Beyond a Resume: Rethinking the Hiring Process – Episode #507

When hiring, does past practice experience eclipse key performance factors like learning speed and the ability to handle stress? In a tight employment market, focusing more on natural talents and strengths can help you secure top talent. On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan talks with Dr. Michael Neal, Founder of Build My Team, about how to find the right people for your practice.

Show Notes
Build My Team

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Well, thanks for being here, man. Let’s kick this off with a little bit of an intro. Dr. Michael Neal, which, yeah, thanks for taking some time. How about give our audience a taste for your background, what brought you to this point? I’m always curious what you did in your own professional clinical life before you got to the other stuff that you got to, but take it wherever you’d like to.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Absolutely. Well, first of all, I’m a practicing optometrist. So why the heck is an eye doctor on a dentist show? I think that’s a elephant in the room. I think that’s probably an elephant in the room we get out of the way right away. So I see patients in our private practice. We have a private practice in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and we’ve always had problems getting great people. So back in 2018, I started unintentionally, a process to find excellent people, recruiting them essentially based on talents and strengths, their natural talents and strengths, not using resumes. So that led to creating a process, now a company that is North America wide, where we do that as a service for health care practices. Dentistry, eye care, we’re in nine different health care orthodontics, nine different health care professions. And basically the whole concept is that the practice needs an unlicensed position filled. We go out, find the top talent using their natural strengths and talents. And we run them through an incredibly detailed screening process that we developed and send those finalists over to the practice. So we can talk more about that, but that’s the general overview.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, no thanks. That’s a good peak of what we’ll be getting to. What led up to that in your career? I mean, our audience, and you’re probably familiar with dental since you do hiring in that sector too. I mean, our audience, a lot of their businesses are doing as good as they’ve ever done, but it’s as expensive as it’s ever been. And finding the right people and keeping them is maybe one of the main topics that everyone’s talking about. How did that kind of evolve in your own practice in your life. Yeah, okay.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yeah, well, first of all, you’re not alone. That is, I’ll tell you, that is definitively identical across all of the healthcare professions we’re in. So how did that start? Well, in private practice in a small area, you don’t have a talent pool. We had a talent puddle. Used to be about six inches deep. Now I’d say it’s about three inches deep and getting the drought is here. So finding talent, what we were never able to do in a small area is find experienced people. And that turned out to be a massive blessing. What we did instead was started to look at how do we find the terrific superstars that are just out there applying to the position that we would have open, but how the heck do we know if they’re good at the job or not? The problem were resumes. And this was a categorical nightmare for our practice year after year after year. We brought in all kinds of different people. I mean, look, if you’re in private practice in dentistry, you know that there’s no such thing as an easy HR day.

You just, you know, it’s almost like, boy, nothing happened today. Well, what’s tomorrow gonna look like? You know what I mean? Like, it’s a push. Right, right, exactly. So with our practice, we started to take a look at how other companies do it. Like Four Seasons, the hospitality, amazing hospitality chain, Disney, Ritz-Carlton, how those types of companies did their hiring because you go to a place like each of those and you are almost guaranteed to have a phenomenal customer service experience, right? Like they’re obviously doing something differently. What the heck are they doing? And did  some serious reverse engineering on their hiring processes. And what I found out is that they don’t use resumes to start either. We were hiring upside down. We’re doing it all backwards by using resumes. What they did instead is they asked the applicants to go through, uh, um, basically a screening process that would determine what they’re naturally good at. And we created a process that has been refined over the years.

And now we reject about 97% of applicants because it’s that accurate. That’s how detailed this is, yeah. So the process that we have now, which I alluded to in the beginning, it starts with a discussion with the dentist or the practice manager as to what position you’re looking to hire. And that is done with our team members, all free of course. And then once that’s determined, if we can help the practice.

