WP126 | My 8-Step Hiring Process
Hiring the right team members can make or break your private practice. One bad hire? It can lead to headaches, inefficiency, and unnecessary stress. But when you get it right, your practice thrives with a team that shares your vision and supports your long-term growth.
In this episode, Whitney breaks down The Importance of a Strong Hiring Process—a step-by-step approach to finding the perfect fit for your team. From recognizing internal growth opportunities to using the “Camping Test” (yes, really!), she explores how to go beyond resumes and make hiring decisions that align with your practice’s culture.
Plus, Whitney reveals common hiring pitfalls, why skipping steps can cost you, and how tools like the Enneagram test and smart interview strategies can ensure you build a strong, reliable, and growth-oriented team.
This episode is for you if you’re tired of hiring out of desperation and want to create a structured, stress-free hiring process. Tune in now and take control of your hiring strategy!
The Importance of a Strong Hiring Process
A well-structured hiring process is essential to finding the right candidates who align with your business needs. One bad hire can create challenges, so it’s important to streamline your approach while ensuring you attract the best fit for your team.
Consider Internal Growth
Before looking externally, consider whether someone in your current practice can take on more hours or responsibilities. Hiring from within can be a great way to ensure continuity and build on existing trust.
The “Camping Test”
A valuable tip when assessing candidates: ask yourself, “Would I go to dinner or camping with this person?” If they’re someone you’d enjoy spending time with and they have the necessary skills, they’re likely a great fit for your practice.
Beyond the Resume
It’s easy to focus on credentials, but a good hire is about more than what’s on paper. Don’t rush the process—ensure the candidate aligns with your practice’s values and culture before making a decision.
Stick to the Process
Skipping steps due to urgency often leads to mistakes. Hiring out of desperation can result in bringing on candidates who are "almost good enough" rather than the right fit. Following a structured process will help avoid these pitfalls.
Recognizing Growth in Your Team
New hires won’t always work the way you do, and that’s okay. Over time, you’ll find that some may even surpass your own skill level. As your practice grows, your role will shift from providing therapy to focusing on business growth and leadership.
By following a thoughtful hiring process, you’ll build a strong, capable team that supports both your practice and your long-term vision.
Step 1: Determine the Need
Before posting a job, identify the gap in your practice. What duties need to be covered? What personality traits and skills are essential? Defining these elements will help you craft a clear job description that attracts the right candidates.
Step 2: Post the Job
Visibility is key. Post the job on Indeed with two different job titles to increase reach. Share it on LinkedIn, alumni groups, your website, and social media—using an eye-catching image can help draw attention.
Step 3: Review Applicants
With applications rolling in, narrow them down to ten or fewer by focusing on non-negotiables and identifying red flags. This step ensures you invest time only in candidates who align with your practice’s needs.
Step 4: Pre-Screening Process
Streamline the process by emailing applicants two to three questions related to the job. Those who respond well move on to a 20-minute Zoom screening. If unsure about a candidate, involve another team member for an additional review.
Step 5: Personal Interview
Now it’s time for a deeper dive. Conduct an in-person or video interview, inviting team members if needed. This step goes beyond professional qualifications—it’s about determining personality and cultural fit. Ask about hobbies, interests, and family history to get a well-rounded sense of the applicant.
Step 6: Enneagram Personality Test
While this step isn’t about hiring based on a number, having applicants complete the Enneagram test can provide insight into their personality and how they might fit within your team. Use the results to understand how to best support and manage them.
Step 7: Due Diligence Checks
Before making an offer, complete these essential background checks:
✅ Contact at least three references
✅ Run a background check
✅ Review their social media presence
✅ Assign a small test task to assess their follow-through
Always call references instead of emailing—this allows for deeper, more candid conversations.
Step 8: Make an Offer
Once you’ve found the right candidate, send an official offer letter and express your excitement. A well-structured offer ensures clarity and sets a positive tone for their journey with your practice.
Final Thoughts
Hiring the right people is a game-changer for private practice owners. By following this 8-step process, you ensure that every new hire aligns with your values, strengthens your team, and contributes to the growth of your business.
Need help streamlining your hiring process? Wise Practice Consulting can guide you every step of the way!
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I'm Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Want to grow your practice? Want to grow your faith? Want to enjoy your life outside of work? You've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith based practice while also having a good time.
