Finding The Right Hire For Your Business With Laura Nelson

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Hiring is complicated. You don’t want to be working with a team who doesn’t embrace and support your goals. Good thing Laura Nelson is there to guide us throughout the process. She recently released a new book, “Hiring without Hesitation: A How-To for Small Business Success” which I am excited to share. I’ve known Laura for a long time, and I admire the honest value she’s bringing to the dental industry.

Listen in as Laura talks about best practices in hiring the right people for your practice and how to quickly spot a potential rockstar. She also touches on office culture and why you should involve the whole team in the hiring process.

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Key Quotes:

“ It starts with leadership. It really starts with your attitude about hiring. if you think there’s no good people out there, then there’s going to be no good people out there.”
“You need to have an environment and a culture where people want to come to work there because they’re considering potentially leaving somewhere else maybe, or part-time or whatever to come to you.”
“If you wait to just hire when you need it, and you’re desperate, you’re gonna hire a square peg and try to put it in a round hole and then you’re going to fail and then you’re going to hit hiring and it’s going to be the cyclical problem that you have.”
“Always be looking. Don’t rely on just when you need it. ‘Cause if you wait until then it’s going to probably be too late.”
Let them [team] know that you’re always looking. First of all, it’s going to keep them on their toes. And then second of all, they’re not going to be whispering in the break room going,” Oh my gosh, you know, the [boss] is doing an interview. Who’s he canning? Who is he letting go?” Right? Like it’s just full transparency. So I definitely think involving your team is an important part.”
“There’s a difference between a job description and a job advertisement. So we need a job description, right? We need a checklist of what are they going to get trained? What are they responsible for and what are they accountable for? But an advertisement is meant to attract.”
“I’ve had some dental assistants who are amazing at six months and I’ve had some that stink after six years. So, it doesn’t really matter, the amount of experience. So, really going through your job ad and saying, what is required? And then what is nice to have?”
“ I’ll take personality over experience all day long.”
“I want somebody to be teachable with experience. That’s the best, that’s the rock star, right? But if they’re not teachable and they’ve got a lot of experience, like you said, they could be stuck.”
“And again, it ties back to the leadership and the culture. You know, you’ve got to foster a culture, that’s like that, the ability to make mistakes, the ability to learn and grow their ability to take responsibility, to work together as a team for you to be vulnerable for.”
“You can take a rockstar, put them in a bad culture and kill them. Or you can take an average employee and put them in an amazing culture and make them a rockstar.”
“Reference checks — and I’ve been guilty of not doing them. You’ve been guilty of not doing them. They are so important. And it’s important.”