Ryan Isaac:
Wow, okay.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Like for example, we don’t hire dentists, we don’t hire docs or licensed positions. Yeah, our company focuses exclusively on the unlicensed positions. So your front desk team members in certain states, your dental assistants, billers, practice managers, all of that type of position. And we do that with a consultation and then our team members write the job description we use special language to get those applicants in the first place. That’s step number one. Then every single one of those candidates, as soon as they hit the application button, and it doesn’t matter if it’s at three in the morning, our automated software will send them a text message and invite them to apply to our assessment process. Now, as soon as they do, they start that, it takes a couple of minutes, they go through the assessment process and the first thing we’re looking for is do they have a healthcare mindset? Do they enjoy helping people? There’s a whole bunch of different components to that, but the main one is do they enjoy helping people? And you know, if you’re listening to this right now, I say, well, of course they would. They applied it at my dental practice. Eh, wrong. No, unfortunately, truly unfortunately, they’re looking for a stable job. They know that you’re not going out of business. You survived COVID, so you’re definitely not going under. They want to work in air conditioning. They like a nice healthy office, et cetera. But you can’t take for granted that they enjoy helping people. And as we all know, if you don’t like helping people in healthcare, what are you doing?

Ryan Isaac:
Wait, I’m curious, do you find, like in your own practice and then through all of this other hiring, you actually find a high amount, high percentage of people who at their core, that’s not like maybe one of their driving values or priorities of like helping people but they’re applying to healthcare jobs where that’s kind of like the main thing. That’s a really common thing.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Absolutely. I’d say 30 to 40 percent wash out based on that. Yeah. But I’d like to point out, take this little moment to say you’re reading a resume. How can you tell that? You have no clue. So those people exit.

Ryan Isaac:
You wouldn’t know. Yeah, there’s no way. Yeah, because maybe they’ve been in three other dental offices before that. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Oh, I think there’s story after story on those people from the dentist listening to this. Of course. Yeah. So so those people wash out of the process and the next thing we’re testing is their speed of learning. Why do we do that? Well, we want people who learn quickly not too quickly if they learn instantly. They’re never going to survive in a dental practice because it won’t be challenged enough. If they don’t learn very quickly, then you’re going to have Groundhog Day with them every single day as you’re trying to train them. They’re just not going to retain the information. There’s a sweet spot and we actually measure that. So assuming that they pass that next level, they move forward to further on in our assessment. If they don’t, they’re gently offloaded from that area. So we’re also looking for things like all kinds of critical performance factors in your dental practice. Are they warm and friendly with patients? Do they follow procedures and policies consistently? Can they handle details and paperwork? Are they bored by extended routine? What’s their follow-up like? These are the types of questions we’re getting answers to. Now, take for example, they don’t have strong follow-up. Okay, so you’re the dentist talking with them. I know on my side, when I’m talking with one of my team members, I say something, it’s as good as done. I expect it to be done. And I’m not trying to be arrogant here, but there’s an expectation that the team member will complete the whatever I ask them. Now if they have strong follow up, they do that naturally. They become uncomfortable if they’re not able to do that. And this is really fascinating to see an action. If they don’t have strong follow up, eh, we’ll move on to the next patient. Probably not going to ever get caught. Well, that’s a nightmare waiting for you on the billing side, the what the Google review side, you know, it’s all coming down the pipe. We’re also measuring things like how they handle stress.

And that’s a fascinating thing to measure because it is incredibly predictive for how they’re going to work out in certain offices and in certain roles within the office. So for example, um, front desk position generally tends to be extremely stressful in an office. Doesn’t matter if you’re in dentistry or orthodontics or anywhere else. You got patients walking in, you put your helmet on, you know, your, your flack jacket on, and you got to,

Ryan Isaac:
Oh. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Do your best to withstand all of that stuff. Now, if they don’t handle stress well, they’re not gonna work out. You just hired somebody who’s gonna leave the position in a couple weeks or slightly longer. If they handle stress and it’s no big deal, that’s absolutely amazing. They’re going to move forward in that position. And we know each of those things, and we get to the point where we know so much about the candidates that we know more about themselves, especially if they’re more than they know about themselves, especially if they’re younger candidates. So we’re also doing other things like asking them some flat out logistical questions. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Do you mind if I pause there? I’m curious about a couple of things. In the list that you’ve given so far, handling stress, having follow-up skills, couple of the other ones, are any of those trainable? Maybe this is something you’ll get to and we can push it for later, but are any of these things like, it’s the right person, but they don’t quite, maybe they don’t handle stress well, or maybe they don’t show like strong follow-up skills, but are any of these things trainable or are these kind of like non-negotiables and they can’t develop later.