[00:00:25] Now, let's get started with
[00:00:30] Jingle: your practice. She don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and the wise practice podcast, Whitney Owens and wise practice podcast.
[00:00:48] Whitney Owens: Hello friends and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being with me today. We are going to jump into the eight step hiring process that I use. In my own hiring at my root practice and in the consulting business. So I'm excited to walk through that with you. I use this process for hiring therapists and also for hiring administrative staff, marketing staff, and other people in my business.
[00:01:11] So I know you're in for a treat. And then I'm also including in the show notes, a PDF. That has all these steps for you in order. I have perfected this over time and I'm excited to share it with you. Before we jump into the meat of the episode, I just want to remind you that the early bird for the Wise Practice Summit is ending on April 1st.
[00:01:33] So what is the Wise Practice Summit? It is a group of faith based practice owners coming together for a business conference to grow not only our private practices, but our businesses. We have done this for several years. We continue to grow as people make relationships and want to continue to connect with one another.
[00:01:52] When we pulled participants from the last few years, The common theme was, I come to this because I want to connect with other Christian practice owners from around the country. People make friendships that are long lasting, people get new ideas for their business, create new partnerships. It is incredible what happens when we bring people together.
[00:02:13] So if you're looking for an opportunity to be a part of a community of Christian practice owners, And maybe get some continuing education. We are in the process of getting that approved. We would love for you to join us in Greenville, South Carolina, October 9th through the 11th. We're going to be at the Grand Bohemian Hotel right next to downtown beside the Reedy River.
[00:02:34] It's in this beautiful hotel that kind of has like a cabin feel to it at the same time. You can go outside and sit by the river with your coffee, have lovely conversations, but also get some great. within learning how to grow your practice. We have lots of great speakers that are going to be coming.
[00:02:50] We're going to be talking about leadership in your practice, how to market to faith based therapists, how to create a blogging strategy that helps your website grow, but also helps clients find you and understand your specialties. We're going to talk about how to create retreats and events, about group practice ownership, and also a lot of financial talks as far as how to have a practice that continues to grow financially, where to put your money, and all those great things.
[00:03:17] So, lots of great topics, lots of great relationships. Head to WisePracticeConsulting. com. Hit Summit. Make sure you get that ticket before April 1st. We are already over halfway full. So, I'm excited and we're this far out. So, we're doing great and I look forward to all of you that are listening now that are going to be there.
[00:03:34] I can't wait to see you. Makes me very happy to think about. Alright, so let's jump into the episode today because this is a really common question on the hiring process because look, one bad egg is a challenge. Right? You want to really create a hiring process that works for your business, that works for you, that's streamlined.
[00:03:56] But also allows you to find the ideal candidates for your business. We know that the people that work for us are some of the most important people, right? We want to invest in them, have relationships with them. I can give you a couple of fun tips that I've been given. One is the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.
[00:04:14] So, you know, if you already know someone in your practice. Is that good for a faith based podcast? If you already know someone in your practice that could increase their hours, increase their time at your practice, be thinking about that. That's a good thing to think about because they're already doing good work.
[00:04:29] And in the hiring process, I was also told one time, if this is somebody you could see yourself going to dinner with, or maybe going camping with, And they can do the job. That's a good hire, right? I was like, huh, it's got to be somebody I want to spend time with. You know, I think it's easy for us to say, Oh, well, on paper, this person looks good.
[00:04:50] Or, Oh, this person has this credential that we're looking for. And then we move forward with it. It is really not what we're looking for. So some, those are some of the concepts that I think about as I'm going through the hiring process, but we're going to walk through step by step and I'm going to give you some of my best tips on each step.
[00:05:06] But remember. Can I go camping with this person? Right? So, again, these steps are all going to be not only in the show notes, but we're going to have a flyer attached so that you have that information. Um, I shouldn't say flyer, PDF attached so that you have that information. So, it's important that you have that structured process so you kind of know where you're going.
[00:05:29] Don't skip the steps. I've had so many people come back to me and skip certain steps, especially at the end because they're anxious and wanting to hire. And that's never good. You end up making mistakes in the long run. You don't want to be hiring in a place of desperation. You want to be hiring in a place of need, but also not just hiring just to hire.
[00:05:55] And I do see this, especially with younger group practices, when they're hiring their first therapist, they just really want to get it going and They end up hiring people, you know, that seem almost good enough, you know, or almost what they're looking for. And that can be challenging. And we can talk a little bit today, too, as I go through these steps of kind of that process of like, how do you decide?
