Grow Your Clinic
Want to know how to Grow Your Clinic? In this podcast, the Clinic Mastery team share the stories and strategies of successful clinic owners so that you can confidently grow your clinic too. Check out clinicmastery.com to access the growth resources mentioned in the podcast.
Grow Your Clinic
The Heck Yes (or No Way!) Recruitment Playbook | GYC Podcast 336
Hiring in a hurry and hoping for the best - only to pay for it later?
In this episode of the Grow Your Clinic podcast, we break down why panic hiring is one of the biggest risks to clinic growth, and how a clear, multi-stage recruitment process helps you consistently hire the right people. We unpack a practical seven-step framework that goes beyond CVs to assess skills, values and culture fit, while reducing bias and costly hiring mistakes. You’ll learn how to involve your team using a simple “heck yes or no” filter, spot red flags early, create relaxed, meaningful interviews, and set clear expectations with candidates from the start.
If you want to build a strong, aligned team - without rushing decisions or repeating hiring regrets - this episode gives you a smarter, calmer way to recruit with confidence.
Need to systemise your clinic? Start your free trial of Allie! https://www.allieclinics.com/
In This Episode You'll Learn:
🌟 The seven-step recruitment process for finding the ideal team member
🗣️ How to conduct casual catch-ups that feel more like conversations
🔍 Effective strategies for screening out potential red flags
☕ The value of social interviews and team involvement in hiring
📄 Tips for creating a personalised proposal that wows candidates
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All right, all right, all right. It's my best Matthew McConaughey impression. Anyway, it's episode 335. Let me invite some guests. G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. And I jumped on a Zoom with her the next day and I just said to her, how do you think you went? She's like, terrible and I know I haven't got the job. I said, okay, what would you do differently? That's actually a question that I love to ask. These are all the things we identified through the interview process in 10 bullet points. How good does it Almost catching people off guard lets you see the real them. I said, let's just go for a walk rather than like sit down opposite one another in an interview. Let's Ben, it's interesting the perception that a multi-stage process can actually take a long time. So if someone can leave in the comments of this podcast, in South Australia, palmy or Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organized and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And, in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 336. Feels like we only crossed 300 a moment ago, and here we are, 336. It's happening. It's so good to be back with you again, Bec Clare, director of Physio West here in Adelaide, team of 33. It was last week, but you said there was going to be some changes Are we up or Wow. Well, you are perfectly positioned because last episode really struck a chord with folks on recruitment, in particular on the interview questions, and we're going to be talking more about the interview process. We touched on it last time, but we're going to build it out. in more of its steps. You've got a fantastic asset to share with us, the seven-step process that you've got. And Jack O'Brien, good to have you back here, former physiotherapist and owner of Terrace Physio Plus, which you've exited. My name is Ben Lynch. We wrote a book back in 2020 called Grow Your Clinic. Many of the listeners have got themselves a copy, either paperback, as I've got in my hands, or you can get a digital copy for free. Just head over to clickmastery.com and you will find the book page there or on our socials. As we dive in, J-O-B, plenty of great news heading into the end of the year. I'll kick off with a warm welcome to Rochelle, Chris, Karina, and Meg, who've installed Allie into their clinics to help with the team support, the HR, and the data side of things. Welcome. We recently released the integration with SPLOSE, Halaxy, and Nucle to build on the Cliniko integration so that that performance management data is there with your policies, procedures, and training. You can test it for free for 30 days. JB, what's Yeah, there's plenty of clinic owners reaching out, leaning into Christmas. They're looking to get a head start or if you will, a jumpstart on January. And so we decided to run the January Jumpstart Workshop. So that is coming up. I'm not sure when this episode will be released, but that is a workshop on the 15th of December. So hopefully it's after. this podcast and you can register at clinicmastery.com. We've had Vicky join us and Holly has actually graduated from Elevate into the Business Academy. Congratulations, Holly. We love it when clinic owners see that fruit and see that growth in their clinic. If you're a clinic owner thinking, geez, I need to get a head start on January, I need to fill my books, I want to grow my team, I need to boost my cash flow, That is our bread and butter. That is what we get up in the morning looking forward to do to see if you've got some challenges that we can help with and to see if you're a good fit, we're a good fit for you. Send me an email, jackatclinicmastery.com. That's jackatclinicmastery.com and we'll have a conversation, understand your challenges, see if there's a good fit and explain what it looks like to work with us. If it works for you, great. If not, that's okay. We'll help you out anyway. It's a strategy session on us. Complimentary, no charge, Benny. Very It was great to get an email from Tristan, a physio. He said, I just want to check out what this consulting coaching looks like and have a conversation. So yeah, You know what I found, Benny? I've found there's a lot of long-time listeners, first-time emailers coming through. And so if you're in there thinking, hey, I'm a long-time listener, but I've never reached out to these folks, then maybe today's