How to Find an Associate Dentist Job

Whether you are a dental student, an exiting resident, or just returning to the job market, the task of finding an associate dentist position can be daunting. This is an attempt to provide a centralized resource to help you land a job. For more updates, tips, and helpful information, follow up on our Facebook fan page, Twitter, or on this blog.

Step 1. Make a Plan.
As outlined in the following blog link, the key is to be flexible. It is best to determine what your options are before narrowing your focus on the best fit. Job Hunt Tips.

Obviously location is important, but don't waste the crucial first years of your career in order to live in the heart of the city. Here is an overview of area limitations on a job market: Where are the Jobs?, and a real-life example is outlined here: The Grass is Always Greener. If you absolutely have to live and work in a saturated market, here are some strategies to help you land a job: Saturated or Difficult Markets.

Step 2. Prepare Your CV and Cover Letter.
Generally speaking, CV/resumes are overrated, as are cover letters. Still, they are a necessary evil when breaking into a job market. It is important to stand out from the crowd, but make sure that it is for the right reasons.
Here is an example of a well-written cover letter: Cover Letter Sample.
And here are instructions on writing your CV/resume: Resume for Dentists.

Step 3. Applying.
Here are several online sources for dentist jobs:

• ETS Dental Job Listings
• Indeed.com Job Listing Aggregator
• Careerbuilder
• DentalTown Classifieds

Step 4. Interviews.

The Telephone Interview:

• Return your phone messages and emails promptly. It speaks to your motivation, interest, and courtesy. Don't let returning phone calls or emails become an issue or an obstacle to getting an interview. Even if you don't think you will be interested in an opportunity, return the call. On more than one occasion we have seen a candidate get a call from Practice B when he was already talking with Practice A. The candidate puts off returning the call to Practice B. Two or three weeks later, the opportunity with Practice A does not work out and now Practice B will not consider the candidate because no calls have been returned.
• Your main goal in a telephone interview is to get a face-to-face interview.
• Ask for the interview. Take the initiative to set a time. Say something like, "From what you have told me, I would be very interested in meeting with you and coming to see your practice. When would be good for you?"
• Smile- even on the phone. You really can tell when someone is smiling.

Here is some additional reading on phone interviews: Tips for Phone Interviews.

The Face-to-Face Interview:
Don't go in blindly. Be sure to prepare in advance. Look over this article the night before: Preparing for the Interview.

• Treat the staff with courtesy and respect. A practice owner often feels like his or her staff is like a family and will listen to their opinions, especially if they are negative. On more than one occasion, we have seen excellent candidates not offered an opportunity because they treated a staff member poorly.
• Smile and show some enthusiasm. More candidates are hired because of their personalities and positive attitudes than because specific clinical skills. One high-end cosmetic practice told us they had interviewed six different dentists. They hired the candidate who smiled and appeared to truly enjoy being a dentist, passing on more experienced candidates with less personality and enthusiasm.
• Show sincere interest in the hiring dentist's situation. Understand that the dentist needs to solve a problem. Maybe the practice just lost a key associate or partner. Maybe the practice is growing and cannot keep up with patient demand. Maybe the dentist needs someone to take over the practice when he or she retires. You need to get a clear understanding of the dentist's true motivation for adding an associate. Once you truly understand the needs of the hiring dentist, you can mutually determine if you are the solution.
• Send a thank you note after the meeting. Here is a great example of a post-interview thank you: Thank You Note.

Still nervous? Here is a full blog post on interviewing: Interview Tips.

Step 5. Reviewing Contracts.
A good overview of contracts may be found here (the most relevant information is on the last page of the article): Compensation Considerations.

Step 6. What Can You Expect to Earn?
There are several good sources covering realistic dentist earnings. Here is our own: How Much do Dentists Make?
The Levin Group publishes an annual survey in Dental Economics. The 2012 version can be downloaded here: Levin Group Survey.
The ADA puts out its own numbers, also: ADA Income and Gross Billings.

Step 7. Plan Your Relocation.
If you need to relocate, be sure to plan it ahead of time. Here are a few key points to ponder as you plan: Relocating Tips.

Finding a job can be an intimidating process. I hope these resources will help make the process easier. Please feel free to call us should you have any questions. We are always happy to help.

Posted by Morgan Pace, Senior Dentist Recruitment Consultant with ETS Dental. To find out more, call Morgan at (540) 491-9102 or email at mpace@etsdental.com.