Dr. Michael Neal:
You can influence slightly, but if you’re trying to take a round peg and put it into a square hole, you’re not gonna get anywhere. What ends up happening is that person becomes very frustrated because they’re asked every day, eight hours a day to be inauthentic, somebody they’re not. How does that work out? I mean, it works out for them because they leave. It does not work out for the practice. So there’s a little bit of, obviously there’s wiggle room. We’re dealing with people here. But you can’t take somebody who does not tolerate stress, put them into a stressful position and expect them to turn a dial where all of a sudden they can handle that stress. It just doesn’t work. That’s the wrong person for the job. Now, we can flip that around and say, maybe you have two positions open in your practice. One requires a person who can handle high stress, one doesn’t. Maybe if that round peg is a round peg and a round hole in the other position.

Ryan Isaac:
True, yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
So what our team will do is they’ll alert the practice to like, Hey, we have a fantastic candidate here, but we don’t think they’re a terrific fit for the one position. We think they’d be a fantastic fit for this other position, that type of thing. And I’ll give you an example that happens all the time in, in my practice, which I have exact statistics on almost exactly half of the candidates that we have coming in to a position, don’t get that particular job they get switched to a different position within our practice. We do this almost exactly half the time. Now, why does that happen? Think about it from the candidate standpoint, they’re applying to an open position based upon usually reading the title of the job. Maybe if you’re lucky, they get into the first paragraph. These folks are not reading the entire job description most of the time. So they apply because your practice is closest to them. They recognize the name of your practice, whatever it might be, but it’s not because they have thoroughly prepared and read that job description most of the time. So by doing that, we take those natural strengths and talents and we’re able to shuffle them within the job descriptions. The old metaphor is getting the right people on the bus. Well, we can also help with getting them in the right seats on the bus. And that’s where you start to see some magic.

Ryan Isaac:
So 50% in your own practice. That’s the statistic. Wow. That is kind of surprising. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yep, it is. Yeah. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we’re also looking for other things that stop the candidates from wasting the practices time. So I’ll give you an example. What hourly income are you hoping to receive at this place of employment? That’s one of the word for word questions that we ask. And this is all again, automated through our software. So if the candidate’s looking for, let’s say 17 bucks an hour, and you’re willing to pay them 22. Our team would tell you right off the bat, don’t. But also, don’t pay them 17. We would suggest 18 bucks an hour. They’re gonna be thrilled that you gave them more, and all of a sudden you’re saving a whole bunch of money. So there’s a discussion there that comes from them putting the first number on the table. Flip that around. You’re looking to bring them in for, let’s say, 25 bucks an hour, and they want 35 bucks an hour. It’s a full stop. That’s not going to work. So that person would exit the process because it’s simply not going to work. We’re also asking them things like, what’s your commute time? Now, in let’s say New York City or LA, you’re going to have different commute times versus the middle of Nebraska or rural Pennsylvania. Exactly, but we have to know that because they’re going to be driving by all kinds of different other places where they could earn a living.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, different tolerance. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Especially healthcare practices. So for example, they’re applying at your dental practice But they’re also applying at my eye care practice the chiropractor down the road the medical doctor’s office down the road candidates don’t Fall in love with one of the professions generally what they fall in love with is an indoor really nice office environment And so we’re not only competing against like your practice is competing against other dental practices for the positions but also other healthcare practices as well. And we also, one of the questions is really straightforward. And I can’t tell you how much this is utilized in our process. Our office is typically open the following days. And so we list the days and the hours that the practice is open. The question is, are there any days or times that you’re unable to work? Well, if you’re a candidate that is very hard worker, you’re fantastic. You think the world of yourself and you’re really excited to contribute to your practice Tuesday and Thursday between 10 to two, but you expect a two hour lunch. Guess what? It’s not going to work out. It’s another candidate. Another candidate might come in and say, well, I can do those hours except I can’t work Thursdays after 3pm because my babysitter, this, no, all those folks are out. The reason we do that is not to be mean or otherwise, but we have created a process that finds performers and those performers are a candidate who’s going to perform in your practice has to be there. They have to actually show up for work. And so if they’re unable to work those hours, they might be a terrific person, but off they go from the process. So when all of that is said and done, the finalist candidates are sent a video interview and they complete a video interview that our team reviews.