your day. Maybe to give us some feedback, maybe to see if we can help with something. But if you're thinking, oh, I'm a long-time listener, but surely no one else emails, I'm going to suggest there is a number of emails that come through every single week. So come and join them, folks. Come say g'day, and let's Mm. Sounds good. Well, Beck, last session that we had together, we spoke about interview questions, some really great practical questions, and we touched on some of the process around recruiting team members, but let's tee this up as we so often do to set the context. We so often hear clinic owners say, I want to step back from the day-to-day. Perhaps they want to cut out some of the clinical hours in their week, either maybe go to zero or they're already at zero, but they're in a more management role and they still want to release themselves a little bit more, give their team a pathway to grow with them. and really have their team to step up and step into important roles. Well, to state the obvious, you can only do that with good team members. If you've got the wrong people on the bus, it makes it a hell of a lot harder, and that starts at recruitment. Now, Bec, you touched on this beautifully last time that a lot of clinic owners actually hire in panic mode. You spoke to your mistakes hiring in panic mode and we've all been there. You know, someone leaves, someone gets burned out, has some sick leave, they give you a two weeks notice and all of a sudden you're in the market looking for someone and perhaps anyone with a heartbeat will do. We've all been in those tricky situations. And it might just leave you in this sort of limbo state where you're constantly being dragged back into the day-to-day and you don't really get that freedom to systemize and streamline the processes in your client, to work on the new client processes, to fill the books. And really, you made a great point last time. How proactive are you setting up recruitment in your diary and doing the things to build the team into the future? Even if you don't have a job ad open right now, you spoke to, you are always hiring. And so you've created this seven-step process that you use We're going to speak to it. As Ben pulls that up, I have an interesting interview question when it comes to recruitment, Bec, I had here as a topic of conversation. I went to a talk by Adam Grant, the author, I think organizational psychology is his field. Anyway, he says, it's a really interesting interview question to ask folks which internet browser is the default browser on their computer. Because his thesis was it suggests someone's willingness to accept the status quo or their willingness to go out of their way to find a better solution. So, Oh dear. I feel like I'm going to be with the status quo. Um, Chrome. That's good. That's a sign. You're in the top performers. Well, the status quo would be Internet Explorer. Oh really? That still exists? I don't know if it's Edge, I think, but anyway, or like Safari. Or Honestly, I'm so focused on Chrome, I didn't even If you're a Chrome user, then welcome to the big leagues. If you're a Safari user, that's okay. We'll forgive you and give you a window of opportunity, an amnesty, if you will, to cross over to the dark side. Ben, what is your preferred internet browser? Chrome, Well, I'm not sure where I got to in teeing that up, but essentially Physio West have a seven-stage process for identifying the ideal next team member. Most clinic owners might think that's a bit overkill, and we're going to talk through all the steps. I'm interested, as we navigate these steps, Bec, which one would you be most resistant to handing over to your team? What's the one that you're most precious about Well, the reason this is documented is so that in the future I'm not doing it. That's the whole philosophy. At the moment, I After the shortlist, I actually refer to it as, let's come in and let's have a chat. I don't call it an interview. It's quite purposefully a chat and a catch up. And the candidate that I interviewed last week, who was successful in a role with us and accepted this morning, actually said, I'm really intrigued by, one of the first questions she asked me, I'm really intrigued by why you call it a catch up. I was like, because we're just getting to know each other. Is there some alignment? Are you looking for what we have on offer? Are you the right fit? And there's almost got to be this spark that comes from that conversation, which then allows the rest of the process to open up. So That's fine. And we know, and this is the brilliant thing and you have such a great skillset in building systems. You're the mechanic and I can see this system that we're looking at here is beautifully spelled out so that I imagine anyone could jump in and run this playbook. But you've got seven stages. The first one is application review. Stage two is the online form. You spoke about that in the previous episode. Stage three is the casual catch-up with Beck. That's the one you were just referencing, so we're going to go there first. But just to set the scene, stage four is the coffee catch up. We spoke previously as well about the social interview, getting other team members. I think Nick Rist does it in a pub. You do it at a cafe, which is awesome. And then we go to step five, shadowing. Step six is the reference check, and then step seven is the letter of offer or the welcome. But let's go to number three, because that's the one you feel most precious about. Talk us through this. If you feel like screen sharing would add value, do it. Otherwise, talk us through why this is so important to you as part of finding the Absolutely. The reason it's so important is Brilliant. Fantastic. The reason it's so important is to find that connection, really. And it starts, the whole premise of our recruitment process here is it's a heck yes or it's a no. And so we want to be really comfortable that we've gone through the stages and it starts here by finding out a little bit more about the person. What are they looking