The Art of
Interviewing
From rural to urban and from big city to academics the goals
of interviewing are exactly the same.
That is, evaluate the candidate, discuss the candidates fit, and decide
if an offer is justified. There are
obviously a lot of moving pieces in between but the goal of an interview should
always stay the same. Having worked in
large and small markets it has become clear to me that what throws off an
interview more than anything is a lack of planning.
In a healthcare environment candidates are often interviewed
within the confines of a group. Often
that group is as diverse in intellect and personality as the United
Nations. Subsequently, getting everyone
on the same page is a difficult task and one that generally falls in the lap of
the physician recruiter. Every
organization has a bandwidth of interviewers who know everything (or at least
they think they do). Then there is the
bandwidth that has to be assisted in their interviewing skills by having
questions provided to them beforehand.
Yet another group knows enough to be dangerous until they step over the
HR line by asking a question to a female candidate about having a baby (yikes!). A part of each one of these bandwidths is
present on your interview team and whether or not they sit in a room together
or individually the task at hand is to evaluate the candidate, discuss the
candidates fit, and decide if an offer is justified so the organization can make the best
decision possible.
Many healthcare organizations do a poor job of interviewing
especially practice settings. This
results in disruption when a less than appropriate candidate finds his/her way
into an existing department or team and fireworks ensue. In a matter of months that candidate resigns
and the cycle of recruiting that position begins again. Many times a forensic analysis of the
interview process illuminates several areas that are problematic and ultimately
result in a poor outcome. In analyzing
these interviews several traits have been identified that make some interviews
more successful than others.
1) Set aside some pre-meeting prep time. You should be able to arrive at the interview
having read the CV, assessed areas of strength & perceived weakness,
experience, and background.
2) This is an interview not an
interrogation. Put the candidate
at ease by engaging in small. Talk about
your hobbies, your job, your last vacation, what is there favorite color or
what cool new thing is happening at your hospital.
3) Interview as a team. Everyone involved in the interview should
know their respective role. Each should
have a portion of the job/candidate profile they are required to cover. This does not require everyone to be on the
same room. The goal is to assemble the
pieces into a coherent whole candidate so a decision can be made.
4) Structured topics should be closely tied
to the organizations goals and mission.
Questions about things like, stewardship, patient satisfaction, fiscal
responsibility, community involvement, motivation, decisions making, cultural
fit, communication and teamwork are all vital to building an accurate picture
of the candidate and their fit with the organization.
5) A structured interview has a beginning,
middle, and an end. 30 minutes
to an hour is not a lot of time to gather enough data to know whether or not
someone is a fit for your organization.
Therefore, managing time is crucial to the integrity of the
interview. “Old doctor so-and-so always
goes over his/her time” should not be the norm.
6) Decide which questions have more weight
based on the need of the organization, practice or department. If an answer is not optimal but was
satisfactory the weight will determine how important it is to the overall
process.
7) Create a post-interview evaluation form. Each interview participant (minus the
interviewee) should fill out a detailed evaluation for their portion of the
interview complete with their recommendation to hire or not hire.
8) Create a post-site visit evaluation form
for the interviewee. This gives
you a way of evaluating the process and ways to tweak it if necessary.
9) Decide who makes the final decision. Either as a team or by committee someone has
to make a decision. Remember if you are
struggling with too many decisions it may be time to tweak the process,
questions, or team members.
10) Use interview answers to customize on-boarding. Areas of strength and weakness can be used to
tailor the process of on-boarding and identify areas where new employees can
add value or use additional training.
The framework of this article is a skeleton by which you can
customize your own interviewing process.
No two interviews are ever the same and no two organizations interview
the same. However, every healthcare
organization is looking for the next great member of the team.
