Discover four principles for crafting dental job postings, with Robyn Reis. Be concise, professional, highlight benefits, and define success.
Resources:
- All-Star’s Hiring Service
- All-Star’s Podcast – Dental Job Description
- Dental Practice Growth Webinar
About Robyn Reis
Robyn began her dental career in 1998 as a marketing and communications director for a large group practice, and instantly fell in love with the world of dentistry. She has spent every waking moment since learning, growing and collaborating with dentists and their teams utilizing her expertise in all aspects of dental practice management, marketing, communications, HR, continuing education, and laboratory sales. Robyn’s personal goals are to make a difference in someone’s life every single day and to give the best of herself to those around her.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training. Here’s your host, Alex Nottingham.
00:12
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. Our guest is Robyn Reis. Robyn is the Director of Hiring at All-Star Dental Academy. She is also a certified HR consultant with Ben Erickson and Associates and a guest faculty at the Panky Institute. She helps hundreds of practices with practice administration, marketing, HR, hiring, and team culture. The topic of this podcast is the four principles of crafting a dental job posting. Now in our last episode, we talked about the 10 elements of a dental job description.
00:42
Remember, we have a five-part series of the five steps of dental hiring, and we’re gonna cover in each episode a different element. And last series or last episode, Dental Job Description, this episode is gonna be the dental job posting. Please welcome Robin. Hi Alex, good to be back. Review a little bit for me what we covered last time, and we’ll put a link in the show notes for the prior episode, which was the dental job.
01:12
description, what’s that quickly, how does it lead into the dental job posting? Cause we’re really excited. We wanna post the job. Let’s do it. You bet. So we talked about the foundation of dental practices is having that personnel manual. It really helps establish that relationship between the employer and the team members.
01:36
The step one of dental hiring is having a job description. What does it mean to be a dental assistant or a dental hygienist or a front office team member in your practice? We call this the recipe for success. And this is really what guides you through all future interactions with this particular role in the job posting, who we’re trying to look for that has the characteristics and traits.
02:04
that will be successful in our practice and also future growth opportunities in the practice, performance reviews, coaching conferences, all of that really is wrapped up in that well-written job description. And now we have the job posting. Tell me, tell me. The job posting. So there is so much that is out there in the world for what makes a good job post. How am I going to attract talent?
02:34
As we all know, the dental industry is really suffering from a shortage of qualified applicants. So we really do want to stand out in the crowd. And there are really four principles that we use at All-Star Hiring to help create those job postings. The first principle is understanding what are job seekers looking for?
02:58
And that is to be concise. You don’t want to write this huge, long job posting. You certainly don’t want to copy and paste and put the job description in the job posts. You want to make it compelling, but you also want to keep it concise. Research has shown that 150 words for mobile applications is the ideal amount of information. And we have found writing job
03:26
posts between 250 and 300 words is our sweet spot. It is providing enough information for the applicant to look and say, wow, I wanna work for that practice, I can do the job and I’m gonna apply. So again, the first principle is to make sure it’s concise and well-written and speaks to what the applicant is going to be looking for. The second one,
03:56
The second principle is not to get too casual. I’ve seen some posts that are really funny or snarky or if you make apple pie really well, then you belong on our team. Something fun, cutesy. People who are looking for a job, they certainly wanna have fun, and yet they’re also looking for that professionalism. So ideally, you wanna first describe who you are.
04:26
as a practice and then what is the job? What are you looking for? How big is your team? Are you a fun team? Are you a professional team, et cetera? Then you wanna describe some of the roles and responsibilities that this person is going to have to do so that the applicant can think to themselves, can I do this job? Do I have these skills? And then you’re gonna answer the third principle.
04:53
which is what’s in it for me as an applicant. Over 50% of employed people right now, according to the latest LinkedIn job research, are actively looking for a job and they’re currently employed. So if they’re gonna make the jump, they wanna know, you know, I’m gonna make that move for a better opportunity. Over 90% say they change jobs for their better work balance. So…
05:22
Am I going to go from a five day work week to a four day work week? Do I get benefits? Am I going to increase my pay? Cause that’s the number one reason people start to look for a job is to increase their income. Um, but again, answering that third principle is to answer what is in it for the applicant. So you always want to include hours and, um, days of the week that they’re going to work.
05:49
any special treats that they’re gonna get, all the benefits that they’re going to receive. And finally, what the fourth principle will be is define what success looks like. So that, again, as the applicant is looking through a bunch of job opportunities, because there are a lot of dental practices hiring right now, what’s gonna separate you and differentiate you?
06:18
is what’s in your job posting. So you have to define success on what, you know, the successful candidate will have these traits and be able to do these things and exchange for your amazing awesomeness, you’re gonna get a three-day work week or a four-day work week with full benefits and you outline that for the applicant so that they wanna hit that apply button. So going back to the four principles is…
06:47
Be concise, be friendly, but be concise. We know the sweet spot is around 250 to 300 words. You wanna make sure that you clearly define what it is you’re looking for. You don’t wanna get too casual. You wanna be fun, but you also definitely wanna be professional. You wanna answer what’s in it for me, for the applicant, and then you wanna define what a success in your practice look like.
07:15
What are some common mistakes that you see in job postings? A lot of times we see the copy and paste of the job description right into the post. A lot of times we also see key elements are missing. They do a great job at saying what the job is, but they don’t say anything about who we are as a practice or where can I learn more? They also sometimes don’t.