for? The subtleties in the way that they communicate? Have they perhaps had a bad experience? And if they have had a bad or a challenging experience, where are they at with that? Am I picking up a potential team member who might have some baggage from that? Or am I picking up someone who reflects on it and has learnt from those, understands maybe what their contribution to that was, and can move forward with it? They're the subtleties that How do you ask that though, like practically? Let's say Ask me about my trauma? Wow, that's heading into, like, Cyclone. I'm definitely not there. Ben, we talked about this on the last episode. Why PhysioWest and why now? That often allows them to say, oh, look, you know, I'm super burnt out in my last role. Little flag. Not a total one, but a little one. I want to explore that burnout. And then I'd ask for permission. So, you know, you mentioned you're burnt out or you mentioned your former employer looked at KPIs a lot. I get that one all the time. Let's walk through that. How do you view KPIs? How do you want to, um, how do you think they should be referred to and used? Um, so try and draw a little bit And I like that because really what you're doing is you're looking for not just someone with trauma, but with someone who's gone through post-traumatic growth. Maybe they've had a negative experience, but how has it made them more positive? How has it made them better? That sounds Absolutely. I'm looking for that growth moment. I'm looking for the acceptance that they perhaps had something to do with that as well and that they contributed to the situation. And I'm just looking for, you know, am I going to have to have a difficult conversation with this team member in the future and how might they handle it? Because no doubt there's always a difficult conversation with every free team member at some point. And I just want to know what that's going to play out In a similar way, we also spoke to that question, it's very similar, what's leading you to seek a new opportunity at this point in your career? Or what's led you to apply for this role to really understand that context? So Beck, you've spoken about the heck yes or a no. My question is, is that the reference or the filter that you use at each stage for someone to progress? Does it happen at a certain stage Just how do you use that? It most definitely happens at each stage. However, as we progress through, the weight becomes meatier, I guess. So, you know, if there are any flags at any given point where I go, this is really not who we're looking for, we're not the right place for them, and ultimately that's what it comes down to. It's not that they're a bad person, we're a bad organisation, it's just that it's not right for both of us going forward. And it's much more kind to say that to someone than take them through the process. This process is also an investment on both sides. So if there's someone who through the process is perhaps not looking like they're So absolutely. We use this as a filter throughout. Right at the end, it's the heck yes has got to be really firm. So Jack, a lot of folks are going through the interview process and they're trying to find the thing they're looking for. But so often they're not doing the opposite, which is trying to screen out the things that might be behind the surface. When you peel back a few layers, you go, oh, red flag. I don't want that. So are there questions? Are there parts of the process that you've used, Jack, or you've seen clinic owners use effectively to screen out the things that they don't want I'm going to reference a bunch of Adam Grant stuff here. I recall in one of his books saying it's much harder to weed out a taker than it is to identify a giver. He talks about give and take in one of his books, and it's easy to find a giver. It's harder to identify a taker. And so that's the art. Now, I see interviews as really they're just performances, right? And both parties are performing, right? So I'm putting on the best version of what my clinic is like, and we're a great place to work. We're even certified. And the applicant is like, I'm the perfect candidate for this job. You know, my greatest weakness is that I'm too kind. And it's all so performative. It's fake. So how do we ask questions? How do we have conversations that cut through the fluff and stop this performative pretend? Because ultimately we're looking at getting into a, well, a contractually obliged relationship, employment relationship. And we need to go into that with eyes wide open, not on some fake version of ourselves. Sounds good. How do you do it then? You're the hour guy. What are you practically doing to do this? Yeah, I think asking the question a second time over can be really helpful because it's human nature to say the polite thing or to say the answer you think you're supposed to answer with. So asking them to say more, what else or anything else comes to mind, pressing in for that second. I agree. I And where I've made mistakes as well and I've been in the room with other people making mistakes, It's like, you're just asking the question because it's an interview question. You get the response and you move on to the next question. Beck, you and I spoke about this last time. And what I'm hearing you say, Jack, is no, perhaps have less questions and go deeper on that. It's almost like the five wires, like, tell me more, tell me more, help me understand. What do you mean by that? And That's what I mean. I mean, asking, creating a safe space, it's a loaded term, but creating a space where people feel comfortable to say the honest answer. And then it's also like leading with that because so much of these interviews and conversations are reciprocal and we mirror a lot. And so if we can lead the conversation, to lead with honesty, you know, sometimes I'll throw away, like a throwaway line or a test of lines to see where they're at with like the moon landing or, you know, see where they're at with different, like social media. It gives you an indicator to then pick which