Month: April 2016

Killer Interview Questions to Help You Hire the Right Person

Killer interview questions help you hire great team members  Start using these questions now.

I also suggest that you ask applicants to write a cover letter explaining their special talents or abilities. Applicants who do not include a cover letter should not be considered because they failed to do their very first assignment. You can learn so much from cover letters—including the applicant’s level of sophistication, their command of English, and the strengths they choose to emphasize.

Here are the questions:

BACKGROUND

Why are you applying for this position?

WORK HISTORY

What special aspects of your work experience have prepared you for this job?
Describe one or two of your most important accomplishments.
How much supervision have you typically received in your previous job?
Why are you leaving your present job? (or, Why did you leave your last job?)

JOB PERFORMANCE

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses as workers. What are your strengths?
What would you say are areas needing improvement?
When you have been told, or discovered for yourself, a problem in your job performance, what have you typically done? Can you give me an example?
Do you prefer working alone or in groups?
What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with? Why?
What are some things you would like to avoid in a job? Why?
In your previous/current job, what kind of pressures did you encounter?
What would you say is the most important thing you are looking for in a job?
What were some of the things about your last job that you found most difficult to do?
What are some of the problems you encounter in doing your job? Which one frustrates you the most? What do you usually do about it?
What are some things you particularly liked about your last job?

EDUCATION

What special aspects of your education or training have prepared you for this job?
What courses in school have been of most help in doing your job?

CAREER- GOALS

What is your long-term employment or career objective?
Who or what in your life would you say influenced you most with your career objectives?

What would you most like to accomplish if you had this job?
What might make you leave this job?

SELF-ASSESSMENT

What kind of things do you feel most confident in doing?
Describe a difficult obstacle you have had to overcome? How did you
handle it?
How would you describe yourself as a person?
What do you think are the most important characteristics and abilities a person must
possess to become successful in this position? How do you rate yourself in these areas?
Do you consider yourself a self-starter? If so, explain why ( and give examples).
What things give you the greatest satisfaction at work?
What things frustrate you the most? How do you usually cope with them?
What qualities are you looking for in a boss/supervisor?
What have been the sources of stress in your work history?
How so you deal with work related stress?
What was the last major problem at work that you were confronted with? What action did you take on it?
What have you done to further your professional development?

MOTIVATION

What motivates you to do your best work?
Can you give me examples of experiences on the job that you felt were satisfying?

Describe how you determine what constitutes top priorities in the performance of your job.

WORK STANDARDS

What are your standards of success in your job?
In your position, how would you define doing a good job?

LEADERSHIP

Do others view you as a leader? Why or why not?
What approach do you take in getting others to accept your ideas?
What specifically do you do to set an example for your co-workers?

 

While these questions will certainly help you elicit insights from applications, please remember to consult with your attorney to be sure that all your human resources policies, including hiring, are in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.

David Schwab, Ph.D.
www.davidschwab.com

The Easy Way to Create a Dental Patient Education Ebook

The prospect of writing any kind of book can be daunting, but there is an easy way to get all that knowledge out of your head and into a dental patient education ebook. First, let’s define the purpose of the ebook. The content should be interesting and useful to the reader, but your goal in producing the book should not be to become a best selling author. Your objective should be to produce quality content that you can give away to patients and potential patients to promote your practice.

Value of an Ebook

An ebook has value because it positions you as the expert and enlightens and informs readers who are interested in the dental health topics you discuss. If you are the dentist who wrote the book, then you are the expert. Because you are not trying to make money from selling the book but are using the book for dental patient education, the ebook format makes perfect sense.

It is not worth searching for a publisher or producing a paper book yourself and paying for paper, printing, binding and much more. With an ebook, you can share your knowledge without incurring incremental costs for each book distributed.

The Easy Way to Create an Ebook

I interview doctors and use the transcripts to create social media content, including blogs and posts for Facebook and other platforms. The purpose is to foster patient education and improve search engine optimization. Once the interview process is complete and a year’s worth of weekly blogs are created for you, that same content can be re purposed into an ebook.

Charles Krauthamer’s best selling book Things That Matter is a compilation of his past newspaper columns. In a similar matter, your blogs and social media content, which I create from interviews conducted with you by phone, can be edited and organized into an ebook.

You should offer your ebook to patients who visit your website and enter their e-mail address in a contact box. In this way, you capture valuable new leads and give potential patients a wealth of information. The e-book should also be shared with existing patients, of course.

Click the following for more information: social media content creation.

You speak volumes in your office to educate patients. By capturing your thoughts and organizing them into a dental patient education ebook, you can attract more patients and further explain the benefits of quality dentistry.

www.davidschwab.com

Dental Implants: Explaining Long Term Value

In this video produced by Glidewell, David Schwab, Ph.D. discusses “sticker shock” that patients often experience when they review the cost of dental implants.  There is also a new twist on a favorite analogy that can be used to explain why dental implants are a great investment and value for the dollar over time.  Glidewell’s permission to use this video is gratefully acknowledged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgOmXkzr-qM

Setting Priorities in Your Dental Practice

Setting priorities in your dental practice is even more important that you may believe. I just finished reading Darren Hardy’s new book entitled The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster. I found myself laughing out loud at some of his stories about his painful experiences as a new entrepreneur. Mr. Hardy is now very accomplished, and he related a serious story that contains a lesson for all small business owners, including dentists.

Sir Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies, including airlines such as Virgin Atlantic. Sir Richard was invited to give a one-hour keynote speech for a fee of $100,000. When he declined, the company that was trying to land him as a speaker upped their offer to $250,000, but that proposal was met by another polite yet firm turn down. The company then increased the offer to a whopping $500,000 for the one-hour keynote. This offer also included a private jet for transportation. The answer was the same—thanks, but no thanks. Finally, the company decided to let him name his fee and agreed to pay “whatever it takes.”

Here is the response from Richard Branson’s office, as reported by Mr. Hardy:

“No amount of money would matter. Right now, Richard has three strategic priorities he is focused on, and he will only allow us to allocate his calendar to something that significantly contributes to the accomplishment of one of those three priorities, and speaking for a fee is not one of them.”

When I read this account, my first thought, as a professional speaker, was that if I had received such an offer, I may have been persuaded to reorder my priorities. That, however, is the problem.

Mr. Hardy writes that people such as Richard Branson and Warren Buffet achieve success, in part, because they have just a few priorities and they stick to them. Hardy suggests that you write down all your priorities, narrow them down to three, and throw the rest away!

If you develop the habit of setting priorities and have the discipline not to get sidetracked by everything else that could compete for your attention in terms of running your business, then you will be able to focus clearly on your goals.

Try setting priorities and limiting your list to just three.

And download a copy of Hardy’s book for more advice and inspiration.

www.davidschwab.com