In that video interview, we’re looking for things like would they properly represent your practice? Are they is there any like red flags that we would be concerned about? We don’t care if they’re black white green pink purple. It doesn’t matter. None of that stuff matters What matters is how they will represent your practice and then only when that entire process is done That’s when we send them over to the practice to either interview or just move forward and hire based upon those results and we also send over what’s called an insight report and that’s the deliverable on these candidates that walks the practice through all of the different things that we know about them, what their natural strengths and talents are and why they would be a great fit for the position. So at the end of this process, you compare and contrast that back to an interview. And to a resume, who’s going to win me. You can tell in a hurry that the practice that goes through this process is bringing a completely different level of candidate into the practice than if you go through a resume and an interview process.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it’s totally different. I want to ask some questions on that. But one thing in my mind a little bit, you’ve mentioned twice, and it’s really topical to our audience because many of our audience and our clients are owners. Or I was going to say owners of the buildings they work in, many of them lease too. But they’re constantly having to update, I’m sure like other medical professions, update their practice, their spaces, their waiting rooms, their technology, the paint, carpet, whatever. You mentioned twice that a leading factor in what makes people choose a job is just how nice the place is that they’re working. Um, the environment, how comfortable it’s temperature, the look and the feel of it. Maybe the design, I don’t know. Do you want to speak to that at all on maybe the importance of keeping up just the way the office looks aesthetically with design and decor and updates and the factor that plays?

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yeah, I think that’s important, but it’s one of the two main factors. What they want to do is walk into a practice that looks inviting, um, similar to how a patient would experience that. I mean, God bless you. If you have wood paneling all over your practice, there are some areas of the country where that’s ideal. I would argue that that’s not ideal in a lot of areas of the country. And so things like that are potentially problematic for candidates. There’s the other side of this. And the other side of it is, your practice by going through the build my team process is now showing that you’re extraordinarily deliberate about the type of people that you’re going to allow to work with you. And that process by being so picky about the people that are on your team, it’s incredibly magnetic for the high performers who are applying. They’re sitting there thinking, well, geez, if I got to jump through all these hoops, I must be working with some real fantastic people, like really fantastic people in the practice. They are. And so this brings up the topic of the A players, the B players, the C players. Well, in any position, A players want to work with A players. They will tolerate B players and they will leave their jobs and quit because of C players. So when you…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, they’re picky. Yeah, mm-hmm.

Dr. Michael Neal:
With Build My Team, you can expect a, I mean, maybe a B plus occasionally, but you can expect that level of talent because of the process that we put these candidates through. That alone is usually, I shouldn’t say usually, but regularly more attractive to a candidate than the physical space of the practice, as long as it’s up to a certain level. They really just wanna work with great people.

Ryan Isaac:
I do like the perception that it gives to a potential candidate that this Office this doctor they care a lot they care enough to go through such a screening process that they don’t take it lightly It’s they’re not nonchalant about the whole process They want you they want you if you’re the right person actually in the right seat and there’s a lot of thought behind that. So Yeah, I like the thought of that