[00:06:17] Because the truth is your therapists aren't going to be like you. They're not going to do things the way that you necessarily do them. And you can't make a comparison there. And I remember my first few hires. It was like, Oh, well, they don't do therapy the way that I do. Are they as good as me? Right? But now as I've gotten better at this process and grown as a practice owner, I realized some of these therapists that work here, they're better than me.
[00:06:46] Truly, like I would send a client to them before me sometimes. So it will improve over time, but know that you aren't necessarily going to hire. People better than you at first, or at least it doesn't seem that way. And then as they grow and you get to know them, you start to say, Oh, wow, these people are great.
[00:07:05] And as you grow in your practice, you're going to start to notice that like your capacity to do therapy is going to decrease as your need for business decisions and growth of your business becomes more on the forefront of that. But let's start stepping into these. Number one, is you need to determine what the need is in your practice.
[00:07:25] I want you to identify what that is. So these are some of the questions you could ask yourself. Do I need a part time or full time person? What hours is the office available? You know, mornings, afternoons, evenings, Saturdays. What is it that I'm needing? Are there any special specializations in your practice that you're needing to hire for?
[00:07:45] So that could be couples counselor or eating disorders or substance abuse. A lot of this. I make decisions about based on what we have and don't have, but also based on client need. We track all of our calls. And when we don't schedule people, we track while we didn't schedule them. So that could be, well, we don't have a marriage counselor to work with them, or we don't have another child and adolescent therapist that's available, so they don't put on a wait list.
[00:08:12] That shows me that I need to hire. Another great rule of thumb here is don't wait till your practice is completely full to hire. I think a lot of people have that conception. So it could be when you're starting your group practice. Or when you're hiring more therapists, you think, Oh, I don't want to hire until everyone's caseload is full.
[00:08:33] That's a myth. Because if you do that, then you're going to be putting people on wait lists while you're hiring. You're going to feel more rushed in the hiring process, and you're not going to have as much capacity, at least if you're a solo practitioner moving into a group. If you wait till your caseload's full, where are you going to have time to work on the hiring process?
[00:08:52] I suggest that when you're 75 to 80 percent of what you want to be, You hire. So that could be 75 to 80 percent of your entire group practice is full. So you're looking at hiring or it could be within a specialization. So if I had three child and adolescent therapists, when they all get 75 to 80 percent full, that's when I start looking at hiring another child and adolescent therapist.
[00:09:14] And then within determining your need, I want you to write a clear job description. So you're defining the duties and success measures that are part of that process. So, for example, you're saying, here is what we require of our therapists. Here's what they will be doing. Some of the things I have in there, you know, is.
[00:09:33] Stuff that everyone has, you know, meeting with, meeting with clients and providing therapy to them, attending staff meeting, getting supervision. And then maybe some other things that we have in ours is notes have to be completed within 48 hours. And so success measures are when we really explain what it looks like to complete that duty.
[00:09:54] So the duty might be completing your notes in a timely manner. And then you put the success measures in there, must be completed within 48 hours. We want to make it really clear to people who are hiring them, this is what the expectation is of you working here. Another expectation we have is churn ratio.
[00:10:12] We want churn ratio to be at 40 percent or less. So you might be wondering, well, what's churn ratio? Churn ratio is how we are turning out clients. So we want less than 40 percent of our clients to leave, right? So we want to keep at least 60 percent of our clients to session 4, okay? We really want it to go past that, but this is our first measure.
[00:10:35] As we're looking at our new hires, and so actually at the 90 day mark, we sit down and look at those numbers, make sure they're going in a good direction and continue to train and help our therapist in improving those ratio numbers. So, when you're determining that need, other things I want you to consider is verify that the candidate.
[00:10:55] In their licensing process, are they fully licensed or are they not? If they're not, how many hours do they still need? Then looking at, can you provide that supervision that's needed to that therapist? Do you need to look outside your practice for that? You want to check their disciplinary actions, see if there's anything on file.
[00:11:14] And then if you are an insurance based practice, maybe looking at credentialing requirements of some insurance companies. That you might be credentialed with, require a licensed therapist to see clients, maybe some are unlicensed under supervision, looking through those things. Another tip here, as we move into the next one, and you start kind of, you, you're going to, you're going to post the job, and then you're going to start looking at those candidates.
