30 April 2025
Recruiting for success: How to hire and where to find talent
Recruitment can often be seen as overly complicated and challenging, even though it is a vital part of business operations. Hiring the right employees can be the determining factor in the success or failure of a business or practice. This article aims to outline effective recruitment practices and provide guidance on how to help your practice thrive in the future.
Before starting the recruitment process, the initial step is to analyze the business or practice's requirements. By assessing the specific needs of the organization, you can tailor your recruitment efforts to find a prospective employee who will fill any gaps and contribute to the growth of the practice. It is also important to consider the organization’s culture and the types of personalities that may fit well within the team, in addition to evaluating qualifications and suitability for the role. However, exercise caution during this process, as all candidates are entitled to a fair recruitment experience free from any form of discrimination.
Upon analysis of business requirements, the next step in recruitment is developing a clear advertisement that will attract prospective candidates that fit the business needs. Some important areas to focus on are:
- Job title and description of the roles and responsibilities that the candidate will be completing.
- What qualifications are necessary for the candidate to be considered and successful in the role.
- Any desirable personality traits. While this area is subjective, it is good to provide a gauge to candidates on what personality traits and skills they are seeking for the role advertised.
- Pay and additional benefits – It would be wise to do industry research on pay and benefits so that suitable competition will be created for the role and the best calibre of candidates can be found.
After deciding what the business is specifically looking for in a potential employee, and creating a comprehensive description, it will be time to circulate the advertisement. Within the dental profession, there are several specific job boards where candidates can be reached, such as:
- Australian Dental Association (ADA) Job Board – Scopes dentists, dental hygienists, dental therapists and dental specialists
- Dental Jobs Australia – Scopes all dental professionals including assistants, hygienists and practice managers
In addition to these dental profession-specific boards, advertising within general job forums such as Seek or Indeed could provide candidates who fit the specific role that the business requires.
Once the advertisement is published, applications will likely begin to arrive. At this stage, it's important to keep in mind the requirements of the business and filter the applications accordingly. During the recruitment process, filtering can be accomplished through phone interviews, in-person interviews, online questionnaires, or any other method that the business believes will provide valuable insight into the candidates being considered. While it's beneficial to conduct a variety of tests or interviews to gather comprehensive information about the candidates, the extent of this should be based on the business's capacity and involvement in the recruitment process.
Depending on the position required, it would be considered a positive to screen employees for suitability in the specific role during the application process. This can be done via:
- Preparing structured interview questions – Often it would be considered a good idea to assess how a candidate processes specific situations, especially in a healthcare setting.
- Assessing cultural fit – While it is important to have a potential employee who is strong within the role itself, it is also vital to have a candidate who will fit into the team as a whole. An employee’s performance in a role is equally as important as their overall cultural fit in the team.
- Enquire about further education – Especially important in a healthcare setting, often prospective employees are pursuing further study or attempting to grow their career. It would be beneficial for a business to understand a candidate’s plans to plan their tenure or assess the prospective employee’s ‘life cycle’ within the business.
Once a manageable group of candidates has been narrowed down, conducting reference checks is essential. These checks provide valuable insights into a candidate's previous work history and their behavior in a professional setting. Reference checks should be completed before extending a job offer. After this step, an offer can be made to the candidate who is considered the best fit for the role, provided that the business feels it has gathered sufficient information.
Although onboarding, retention, and employee growth are not strictly part of the recruitment process, they are crucial for keeping a strong candidate within the company and ensuring that the effort invested in recruitment is not wasted. A well-structured onboarding program will help new employees feel welcome and enable them to perform well from the beginning. Additionally, retention and growth strategies—such as annual pay reviews, regular feedback, and performance check-ins—will help keep employees performing at their highest capability.
In summary, a well-rounded and clear recruitment process will allow a business or practice to find and employ the most qualified and ideal candidates. Although a recruitment process can be taxing, and highly involved, the more effort that is put into it, the greater the possible outcomes are.
For more information on this article please call the ADA HR Advisory Service on 1300 232 462.