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yeah, and I think too, on the doc and the owner side of things, we’re always thinking in terms of the patients love us, they come to my practice, all of those types of things. I won’t describe that as egotistical, I don’t think it is. I think from the doc side of things, you are the one providing the care, the treatment, etc. They stay because of your team. The team is providing virtually all interactions with the patient. I mean, if you were to count, I’ll bet you you’re well over 90% of the proverbial touch points in a dental practice is delivered by somebody other than the doc. So in terms of what your team’s like, those are the folks getting the Google reviews, the good ones, the bad ones, everything in between. The doc a lot of times get mentioned, but if there’s a problem with the team, that’s where you’ll see it. And if there is excitement about the team, that’s also where you’ll see it. But the learning here is that the team is providing almost all of the care and the practice as judged from a patient view.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I think that’s true. I think this is happening in your industry. In dentistry, it’s happening quite rapidly. It’s just the consolidation from a lot of private equity and corporate groups. The same in your industry as well. That’s happened probably for years. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Oh, absolutely. Yep. P roll ups, etc. And what we see is a relatively stable period as they come in, they take the practices over, and then a march towards decreasing customer service and patient service. You know, I call it customer service, because, well, from the patient standpoint, if it’s not clinical care, they’re looking at it as such, and the service definitely decreases. How’s that in dentistry?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, my opinion is I think it’s the same. I think it’s the same thing. And it’s kind of to be expected. PE firms don’t come in because they have altruistic interest in some small town patient base. That’s just not why they’re doing it. What I’m curious about is the pressure, and I think it’s on one hand, maybe good pressure, but it’s putting pressure on dentists to be even more business and leader focused than ever before. And where let’s say, you know, seven years ago, the big frontier that was kind of new, maybe seven to 10 years ago for dentists was a push into marketing. Marketing like that hadn’t been done before, that wasn’t traditional up to that point. Now, providing an excellent team environment, being an excellent employer is kind of like the next pressure that’s coming from corporate because they can provide more benefits, they can provide more structure and, you know, maybe more clarity, more roles. This emphasis on how to attract the right people and then keep them feels like the next big push in building an excellent practice where maybe marketing used to be and before that it might have been like the best tech or something on the clinical side. But the team side is now just like the thing.

 

Dr. Michael Neal:
I tell you from our practice, we brought in, we had 14 people at the time and we replaced all but two using the build my team process. Now that is usually shocking to some folks like, oh my goodness, right? Yeah, look, this wasn’t, this is over the course of about 18 months, but we did that because we had the wrong people in the position. They’re great people. Don’t get me wrong. Uh, they were, they were, uh, not in the right positions for them to be happy nor productive. They were, um, gently exited from the practice and we helped them find new positions where appropriate. Um, some moved, et cetera, but we brought in different people. We went from 14 people down to, uh, 10 people in terms of the head count of the team and our gross income went up by approximately 50%. Guess what our net did?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, what?

Dr. Michael Neal:
Almost 3x.

Ryan Isaac:
Oof. Wow.

Dr. Michael Neal:
How is that possible? You say, well, how is that possible? Well, here’s the thing. When you have a fantastic team that’s performing and like the proverbially firing on all cylinders and then some, the team members are able to find different areas where the practice can improve. And these are nooks and crannies that the doc will never know about in a million years. The docs don’t have that level of visibility into the day-to-day operations of the practice. We were able to improve everything on the top end. And then through a profit sharing arrangement that we created for the practice, the team members now make more as the, as the practice makes more. So in, in a large percent of the, of their average day, they can improve their own, um, earning potential. And we’re not talking about short-term anything. There’s absolutely nothing unethical going on. This is all based upon long-term thinking that we align with the best possible care for the patient. You take amazing care of people. The money follows that’s healthcare in America, but we were able to do that. And the turnaround was phenomenal. I was on a podcast with a fellow who didn’t believe me. I set up a separate discussion with them and it pulled out tax returns and we did, I won’t do that publicly, obviously, but he, yeah, he agreed. So when, you know, when you’re talking about teams and such, don’t underestimate the impact financially and the net income impact your practice can experience by bringing a completely different set of team members on.