[00:11:39] I think another thing to mention here is making sure that when candidates are applying, they haven't been clients at your practice. This was not something I had to think about years ago, but lately, I've had to really think about that. And we did have someone come in for a job interview. And we had, we always ask in advance what piqued their interest in the job.
[00:12:00] But then when she came in, I always ask that again. And she said, oh, I was a client here this many years ago. It's like, oh, goodness, like, and we can't hire you. That's conflict of interest there. And so that's something that you need to be aware of, especially if you're in a smaller town or a large group practice.
[00:12:16] But let's go to step number two, post the job. I encourage you to look at multiple platforms for posting your job. Don't just post in one place. Um, Indeed is a great place to post, LinkedIn, alumni groups, social media groups. So you might want to reach out to your colleges in your area that have master's programs, or reach out to your own master's program to see about hiring.
[00:12:39] Um, and then social media would be on your own social media, or maybe you're looking at other groups. Where therapists might be hanging out. So it might be like a local group of therapists or a statewide group of therapists. You could potentially, maybe like here, we have like a mom's group in the city, so you might wanna post something there.
[00:12:59] There's a lot of options there for that. And I want you to post two different jobs. And the reason is, different titles can get different hits, and so I've also, and I've also found that for whatever reason, some jobs do better than others, so if I post two, I get different hits. So, for example, if I was going to hire someone to see kids, I might make one job a child and adolescent therapist.
[00:13:22] And I might make the other a teenage mental health counselor, or I might just say licensed professional therapist and kind of look then at the details and see what I look at, what I get. But post the job as much as you can, you know, the question comes up is should I pay for posting? I certainly think you can.
[00:13:42] I usually start out not paying and see what I get. And then if I don't get great candidates or I'm really needing someone a little bit more immediate, then I'll put more money on it. But y'all, the hiring process, it can be really quick, like it could take just, you know, a short amount of time and the right candidate comes.
[00:14:02] It could take longer. I've had times where, you know, something worked really quickly and I've had other times where it took nine months. That was the longest one time where I was hiring and it was very difficult. So, so you want to go ahead and post the job. Don't wait till the last minute and give yourself that space and time.
[00:14:19] So step number three is reviewing applications. I want you to narrow down your candidates. To 10 or less. You do not want to be sifting through so many people. Try to narrow them down. I would create your red flags or your things you're looking for, things you're not looking for, non negotiables basically.
[00:14:40] Some things that I really try to pay attention to is because we have a faith based bent. If somebody has any kind of faith based information on their resume, I certainly look at that. Like if they've worked in a church or some kind of Christian camp or maybe work in another, maybe they went to a Christian graduate program.
[00:14:58] Those are things that I look for. It's definitely not deal breakers, but those are things that are like green flags, things that I'm really happy to see on someone's resume. I am concerned if they've been to a lot of different jobs, so if they've only, if they've had like five different jobs and each lasted a year, right, because that's an indicator of how long they're going to be with me.
[00:15:18] Obviously we're looking for grammatical things within the resume. We do ask people to submit a cover letter. So many people don't do that, but I do give kind of like bonus points for a good cover letter, right? That makes it easier for me. So, you're going to use your job description, look at the resume, see if this is something that meets the job description that you've already put together and what the needs are in your practice.
[00:15:41] So, once you kind of start going through those resumes, you're going to move to step four. And, and I think this is important to mention here in between these steps. If I find a candidate and the application comes through and I'm like, this is amazing. Like this person looks like a great fit for my business.
[00:15:59] Then I will go ahead and reach out to them immediately. And the reason is good candidates don't last long. They are looking at multiple jobs. And so you want to make sure that you jump on them as soon as possible. All right. Step four is the pre screening process. I do a prescreening because I don't want to waste my time in a 1 hour interview with someone that's not going to be worth the time and energy.
[00:16:25] Right? And I've done that before where I've had, I've even had 1 time where I asked someone to leave 10 minutes into the interview because they just weren't a good fit. And I used to sit through those long interviews. And I would know in the first few minutes, so I'm trying to screen people a little better because my time is valuable and as I'm screening people, you know, and this will come with you going through your process, depending on the size of your team.
[00:16:47] I go ahead and have my admin go through this screening process so that I'm not so involved in it. So we first send two to three questions via email, and then we do a zoom screen. So the two to three questions via email, or it might be via the app or whatever software you're using to get resumes. So sometimes I might do that through LinkedIn or Indeed, but it's just to kind of get an idea.