Only Hiring for Today Won’t Prepare Organizations for Tomorrow

In April of 1860, the Pony Express made its first delivery from St. Joseph, MO to San Francisco, CA. It took ten days to make the trip and cost $5—in current day dollars more than $225—to mail half an ounce. More than 115 years later, a series of deregulations allowed private carriers to ship packages by air and for the first time deliver them to and from all of the 48 contiguous states. In 1981, FedEx introduced Overnight Letters throughout the U.S. and in 1985 UPS followed suite with its Next Day Air service.

This new speed of delivery came about at the same time as Toyota Motor Company’s new supply chain philosophy was coming to the attention of Western manufacturers. Just-in-Time supply chains eliminated waste by only receiving the product that was immediately needed, saving warehousing costs and other waste related to buying product before it was needed. Reliable express shipping was critical to keep Just-in-Time systems working though since one critical shipment being a day late could bring an assembly line to a standstill and defeat all of the process’s benefits.

Reducing waste is an ongoing battle in every organization. In the past several years, reducing human capital costs specifically has gotten a renewed level of scrutiny. The recession prompted many organizations to move once manual tasks into automated systems providing long-term cost savings. Other organizations added more contract staffing to their employee mix adding flexibility and reduced scaling costs. Still other organizations have taken another tack and whether consciously or only in effect, have moved their staffing strategies to a Just-in-Time philosophy.

“In this economy, companies continue to focus on cost containment, and one of the easiest way to keep costs low is to leave vacant positions unfilled and limit the creation of new positions until there is no other option,” says Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. “They feel that they are saving money as long as these positions are left open. But, when the need is truly urgent, there is no overnight option.”

In February, there were 3.9 million job openings in the U.S., the highest number openings since May 2008, but in March only 88,000 new jobs were filled.

Whereas it is easy to predict when a part or component will arrive—all package carriers today have detailed tracking features—when a new vice president of sales or director of operations will be hired, on boarded, and begin operating at full speed is a much looser science.

“Working with an industry expert recruiter will both reduce the time to hire and help find people who will be up to full speed faster. But, that time is still at minimum several weeks and potentially several months,” says Romaine. “If the employee is already needed, those weeks and months are going to turn into a time when either customers are underserved, existing staff is overworked, or both, which costs far more than is saved.”

The shift is that employers by and large stopped looking at their business and their pipelines to project the need for more staff several months down the line. Instead they wait until the growth has already materialized to hire the staff needed to service that growth. Deciding in May that more staff will be needed in August creates enough time for top candidates to be recruited and onboarded before the additional capacity is needed.

“Using solutions like contract staffing adds agility to workforce management and we have seen it being used increasingly in recent years,” notes Romaine. “But workforce planning isn’t a short term endeavor. In the big picture, hiring someone a few weeks or even months before they are needed is a small price to pay to ensure you have the talent when you need it. Business leaders need to be able act on what they see on the horizon even when they know their vision isn’t perfect."

Potential Hiring Red Flags for Dental Practices

We interview thousands of dentists and dental office staff applicants each year, and we look through at least three times as many resumes.  Many have glaring red flags and some are so subtle that asking more questions or investigating is required.

Here is a list of job candidate red flags.  

• Didn't submit a current resume. 
• Will only discuss duties and responsibilities, not achievements. 
• Does not provide relevant references upon request. 
• Will not provide salary information. 
• Has unrealistic salary expectations. 
• Will not sign a consent to release background information. 
• Is unrealistic about expectations for the next opportunity. 
• Will not call back at designated times. 
• ‘Disappears’ for a period of time. 
• Is currently unemployed. 
• Has been unemployed for long periods. 
• Has made rapid job changes. 
• Changes not just from job to job, but title to title, or industry to industry. 
• Gives no specifics on reasons for leaving. 
• Suddenly wants to move far from an area that has been home for many years
• Has a consistent reason for leaving – has a ‘pattern.’ 
• Appears to make poor/illogical career moves. 
• Has weak references. 
• Has low educational qualifications as compared to the norm. 
• Will only provide dates of employment in years. 
• Becomes angry when asked a specific, legitimate question. 
• Changes tone/presentation during the interview. 
• Is hesitant to respond to your questions. 
• Does not respond consistently to interview questions. 
• Has no idea of his or her next career step. 
• Suddenly brings up family/personal issues that would prevent accepting an offer. 
• Resume shows no progressive growth or mobility. 
• You feel you have to be ‘nice’ to candidate to get a response or to receive paperwork.
• Once offer is made, keeps trying to negotiate more and more changes.

