tool that will significantly enhance and your recruitment process saving you and your organization time and money, call GHS Recruiting at (800) 808-7297 

Roy Munk is President and Founder of Global Healthcare Services, a nationally recognized Retained and Contingency Search Firm specializing in the recruiting and retention of Healthcare professionals.