[00:17:14] So a lot of people won't even reply to your questions. Some will. And these questions, typically for me, are pretty simple. What piqued your interest in working at this practice? And are you looking to make a job change? Usually those are my questions. Now if someone's an associate level, and I can see that, sometimes I'll ask them where they are in the process of getting their license.
[00:17:37] But those are a few of the questions that we send their way. Based on their answers, you know, can they, do they have a good answer? You know, does it show that they've done their research and want to work at this company? And are they able to write well, you know, that'll lead to going further into this process, right, which then we move on to a zoom screening.
[00:18:00] And that's what we kind of ask some initial questions within our last practice membership community. This whole process is in there and I have all these questions for last practice members that they can grab for what I do here. So we'll go through all those screening questions today, but those are for our community members.
[00:18:16] But I have about seven questions that I go through on that Zoom screening, and again, this is what my admin is doing, and she records those Zoom screenings just in case I need to watch them later, or another staff member needs to watch it later. But in general, my admin has been trained in such a way that she kind of knows.
[00:18:34] What to do next, right? She knows if they should move on or not, but this is zoom screenings going to save you so much time from sitting in those interviews. And I always remember this story early on when I was doing all the screenings. And this was before I was doing zoom. I did a phone screening, I called this girl and we had scheduled the time and I said, Hey, like, are you ready for this?
[00:18:55] And she was like, because she didn't sound good on the phone. And that's why I was like, are you ready for this? And she was like, actually, yes, I just sat down to get my nails done. This is the perfect time. Okay. I was like, what, like, if you're sitting down to get your nails done, this might not be the perfect time.
[00:19:13] Right. And so I went through the questions, but I was like, yeah, I'm not sure how serious you're taking this. So the zoom screening will help and seeing like, can people present well, can they look at their computer? Do they know how to use technology? You know, do they, did they get ready? I mean, sometimes I'm amazed how many people don't brush their hair or do the things that they need to do when they're coming in to be interviewed.
[00:19:37] So that is our screening. And another part of that, as a WE2 based practice, you know, we can't really hire based on faith and of course a lot of other things. So one of the questions that we asked to kind of help that process is, you know, we partner with churches in the area and we have referrals that are looking for Christian counseling.
[00:19:58] Is this something that you would be comfortable offering to clients? And We get their reaction to that. So we're not asking them if they're Christian or not. What we're asking them is, are you comfortable working with Christians? And that helps us kind of see where they're at with that. And I've had some people go so far as to say, yes, I love, you know, I'm, I'm very active in my church.
[00:20:19] I love God. I'd, I'd love to work at practice that runners that and I've had other people say, yes, I'm comfortable working with it. You know, sometimes I'm attending church, you know, it just depends, you know, and then I have other people that are like. I'm not a Christian and I'm like, Whoa, like that's not what we asked you.
[00:20:36] You know, it's not like we're trying to find out what your faith is. We're just trying to figure out if you're comfortable in letting you know, this is a part of our business in the same way that. And if we only saw couples, we would be asking you, are you comfortable working with couples? Because if you're not, this probably isn't the place for you to work.
[00:20:50] So it's all, it's not always about your business. You're actually also helping them figure out where they need to land as well. All right, let's move into step five, which is a personal interview. You want to involve other team members potentially in this interview process, because I think it's helpful.
[00:21:10] After the interview to have another set of eyes to talk through things, to feel things, to ask questions you haven't thought through, right? So, you'll have to think about the size of your business and what you have going on to kind of determine who that person might be. For us here at this practice, it's me and the clinical manager involved in that process.
[00:21:31] There have definitely been times if I'm not available, it's the clinical manager and the office manager. So there's a lot of different ways to kind of do that. And some things that I would encourage you is to kind of come up with some questions that you want to ask in the interview process. I have found that I like to inquire about their story to becoming a therapist, because that will tell you a lot about someone.
[00:21:51] And when I'm hiring, I am looking for fit and personality for the branding and culture of my practice, like who we are in the community. Like we're friendly, we're laid back, we're personable. You know, those are things that I'm looking for with someone. Is this someone that I can sit in a room with? That I feel comfortable talking to?
[00:22:13] Is this someone who asks me questions and gets to know me? Or is this someone who just talks about themselves? These are ways that they're going to act with your clients. It's important to be thinking about that. And if they share personal stories, you know, how they became a therapist, there might be some things they say that you're like, really?