rabbit hole you want to go down. But as funny as conspiracy theories are, it's giving us an insight into their willingness to approach a topic. And I think, Ben, you'll be able to attribute this quote properly. Someone said, oh, a great interview question is, what do you believe to be true that the majority Peter Thiel, famed investor, very critical thinker. What do you believe in that few people misunderstand or don't believe the same as you? Sort of speaks to independent thinking, critical thinking, and one of those answers could be a conspiracy, but you're really trying to look at independent thought. Yeah, that's right. Creative thought. Not just saying what you think the Good point. It's a good point. In a similar way, we've done a number of these value sessions where a clinic wants to redo their core values at the clinic, or do them for the very first time. Whenever we've led with that, you get honesty, integrity, accountability, these sort of platitudes. Okay, what if I ask the opposite? What is your anti-value? What annoys you? In an interview context, I remember asking this of one of our team members in the interview process, and I always like to go first and share my example to your point, Jack, of creating a safe space. I want to show them the caliber of answer that I'm looking for. Because again, Becky and I spoke to this the other day. We don't want to set them up to fail. I want to give you the grounds to succeed. Interviews can make you feel a little bit awkward. Some people aren't as good on their feet as other people. That's okay. We've got to take that into consideration. So, I'll say, one of the things that we like to understand is how you work best. And so, to determine that, we also want to know what slows you down or annoys you or frustrates you, really gets on your nerves. So, I want you to think of a characteristic, and normally, you can think of a person. who exemplifies this for all the wrong reasons, maybe it's a friend, a family member, definitely comes up. Now, you don't have to name and shame them, but I want you to pick out that characteristic that really grates you and annoys you, especially in a workplace. And I remember this team member, prospective team member at the time, team member now, said speed. I just hate it when things are slowed down and there's bureaucracy. They went into some examples after that question was asked. And it was really good to create that safe space. And I shared with them, before you go, mine is stubbornness. And it really greats on me when people don't have an open mind to consider new ideas. So that's kind of what I value is open-mindedness. And what the opposite of that is, in my mind, is stubbornness. You're going to stick there. So I will share that as an example, and maybe that's a way, Jack, of like, I'll go first to create the safe space so we can be honest with one another. And here's an example. while I run with that Beck, what would your answer be to that? What is it that grates on you, that really frustrates you, I think people waiting to be told what to do. Sitting in some vacant space and I guess the lack of initiative. Yeah. There's always something to do. As business owners, we often feel like our list is never ending, and it's in fact never going to end, and if anyone could just take something from that list. And so it grades me. If you walk past a treatment room or you walk past the front desk and someone's sitting there just not really doing anything, it's, JB, dare I ask you, because you get hot under the collar about most things. I would say when people don't say the thing, you know, it ticks me off when I'm in a meeting and we're kind of dancing around the truth and I have like, when I have to say the words, just say it. Yes. You've lost. It's interesting, Bec, that initiative thing. I know an exercise I've heard of, you might have a cup of tea or coffee with a prospective applicant in your office and there's a, I don't know if it's a validated test, but we'll call it an experiment where you've got empty cups of coffee sitting on the table and you just excuse yourself. I'm just going to the bathroom. I've got to duck out for five minutes to see what the applicant does with the empty cups of coffee. And there's some reasonable insights garnered if they'll take them to the sink and wash them up versus just leave them behind. And so it's actually something that I deliberately incorporated into my recruitment processes. And I think this also speaks to the point of Almost catching people off guard lets you see the real them. Again, takes us out of that performative stage and might say, let's just go for a walk rather than like sit down opposite one another in an interview. Let's get up, get shoulder to shoulder and go for a walk. And so I would often go for a walk to the Servo, which was near our clinic, and buy something. And you'd almost like test and see how they go. You might say, would you like a chocolate? I'm going to get a chocolate bar. Do you want a chocolate? It's like, what chocolate are they going to choose? And that starts a conversation or there's been times where I would say like, all right, I need you to grab these two things. I just got to duck out and take a phone call. Can you just fix that up? And you'd go out and make a phone call, obviously. But you see, like, do they ask for reimbursement for the $7.80 transaction, you know, or do they like need your card? How do they handle that spontaneity? Let's Jack, I had an example of this more recently. We went to a coffee shop for a coffee catcher, and I love going to a coffee shop or a pub, a bit for these social interactions, just to also see how people interact with other people who are, I guess, serving you, right? An Uber ride, do you ask the Uber driver and have a conversation, or do you just sit there without that conversation? But come back to the coffee shop context. It was packed, there was only one table left, and the table was still dirty. I was like, well, let's just take this one. So we sat down and it was almost like, how