Ryan Isaac:
That is, yeah, that’s something. I’m glad you brought that up. That subject right there of the internal things you can do to improve not only revenue but profitability is, it’s such a big factor in running a good business. So many doctors will run to like new patients and expansion to get more revenue or more profit, more income where there’s so much on the table inside the practice with a lot of internal changes. So I’m glad you brought that up. That’s that’s a huge change

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yeah. Well, you think about it in terms of we’re going to purchase things differently. We’re going to go to a different supplier. We’re going to, um, buy these pens instead of those pens. Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you can also take a look at certain team members and say, are they working efficiently? Are they, um, for example, a players, um, we have some folks on our team that can do the work of three people. It’s not usually the case, but it’s pretty routine for us to have bring a person in who can do twice the work of one of the people that used to work at the practice. That’s not over promising. What that is, is a natural fit between their strengths and talents and what we’re asking them to do. So they walk into work in the morning and stuff’s easy for them. It just it flows. They’re, they’re able to do what they do because it’s easy. Because they’re naturally good at that. So when you when you approach things with the mindset of you got to get the right people on the bus and then the right seats on the bus and you also tell them where to drive the bus. That’s where the vision from the owner comes from. Then I would arguably say you put some guard rails on and then you get out of the way and let them drive the bus. And that’s what we’ve been able to do in our practice because we have those team members. And if you go back to the old days, I would have never done that. Not in a million years because that bus would have crashed after the first 10 feet.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things are so different now. For people listening that might feel like they’re good candidates, well, maybe you could describe who’s a good candidate for this process to work with you guys. Maybe start there and then how did they reach out? What’s the best way to get in touch?

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yeah, by all means. So the main thing is we are not hiring based on experience. Okay. Experience a lot of times is a red flag within healthcare applicants, especially in dentistry because dentistry has so many folks who jump from one practice to another, to another. I hear that constantly from talking to dentists. Our approach is to bring in completely new talent. They’ve never worked in dentistry before. And then the point, the counterpoint is, well, then I’d have to train them. Yeah, you sure do. It’s gonna take two to three weeks. They learn super quickly. They’re excited about this new position. They’re moving up in the world in your practice. This is a terrific upward mobility path for them, and they can’t wait to do it. So you’re not dealing with entitled people. You’re not dealing with all of these folks who are bringing in negativity into your practice. You truly have a fresh start with somebody, and somebody who’s excellent at the job. So that’s number one. The second thing is, you have to be comfortable with the concept of strengths and talents. And if you think back about what you’re amazing at in life and what’s your, your terrific out in your practice, I guarantee you, it’s all based on strengths, your natural strengths. If you’re not strong in something, you just don’t like doing it. So when we bring those candidates in, they, um, uh, we’re looking for practices that are, uh, big believers in, in hiring for natural strengths and talents.

And the only other thing is we’re not hiring for licensed positions. So if somebody’s interested in that, our fees are extremely affordable. In practices, it’s less than what you’re spending now to do it, and it’s not based upon the salary of the person at all. It’s a singular fee. So they can reach out to buildmyteam at buildmyteam.com and simply schedule a consultation. Everything’s based upon schedules and healthcare, so that’s how we do it. You need to schedule a free consultation and start the talk.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. And you can chat with any practice in any state. Again, no licensed positions, but any state is gonna work for you guys. Okay, that’s.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Yep. Right. Yeah, by all means. And I wanted to also mention one other thing. You can hire somebody using the Build My Team service, soup to nuts from end to end in under an hour. Stop and think about that for a second. How much does that save you in misery time, band-aids for the thousand paper cuts you’re gonna get from the resumes, you know, that type of thing. So that’s what we’re doing.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, assuming they’re even hiring the right people in the first place, which is just such a… It’s a hard job to do. So thanks for sharing all that. I appreciate that. Mention the website one more time and we’ll put it in the show notes.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Thank you, Ryan. Absolutely. www.buildmyteam.com.

Ryan Isaac:
Buildmyteam.com. All right, well, Dr. Michael Neal, thank you for spending some time with us today. Really appreciate it and encourage everyone to go check that out if that sounds like that’s something to be helpful for you. And thanks for spending time with us, man.

Dr. Michael Neal:
Thanks so much, Ryan, it was fantastic.

Ryan Isaac:
I’ll catch you next time. Thanks everyone for listening and we’ll catch you next time on another episode of the Dennis Money Show.

Practice Management