[00:22:30] That seems odd. Or that's, that's a little off and maybe that would be able to tell you, Hey, this might not be the best fit for my practice, right? So learn more about kind of their family, where they came from. You can't directly ask really personal questions. But anything that they choose to share with you, you can ask more about that.
[00:22:49] So, like, for example, a lot of therapists will talk about their own therapy experience. You know, well, my journey was this because when I was 16 years old, my mom sent me to therapy because my parents divorced and da da da da da. And I, I like that. I like that they're owning it. And then I'll kind of ask, well, how was your therapy experience?
[00:23:06] You know, what is your comfort level? You know, and that helps me in this process. But if they've already brought up That they went to therapy, you can continue to talk about that. And when it comes to personality and cultural fit and hiring, the other thing about that is I can teach you how to do therapy.
[00:23:22] You can go get trained in different modalities while you work here, but I can't change if you're a friendly, nice person. You either are or you're not. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm thinking about in the hiring process. And then you want to ask about their personal interests. So maybe, hey, what do you like to do for fun?
[00:23:38] Or how do you take care of yourself? I think that really helps us understand somebody. A couple of other things that I do end up asking about is their preferred therapy modalities. What was it about the practice that really interested them? I'll ask for some positive and negative case consultation, like case examples.
[00:23:56] You know, when, when was a time that a case went really well? When's a time that you wish you had done something different? I always ask about problems they might have had with the supervisor and how did they handle those because a lot of times that will show you how they're going to handle their relationship with you.
[00:24:11] Right. I might ask about crisis situations, ethical dilemmas. How do you handle those? And any other questions kind of might come up in that process and, and obviously talking through the specifics of the job, right? And what we expect out of them. Talk about the hours. Any non negotiables, like, hey, you're going to have to come to staff meeting, or hey, these are the hours you have to work, or we expect you to see a full caseload, talking through all that.
[00:24:37] Now, if we get to the end of the interview, and I am thinking, dang, I really want this person to work for me, right, then a lot of times, I will just put it out there, and I'll say something like, hey, I know this process. It's difficult to go through and you're interviewing a bunch of people and you're trying to figure out who likes me, who doesn't, and I use that loosely right there.
[00:24:58] I'll just say, hey, I want you to know that we do want to hire you and we are kind of offering you a tentative based on your references or, you know, where are you sitting in this process just so that they know how we feel before they're interviewing other people. And a lot of times they respect that because it can be stressful going through the process.
[00:25:15] We all know what it's like to interview. Right, so I think that can be helpful. All right, so then we're gonna move on to the Enneagram. Now, I, this is step six, we do an Enneagram assessment. Now, you could do any kind of assessment you want to, but this is the personality assessment that I like to do. If you're not familiar with the Enneagram, I encourage you to I talk about it often because I found it to be one of the most helpful personality assessments out there and it's personally taught me so much.
[00:25:46] So we don't want to hire based on their number. That's not what we're doing. We're not hiring based on a personality type. We're hiring based on someone's ability to read an email and take the test and send us screenshots of their results. So we. Give these instructions very clearly in the email, and you'd be surprised how many people can't follow those simple instructions.
[00:26:07] Then they sit, and then we also ask them to give us a few sentences about reading their personality type and how it spoke to them. You know, and that can be something really simple, like I related to this, I didn't relate to this, or I'd never thought about this. I want to see if this therapist can learn something about themselves and gain insight, right?
[00:26:25] I've also had times before where someone was It's very defensive. Hey, this is not who I am. I didn't relate to this. I'm not this. I'm not this. I'm not this. And I was like, Whoa, like certainly if you scored in this way, something about this resonates with you. And so I knew not to move forward with that candidate because how's this candidate going to react when I have feedback from them and their clinical work or with the way they Do their job.
[00:26:52] That's important. The Enneagram also helps me know as a boss how to best support my team members. It shows me what motivates them. And so the way I would speak to one person is going to be different than the way I speak to another person in the support that I offer them. So that's step number six is the assessment that we do for personality.
[00:27:13] And then number seven is doing your due diligence on reference checks. Right? I want you to verify at least three references, preferably ask for four, and hoping that you get in touch with three. And the things we ask for in that is the person's name, email, phone number, and relationship to the candidate.