comfortable are they in that environment? Are they really waiting to call someone over? When the person does come and clean the table, how do we interact with them? Do we thank them? Are we gracious? How do they just interact with people who are not here for the interview? but are still human. That's what I want to see. And that comes back to on our recruitment process is trying to highlight the hungry, humble, smart, which is from Pat Lencioni's text. And it really comes back to, and the reason we have such a process involved as well, is Jack, you spoke to performance. People can perform, but it becomes You start to see inconsistencies. And that's what I want to pick up on. Is someone consistently them, can I see their values coming out? And that's why it's multi-stage. It's why it's thorough. It also gives an opportunity for someone who perhaps doesn't thrive in one environment. Yes. They might absolutely nail it in another. And we've had that time I love that. Adam Grant talks about exactly that. It's like at the end of an interview, you literally say the words, um, shall we do it like a redo? Shall we, shall we have a do over and like repeat this process? Cause you're right. Sometimes nerves get in the way or they're not at their best. And so it's like, let's just take the walls down. Let's forget One of our absolute, all of our team are exceptional, clearly. We picked them and they picked us. Anyway, one of our absolute leaders in our clinic, she won't mind me saying this, but she totally bombed out her shadow. Like really, she'd come through all of the stages. I'm like, she's got a green light. She's going to be amazing. And came to her shadow session and absolutely bombed out. It was so bad. And I jumped on a Zoom with her the next day and I just said to her, how do you think it went? She's like, terrible. And I know I haven't got the job. I said, okay, what would you do differently? And so she went through it and you could see that she'd been beating herself up about it. I said, all right, do you want to come back in? We've never done this before, but do you want to redo? She was like, you would seriously give me a redo? I said, absolutely. You've come through the process. It speaks to having a considered staged process. To your point of hiring out of desperation, shortening that process, maybe skipping parts of the process, But having this space, and I know some people are probably listening who are in a spot of bother at the moment, like, I don't have the luxury. I feel like I need to hire right now. But Beck, you spoke to, well, don't rush it. This person, I'm sure you're intending for them to be part of your team for many years. Can you wait a couple of weeks? Maybe even can you extend it for a couple of months and make it work to find the best person on the team? Because so much of your challenges with the performance of your business is a reflection of the people that are running it. And so, you can fix a lot of the cultural and performance issues from the screening process. So, this is perhaps one of the highest value things for the performance of your business in the next 18 to 24 months. We can directly look back at what you did today in your recruitment or what you didn't do and blame I'm sure there's some spots. Ben, it's interesting the perception that a multi-stage process can actually take a long time. I've done a multi-stage process in a week. It doesn't need to take two, three weeks a month because often as well, really great candidates, most of them are not looking. The best are not looking. However, some that are, are in the market and they might be going for other interviews. So, we don't want to slow down the process so much that we also risk losing a great applicant in that process. So, it Yeah, it's a really good point. We've heard so many people lose great applicants right at the end because they were too slow. So I realize there's a lot of variables here for folks. What we're trying to do is each time get better. And that's why I love you documented this on a single Google Doc with the seven stages broken down into a table. If you're listening into the podcast and not viewing us here on YouTube, come over to YouTube and check this out. We've screenshared a couple of times here as to what it looks like, but I'm sure this is something you just continue to iterate time and time again after making the mistakes and learning what works. Bec, is there anything else at stage three that you said was super critical in your process that we've overlooked here Not that we've overlooked, but I think that we could emphasize is it's a conversation and make it such because you'll also get the prospective team member to be, I'll say, performing at a much better level. Go deeper because you're wanting things to Okay. So I was going to ask you, what's the distinction? Obviously an interview is going to have a conversational nature about it, but you're saying, don't be so rigorous at this point with 12 questions you want to ask. you're just trying to understand the person. Therefore, we mentioned this last time, but do you find yourself anchoring to a specific question, even if it's just the opening question, that really enables us to be more conversational than just boom, boom, boom, boom interview questions? Absolutely. And if they have completed the online form prior, sometimes I switch the two around depending on the role. If I'm going for advertising for a role or recruiting for a role that has a high volume, so say typically admin team member roles, you're going to get a larger influx of candidates perhaps. You might do the online form first as a screener into your casual catcher. If you're going for a role that you're likely not to get as many candidates or it's a more senior role, I will do the catch-up first and then into the online interview. And they both work interchangeably and that's okay. If they have done the online form first, I'll actually ask them to go a bit deeper on some of the questions that they popped in there. And it goes to show whether they've