07:43
get really clear about what the work schedule is going to look like. And if there’s any deal breakers that need to be known before an applicant applies. I’ve also seen job descriptions. Hey, we’re looking for a hygienist, no team huddles, no rah-rah, team meetings, full benefits and top pay. Please apply.
08:11
That’s concise, but does it really say who they are as a practice? What truly is the position? What are the hours? If I have childcare and I have to be to work by 6 a.m. and my childcare doesn’t open until 6.30, that’s not a good match. So not having enough information for an applicant to say, yes, that sounds like a practice I wanna work for and I have those skills, I’m gonna press apply. Where are the best places to post jobs?
08:42
We find most success on the Indeed job boards, anything dental related, dental post, I hire dental. We also have great success on local Facebook pages that are dedicated to dental professionals. And of course, the unspoken referral source, and that is your current team members, is asking them and maybe your dental suppliers, asking them who they might know that would be interested.
09:12
Now for the licensed and certified position, it really is more difficult to ask for a referral from a dental supply rep. But for your front office customer service forward-facing positions, gosh, if you have a great waiter or server at a restaurant who has awesome hospitality,
09:38
Hand them a business card and ask if they’ve ever considered a career in dentistry or any other administrative treatment coordinator, insurance coordinator, business office type positions that don’t necessarily need that licensing and that radiology certification. Ask people that you encounter in everyday experiences and encounters. What
10:05
what would you consider, you know, or how would you consider a career in dentistry fitting into your lifestyle? Let me tell you more about the practice I work for. I’ve also handed out my business card so many times in the toothpaste aisle at the grocery store for patients, but also I’ve gotten into conversations in line for different things about, oh, you’re in dentistry, tell me more, that kind of thing. So, you know, be open to
10:34
non-traditional ways of always be hiring. Yeah, always be hiring and always be training. That’s our philosophy. I remember years ago when I was working for my father’s practice, I was at PetSmart and there was this wonderful lady at the, young lady at the counter, and I recruited her to answer the phones. And for all those who, you all have to know my story, but part of the story, I talk about how I took my father’s
11:02
practice from 1 million to 2.4 million in 18 months. But there’s a key component I have to give credit to. That’s Heather, our VP of training, our phone skills instructor. She was, my wife, she was a Bloomingdale’s, in theory, sales manager and trainer. And we took her from there, no experience in dentistry, brought her into dentistry. She learned it pretty quickly. Now mindful, or mind you, that
11:31
she had no training because we didn’t, who trains it back then in dentistry? Even now, it’s like you throw them in there, you hope they figure it out. There was no All-Star Dental Academy. And that was part of the reason why we built All-Star. She’s like, look, at Bloomi’s, they train us exactly what to do, exactly what to say. There’s nothing like that in dentistry. So 10 years ago, we built All-Star Dental Academy and that provides you the phone training.
12:01
how to handle scheduling, broken appointments, what have, everything in practice management is discussed there. Those skills, those systems that are not provided in dentistry, they’re done in retail, because they know that’s how they are able to onboard the proper personnel. Dentistry is so haphazard, and that’s part of the issue here. So wrapping up the fact that a great example of bringing somebody from retail, and they became a superstar, helping to double.
12:30
the business really shows you how you can think outside the box. It also shows you, I mean, she had patients and she had buy-in because it was me and her father-in-law, right? But the more, and we’ll get to this later in the fifth step about onboarding. Don’t even get me started there, but we have to dentists are haphazard with a lot of things because, and no wonder they don’t know better. They’re not trained to do this. And
12:59
They have a disadvantage. They have to be CEO and do dentistry. It’s exhausting. And it’s not what they love to do the business aspect in general. So tell me about the hiring service. Just like dentists, you know, have a passion for dentistry and patient service. We have a passion for finding talented quality team members and connecting them with practices that align with their vision and values. And you already mentioned it, Alex, what I’m most proud of.
13:28
our team does have previous experience sitting in a seat in the dental practice, whether it’s a dental hygienist, a dental assistant, an office manager, a front office person, we have sat in that seat before. And so I think that gives us the competitive edge on finding talented team members. So our process is much like any practice would recruit on their own.
13:58
We craft, using the job description, we craft the job post, we place it, we review the resumes, we identify those applicants that we feel based on what the practice has shared with us. So we really do get to know the practice we’re working with. We do our own research, we take a look at the demographic in the marketplace, we can advise on, gosh, your offering for salary is…
14:25
lower than the average in your marketplace. You might want to increase that to attract better talent. So we make some recommendations in that regard. We interview via phone first, then Zoom interview because we want to see how they interact. And then finally, we help with the in-person interview so that the practice gets to make the most informed decision on applicants that have applied. We also help with.
14:55
making the offer, we do background checks, we’ll verify employment, and we help with the onboarding. And you also- So we do all of that and take that time burden off the office manager and the dentist. And you also, if requested, do personality profiles as well. We do, yes, absolutely. Wow, it’s so much that you have done. It’s just simply amazing. Well, Robin, thank you for helping teach us
15:25
for principles of crafting a dental job posting. Thank you for helping us with the job description in the prior episode. In the next episode, we’re gonna look at dental interviewing. Thank you again, Robin, and please remember to follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.
15:47
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com.