[00:27:32] And then we reach out by phone. If we don't get a response, we send the questions by email. And again, all these questions that we do for references are also in our membership community within WISePractice. And then we also do background checks as well on these candidates to, um, when we're really close to the hiring process, because that's important when you're, especially when you're hiring therapists.
[00:27:54] Right? Then the last one is the most fun stuff in the process where we offer someone a job. It's really great. I love calling candidates and giving them jobs. It's very exciting. We send an official offer. We give them a call first to talk about the start date. Put that on an offer letter. Talk about the pay.
[00:28:13] Sometimes we've talked about that in the interview. I usually talk about in the interview if it's somebody that I really want to hire, just making sure they're good with it. And then we send the offer letter and we get going. So those are our steps. A couple of extra tips is always have a job posting on your website because you just never know when someone's going to go to your website.
[00:28:31] I always keep resumes on file, even if I'm not hiring. If they look like a good candidate, I just kind of have a folder in my email. For great candidates, there was a time once where I needed to hire, and I just really didn't want to go through the hiring process. I found some old resumes, I called the girl, she was open to it, and we hired her.
[00:28:49] So it was great. I didn't have to go through a ton of resumes. Sometimes I hire more than one person, because it saves me time and energy to train two at a time. They have camaraderie amongst themselves. And, you're only having to train, you're training two for the time of one, basically. That's really great.
[00:29:08] Trust your gut. Listen to what your gut's telling you. I've had my gut tell me lots of things and sometimes I turn someone down and then I find out they go somewhere else and it didn't go well. So I'm really grateful for the times I've trusted my gut and obviously as a faith based person my gut a lot of times is the Holy Spirit speaking to me in that process.
[00:29:29] Do not offer more than you have to give. Do not overpay people. You will regret it later. And a lot of therapists, practice owners, fall for this because they think they've got to offer more money than some other practice or some other thing. And yeah, they might go somewhere else for more money. That's true.
[00:29:48] But it's okay. You, you don't want to get in a situation where your business is going under because you're paying people too much. Do not hire your friends. Don't do it. People, I see people do it. It causes problems. My rule is if you hire somebody, be okay with the friendship ending. Be okay if you never speak to that person again, because there's a chance that that might happen.
[00:30:13] It can get tricky. And then again, don't skip your, don't skip the steps in the process, especially references. Another rule that I have is I don't, I'm going to hire people that work in other practices. Now, if you're a 1099 based practice, you can't have that rule because that's the nature of contract work, but as a W2 based practice, I have found that if someone is working other jobs, it's hard for them to be committed to the job at my practice.
[00:30:39] And so then I have clients that I can't send their way because they're not available for those clients. And so they're a lot more focused on the work. We can build a more cohesive structure, structure and culture here at the practice. We're all in it together. And the last thing I want to say here. Is hiring.
[00:30:57] It's a little bit like dating and I kind of say that tongue in cheek like it makes me think about dating apps and you're like going through the app and looking at applications, you know, just the same way you're looking at profiles if you were to do online dating and then you're sending questions and having conversations and then you're having phone calls and you're having your in person date.
[00:31:18] Which is like the in person interview. And then you're deciding if you want to have a relationship with this person. And so it's kind of humorous because it feels that way. And even as a business owner, when I offer someone a job, I feel like I'm putting myself out there. Are you ready for this relationship?
[00:31:34] You know, and they either reject you or they don't, you know, and it feels, it feels funny. But it is a little bit like that. And so hopefully it helps you as you go through the process. Not every candidate is going to work, just like not every partner is going to work, but there are plenty out there that you can be looking for.
[00:31:53] And there's a lot of options and know that God will save you from some things in this process. I've had so many times that. Someone didn't work out and I was discouraged, but then something else worked out and I looked back and I was like, wow, there's God's hand right with us in that. So remember, in the show notes, I have a PDF that's going to walk you through all these steps so you can print it out and you can have it with you.
[00:32:20] And if you're needing extra help or support in this process, reach out to us at Wise Practice Consulting. I love helping people. Grow their practices. I love helping with the hiring process. It's such an exciting time and we're here to help you. So I hope you find this helpful as you go through your eight steps in hiring.
[00:32:39] Thank you so much for your time being on the show and being a part of this podcast.
[00:32:46] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and. Wise Practice podcast, Whitney Owen, wise Practice podcast.
[00:33:04] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The wise practice podcast is part of the site craft podcast network, a collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives to learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network head on over to site craft network dot com.
[00:33:25] The wise practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