used ChatGPT for their answers and how authentic their answers are. And also, do they even remember what story they told me about a great client experience that they've had? Like how much I'm curious, do you share this step-by-step process with the applicant In each of our ads, we do say we have a multi-stage process because we want you to ensure that we are the best place for you and that you're the best person for us. It's a one-liner on Yeah, I agree with you, Jack, and that's really nice, Bec, that you outline There is a process. I've seen people create a very simple visual for this that accompanies, you know, a resource or it sits on their join our team page just to say, these are the steps in kind of quote, you are here in the just positioning yourself. I'm also curious on the reference check piece. I find this such a fascinating component of the hiring process. There's two components that come to mind. It's like, what question are we asking of these references? Also, Are we talking with the applicant about their references or their lack of references? Who didn't they put as a referrer? That's actually a question I love to ask. Who did you not put down and why? Why didn't you put the most recent employer or the other employer on your resume? If I call them, what will they say? You put down Mrs. Sarah Smith and Mr. Steve Jones. If I call these references, what are they going to say? What should I ask them? Again, trying to get to the truth behind a lot Yeah, they're really interesting concepts. Sometimes I go, look, I'm really not going to bother, or I am, there's something I want to know, there's a specific question that maybe is just a bit flaggy for me, I'm going to ask that directly. I've got a series of reference chat questions which I'm happy also to bring up on the screen if that's helpful. It really, I guess it depends And What are you trying to do? Because they've hand-selected the single best people they feel are going to give them a glowing reference. So essentially, you're like, to what degree is this valuable? I actually want to find out maybe some areas where they're not going to succeed. And I've had sort of two questions, two variations that I've used with a reference before, which is, Kind of that version of like, if I was to get the best out of this person, what do you think the essential ingredients are to that? Is it team dynamics, the way I work with them, et cetera? And then the other side is, what do you think would really hamstring them, slow them down, irritate them in the work that you've done with them before? So it's kind of the questions I would ask. the applicant, but I'd be asking the reference. I had this conversation earlier this year with someone, and it was just interesting Yeah. You've got some ones shared there. As folks are reading those in YouTube, one that comes to mind for me is like, all right, Mr. or Mrs. Reference, if you had a job available and this applicant applied for your job, how quickly would you give them the position? Love that. I want to hear an 11 out of 10. If they hesitate at all, that's all the It's a great version of the question rather than just, would you hire them again? How quickly would you hire them? Yeah, that's a late, I haven't heard that What's your favorite on your list? Which ones you're like, what do I really like on the scale of 1 to 10 compared to other people you've hired, how would you rate this person? Again, probably similar to yours, Jack. You're looking for a 10 or an 11. Oh my gosh, they're the best person. We were so sad to lose them, et cetera, et cetera. And then even asking when they say we're so sad to lose them, what were the circumstances in which they moved on? that they told you? What am I looking for? When are they likely to potentially move on from us? What's one of the candidates' most memorable accomplishments while they were with you? What stood out in their time? And I also like, is there anyone else I should speak to? You asked the reference that or the applicant? Both. So you put these two people, is there anyone else you'd like me to speak to? And then also the reference, is there anyone else that you think so-and-so That is good. I think You know, we're not going to ask all these questions we spoke about last time, Bec, right? We went through so many different interview questions that you could use. The intention is not to use them all, but the reason we're using them is to try and screen for what we're looking for and what we don't want. Yeah, that's the purpose of these questions. And I think the clearer you are about who the ideal candidate is and the things you don't want to, you know, as part of that candidate in joining the team, We're trying to design the process and the questions and the interactions to try and reveal that. This is all helping us make a decision. So For sure. And I also look at a reference check now as an opportunity for us to talk to our brand again. It's always really great to speak to potentially someone higher up than the person that you're looking to hire. That could also open a door to a different type of relationship or a different candidate. It's a great opportunity to talk to the advantages of joining our clinic and what we have on offer for this person. You just never know who you're speaking to. And I think it's a really nice Well, you mentioned that a team member who applied didn't get the role, then 12, 18 months later, applied again, got the role. So you just never know how these things will come back. Absolutely. I'm keen to go to some of the later parts of the process because we've talked at length around the Yeah, exactly where I'm going. I was thinking like, how much do we weight the opinions of our team? I know part of that process, Bec, for you is upshadowing and we'll often maybe do some team integrative things or have some of our team in the interview process. How seriously do I do. Seriously weight it. It's a massive part of our process. In the end, it's not just me hiring this person. The whole team needs to help this person