Issue 11 - September 2003

Life’s lessons
Make personality a plus in your hiring decision
By Harvey Schwartz, DC

You only have one chance to make a good first impression. When a new patient opens your clinic’s door, your staff makes that important first impression for you. Who you hire, then, is critical to your success.

I have to laugh as I look back at all that I didn’t know about hiring a staff in my early years of practice. Fortun-ately, good luck and instinct got me through the first years and taught me two valuable lessons in management — be flexible and be open to differences.

• Flexibility. My first employee was great and helped my practice skyrocket to approximately 300 patients per week during my first year in practice. One day during that first year, she became violently sick in the middle of the day and had to leave.

I was alone with a busy practice and had to solve my problem fast. I asked the next patient if she was busy for the rest of the day. Luckily, she wasn’t.

I gave her a five-minute crash course in answering the phone, managing patient flow and scheduling. She ended up working for me for eight years.

Lesson learned: Be flexible and open to unexpected gifts.

• Open to differences. My wife worked at the clinic part-time while she was pregnant with our first son. We needed to hire a replacement for her and I felt strongly that our new staff member was going to come in as a new patient.

One day a young woman who was a little unpolished and a bit brash came in as a new patient. She had just moved to the area and was looking for work. I interviewed her and hired her. If she had been among many other candidates, I might not have hired her, since her personality was so different from mine. Yet, she was great! The patients loved her. She set the tone for the clinic for years.

Lesson learned: Hiring people similar to ourselves is not necessarily the best choice. Diversity pays off.

Assess personality traits
I was fortunate in my early years. Today I take a much more deliberate approach to hiring, basing many of my decisions on the qualities Antarctic explorer Sir Thomas Shackleton looked for in his crew:

• Patience
• Courage
• Physical Endurance
• Idealism
• Optimism

How can you tell if an applicant has these traits? Ask questions that will reveal them:

• Patience. I give a prospective receptionist a scenario in which several things are happening simultaneously at the front desk. Then I ask her to prioritize what she would do.

• Courage. A good question is: “Have you ever had to make any difficult decisions and if so, what were they?”

• Physical endurance. Since this trait is directly related to a person’s health, I ask: “What do you do for your health?” Applicants often discuss their own health or the problems they experience. They may also discuss previous chiropractic or other forms of healthcare that they have received.

Note: Do not ask about the state of the person’s health, such as “Do you have any physical problems?” This type of question is illegal under the American’s with Disabilities Act.

• Idealism and optimism. “What is important to you?” “What are you best at — and why?” “What are you worst at — and why?” “If you were me — why would you hire yourself?” A good final question is: “What are your long-term goals?” This tells me whether an applicant could become an important team member for years to come.

These questions give insightful aspects about who the applicants are and how they think of themselves.

I’ve learned that hiring based on these traits makes sense: You can teach a person the skills and knowledge to accomplish the details of the job. But, you can’t change a person’s basic personality and outlook, keys to a good fit for the job and the organization.

Dr. Harvey Schwartz currently practices two days per week in Bellingham, Wash. He founded Fairhaven Chiropractic Solutions (www.fc-solutions.net) as a way to help other chiropractors via phone consultations. He can be reached at (360) 733-7002 or drharvey@fc-solutions.net.