Let us know if you have any to add or comments.

Carl Guthrie is a Dental Recruiter with ETS Dental. He covers the Western U.S. Region. Carl can be reached at cguthrie@etsdental.com.

Personality-Focused Interviewing

Have you made the decision that it's time to hire a new associate? While skills and experience are important as you plan for a new employee, the right chemistry or personality can make or break your team. Before starting the interviews, it's important to define the atmosphere of your practice and look for personalities that will fit in easily and enhance that atmosphere.

Go in to the interview with the goal of discovering a true sense of the potential new associate's personality by allowing your own personality to be seen. Make the interview more of a conversation rather than an interrogation. "You put people on guard if you ask them to reveal something about themselves but don't give them anything in return," says Jonathan Basker, a vice president at Betaworks, a New York-based company that builds social web companies. He recommends acting natural and opening up to interviewees about yourself and your practice. As the conversation flows, encourage questions about yourself or your practice from the potential hire.

Have a good idea of what personality type your practice needs to run smoothly. Are you looking for someone serious or fun-loving? Are you open to different cultures? "To find the right people for your company, your hiring process needs to give each candidate an opportunity to showcase their personality. Creating that level of comfort is a matter of knowing what you want and establishing trust," says Nadia Goodman, contributor to Entrepreneur.com(http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225852#ixzz2PvdwHBj3).

Your goal is to find a match, so the right person will be comfortable with the challenges they'll face and excited about the opportunities. "Let them know it's okay if you're not looking for the same thing," Basker says. "That permission lets them show a real version of themselves."

Contributed by Marsha Hatfield-Elwell, Dental Recruiter for DE, D.C., FL, MD, NJ, and PA. To Contact Marsha, call 540-491-9116, or email at melwell@etsdental.com.

Managing Return on Human Capital

When a factory is providing its maximum return on capital it is easy to see. A third shift needs to be added, the loading dock is constantly nearing capacity with product before the trucks come to take it away, and inputs are arriving just in time to be put into production.

Return on human capital, though, requires a different perspective and analysis because of how malleable that capital is. A hydroforming aluminum press that is set up to manufacture parts of a monocoque automotive chassis cannot put out a different product without significant retooling that could take days. Humans are quite different. A senior in-house legal counsel can just open a different document and suddenly be doing the work of a paralegal--yet at several times the hourly cost. If this scenario were occurring regularly across sales, marketing, development, and operations roles, everyone at the managerial level would appear to be busy, working at capacity, yet the company would be operating well below the potential return on capital.

"During the recession, asking people to absorb other roles and make do with lower staffing levels helped to trim budgets and survive in lean times," says Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. "Nearly three years after the end of the recession, though, employers are hiring throughout their organizations, and there are nearly 3.7 million current job openings."

The highest job opening rate is in the professional and business sector where there is one job opening for every 27 workers currently employed, in contrast to one opening for every 33 healthcare workers or one for every 50 construction workers. Considering that the unemployment rate for management, professional and related occupation professionals is 3.8 percent, or one in 26, the sector is essentially near full employment.

"Maximizing your return on investment when it comes to professional talent today isn't a matter of how lean you can run the organization, but rather how effectively you are utilizing your top talent," notes Romaine. “This has been one of the largest shifts in talent demand this year. Managers aren't just looking at the capabilities they can add to their organization, but how to add talent that will let their talent reach their highest potential,” says Romaine.

While in a simple way this might mean freeing top producers of the responsibilities that distract from them doing what they do best, Romaine says it can also involve a more nuanced approach.

"A lone wolf could do amazing things, yet appear to be peaking in their performance. By bringing in someone on a similar level but with a different background, a manager can help to spark the rigorous debate and examination that allows a once plateaued performer to continue to grow and do their best work," says Romaine.

When talking about an organization's top performers, though, the conversation inevitably has to return to not just how to develop them, but how to retain them. A recent survey by the American Management Association showed that more than a third of employers are expecting turnover to increase in the coming year, while less than 20 percent of those employers feel they are well prepared for that turnover.

“Top talent is driven by success, their ability to have a positive impact on their organization, and the potential to continue to grow," says Romaine. "Building out teams that help top talent to grow is vital to increasing job satisfaction at a time when finding experienced replacements is becoming increasingly difficult. But helping your best people to work better also directly improves your return on human capital.”