be set up for success. This is a team decision. Who are we welcoming into the fold? And when they're having a tricky day or Yeah. Around that person. Pat Lynch only talks about trust. We want high-performing teams and trust. Trust needs to be re-established for the whole team when we add or subtract even just one person. And so it does, in your case, like one in 33, it's literally 3% of your team, but it disrupts all the other 97%. And so, yeah, their opinions matter. So how then, how do you elicit the truth out of your team? Oh, I always love So how did so-and-so go, They know me now and I just say, heck yes or a no. That's all I have to say when I walk in. Like, okay, let's debrief. Heck yes or a no. No, It's such a great filter back. It's because there's no It's heck yes or a no. You can't sit You know, an interesting distinction on that too is what is our predisposition or what is our hypothesis and are we going to be proved positive or negative? So what I like to do is with a couple of different team members say, I'm thinking of hiring this person, but you need to convince me otherwise. Or vice versa. I'm thinking of saying no to this candidate unless you can convince me that they're right. And so it's like, where do we start from and how do we, how do we, because we're always looking to test and change our minds essentially. We want to be open-minded. So to that point of heck yes or no, sometimes it might be too early to pass that judgment, but we want to continue to find evidence to support or refute And Jack, to your point for our team, it's often I, when someone comes into Shadow or the peak behind the curtain, as we say, is that they get a copy of the team member's application and often that includes a video. So they already know who they're expecting to see. They usually get some part of the Google form responses and they'll get a bit of a brief from me as well. This is the role we're looking to hire them for. These are the qualities. Here is who they'd be working with. Are they suited to this environment? So it's not without context, because I think that helps I like that. Did I just say I like that for my own idea? Give yourself a pat. Thank you. As we get to the pointier end of the recruitment process and you've decided on the person, you're like, this is the successful candidate. We want to seal the deal now and it gets to the offer of employment. We like to phrase it as the welcome to the team because we don't want to sort of position that it's a decision whether or not, like we've gone through all this process now, it's like, welcome to the team. You are the successful candidate. One of the things that we've used, I think we spoke to this on a much older episode of the podcast was the personalized proposal. We package it up. You could use Canva. We use Google Slides. In essence, it packages the role, the responsibilities, all the perks, the benefits, and it personalizes it to the things that you've learned about that prospective team member through the journey. You put it in the doc. Maybe it's some of the meaningful personal goals that they have. Perhaps it's the career pathway that they want to explore in 12 or 24 months. And they get this really on-brand, polished doc, might be three to five pages. We have a brilliant template here at CN that we share with all the clinic owners that we work with. They make it on brand. And the amount of positive responses that we've heard from the community when they've delivered this to someone in their recruitment pipeline, the wow factor, not only with them, but typically the significant other or the parents of these people that they've hired. I've had stories like this that were just totally blown away by this personalized proposal. It's better than just a Google Doc or an email saying, welcome to the team. But it packages it up brilliantly, just like you would invest. I don't know, you're buying an investment property off the planet. They give you this nice brochure, but imagine something like that tailored to you. It just blows people's socks off, and they're like, yes, absolutely. Beck, what do you also find super valuable at sealing the deal at this point, which is stage seven, you've We, I should revise this document here, we call it the welcome to the team now, because it's less about it's an offer to join our team, it's you're here, when are you starting? Because we've gotten to that point. The personalised proposal has been one of the steps that's been an absolute game changer. The response we continue to get, I have people going, oh my gosh, this brought me to tears. My family can't believe it. I'm joining exactly the place I want to be. I love it. It's an epic pre-frame. It is the most epic pre-frame for setting that person up for success and they rock up day one. They're super invested. It's absolutely amazing. And also, the thing that I get back now, Ben, is I actually tell candidates at the start, we have a heck yes or a no process. So at any point during this process, if you are getting wobbly feet and you're not sure, it's okay. You can also hit pause too. But if we get through to the end stage and we are a heck yes, we want you to be the That sets us up for success ultimately. And so I get so many emails back now from this proposal, which is like, I'm so glad I was your heck yes, you're mine too. Yes. And they're already speaking our language. And that's what this proposal is so helpful for, is they start speaking the language of your clinic before they Anyway, so this is the template that folks can use. We use like a happy picture of the team. We go through the core purpose. Come over to YouTube and check this out. While we do what we do, we have some examples underneath. We have our painted picture. If we've got a version of their desire statement or their personal goals, we'll put it here as well. So again, we understand where you want to get to and why this matters, even if it's a couple of notes. But if you get a full version like this, awesome. Then we have just a simple slide that captures here's where we are, here's where we're going, And here's a couple of milestones along the way for your clinical pathways like high income earner, clinical excellence, lifestyle, leadership, ownership, side hustle, and then the proposal, why we think you are awesome. These are all the things we identified through the interview process in, what, 10 bullet points. How good does it feel to get something like this? And then the game plan, this is essentially what your onboarding looks like over a couple of stages. You could do this over the first 12 months, broken down into three monthly chunks. And then the numbers, this is specific to a therapist, especially if there's a reward bracket. They can see their earning progression over the year based on just some high level KPIs. And then a page to summarize it all with a picture of the team. That is the personalized proposal that we hand over to our members. They tweak it, make it on brand and just blows the socks off those applicants that Jack, I reckon the last picture is of an improv that we did here in Adelaide at a retreat. I think you and I might have been paired together and the question was, in South Australia, is it a palmy or a palmer? That question still stumps me to this day. So if someone can leave in the comments of this podcast in South Australia, palmy Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. It's double parked everywhere else and we won't go to the other version in South Australia. Jack O'Brien, you're nodding along and you're like, Well, I think making it personal really matters. And so I know that at various times, yes, we can send an email with the personal proposal and photos. And if you can capture some of their maybe images off their social media to make it personal, that really helps. I love sending a voice memo. And so whether that's an Instagram DM with a voice memo or even just a text, like iMessage, you can tell because the little blue thing pops up on your phone, you know that they're in 2025, not stuck in 2010. I I am. This is why I got stumped with the Chrome question today because But, you know, maybe it's a voice text message. Sometimes, again, depending on the level of rapport that we've established, like can we send, at various times, send a group message to them and their partner if we've got their, you know, emergency contact details on their form and it includes their family in the process. I know some clinics send out a welcome gift beforehand before they, you know, a lot of clinics will do a welcome gift in the clinic. But how can we just go over and above and make sure that they feel that this is not just another cog in the machine, but they are the right person to fit in with the personality of As part of that welcome gift, depending on how organized you are, I've seen some clinics use our zero to 100 framework, where it looks through their first hundred days of a new team member's journey and each of the milestones, things they need to do to get up to speed. We typically do it in a really nice visual fashion, like a Canva or a Google Slides as an example, and they'll print it out. So it's a bounded book. You go to Officeworks, Daniel Gibbs loves going there, and you put it in, maybe you've got some merch as well that you include that's on brand for the clinic. And it's part of this whole sort of welcome packet. I mean, this has taken it Yes, it touches on the personal aspect, but it also solves another problem. I'm sure there's clinic owners listening along that think, I'm hiring a grad to start in a couple of months' time, or the person I'm hiring has a couple of weeks' notice to give at their location. I'm concerned they'll say yes to the job, but then they might get cold How do we make sure this yes sticks? How do we shape and frame someone's cognitive bias towards saying yes and sticking to the yes? And so it could be as simple as getting their business cards printed up and getting them their business card. Now, as a clinic, that might cost you, I don't know, 50, 100 bucks at Vistaprint. It's a small investment to help that clinic, help that clinician feel more committed to the job. At the zero to 100, sure, it might be a bit presumptuous that they're actually going to accept your offer of employment, but it's a sign of commitment that it's really hard then to back out of. I know some other clinics will include their new applicant in their CPD or they'll invite them into Slack or set them up their email invitation straight out of the gate so they're part of the team from the moment of offer, not They're the subtle parts of the process that are absolute game changers. We've sent out books. The Grow Your Clinic book often goes to someone who's coming into a leadership role with us or a link to an Audible book. The current text that we are sending all of our successful team members is Unreasonable Hospitality. That has been fantastic. So we've got our grads who are starting in a few weeks' time with us all reading that At the moment. And we're looking for lifelong learners, people who want to lean in, who And you know what, Bec, if you're sending that to them two or three weeks before they start, you can then see on day one, like, what did you get out of the book? Did they actually read it or not? It's Well, we've covered some turf here, which is fantastic, and really excited to continue with you both down this recruitment, onboarding, culture, Beck, tap into your HR experience as well. Yeah, this is going to be fantastic as we lead into the end of the new year. I reckon by the time this episode gets published, it will be Clink Mastery's 10-year birthday. 15th of December, 2015 was Inception, so we'll have a little celebration next year. 2026 will be the year of 10-year celebration. Got a lot of good things in the pipeline coming for you on the pod and for those members that are listening in. 2026 is going to be the best year to be a member at Clinic Mastery. We have some incredible things coming your way. Beck, Jack, thank you so much for your contributions. We will see you on another episode
