New guiding principles for successfully recruiting staff in 2025

Successfully recruiting new team members for dentistry practices has changed dramatically. Long gone are the days of writing job descriptions, describing desired qualifications, and listing the starting salary and benefits. Nowadays, potential employees generally consider all of that information as both boring and secondary.

Instead, individuals looking for a job in a dental office have other questions: What will my life be like if I work here? How much work will I do each week? Will I have a flexible work schedule? What is office culture like? Who (or what types of people) will I be working with? What are the opportunities for learning and growing? What difference will we be making in people's lives?

The world of work has changed

If "working" is different than it was five years ago, what it was like a decade ago is considered ancient history by current job applicants. If your perspective on recruiting and hiring hasn't changed-and especially if your process hasn't changed-you are in for a big surprise.

Let's start this exploration by delineating a number of potential obstacles to successful recruiting in today's world of work.

Having an inflexible approach to defining the position

You are the employer, which means you can define the position however you like. But taking that approach will be frustrating-either by not finding anyone willing to accept the position as you have structured it or experiencing numerous "false starts" with new hires leaving after a short period of employment (this includes the "This is the way we've always done it" perspective).

Not considering the changing nature of the workforce

Whether you are a Gen Xer, Millennial, or Baby Boomer, applicants' job expectations have changed significantly over the years. The most obvious factors are the rise of remote and hybrid work, what employees want to get out of their job, and the rise of technology in all areas of employment.

Potential employees want to earn enough money to support their current (or near future) lifestyle. They also want flexibility when it comes to their work schedule (including time off), where they work, and their responsibilities over time. They want to learn and grow, not do the same thing for the next two years.

Employees also want a sense of purpose-how does what they do impact others and the world at large? Those who work for you want to be known as a person and valued for characteristics beyond what they accomplish at work. They also want (and need) a sense of connection.

Staffing

6 common hiring mistakes to avoid

Sally McKenzie

Not understanding how the work of work has changed

Often, someone who wants to work full-time does not want to work what would have been considered "full-time" in the past. They may want to work four days a week, or six hours per day for five days (30 hours/week). Those not involved in direct service to clients (for example, accounting or filing insurance) may want to work remotely or at least with a hybrid schedule. For some roles, a team member could be an outsourced service provided from another state or country.

Remember that your competition when it comes to hiring is no longer just other dental practices; your applicants may be considering working for larger companies like Amazon, Uber, or positions where they'd make the same (or higher) wages with the addition of the flexibility to have the lifestyle they desire.

Having unrealistic expectations

Due to the hard work they've put in to complete their dental training and degree-and then develop their practice-dental professionals tend to have high goals and expectations for their career. They can bring these expectations to the way they want their practice to run (likely based on expectations developed in the past). This can lead to thinking about what the ideal candidate would look like or basing their expectations on what they've done before.

Over time, employers may concede to "this is what we'd like or prefer" as their hiring standard. With a period of unsuccessful hires, it can decline to "this is what we need" and even to "what we need to survive short-term." If you haven't experienced this reduction of expectations yet, don't get overconfident.

The answer to overcoming these hiring obstacles is developing a creative, flexible approach to defining the position, roles, responsibilities, and accompanying benefits for the job (think beyond the financial realm). Clearly, considering different types of scheduling flexibility is a key factor for many applicants. Becoming the type of workplace where people want to work is another.

Retention is the most successful form of recruitment

Keeping the team members you already have is almost always easier and provides better results than hiring a replacement. Consider the lost effectiveness between when a team member resigns to when they actually leave, plus any time that the position is not filled. Then add the lost productivity while training a new team member and the disruption it causes with your workload and interactions with other staff. Don't forget to consider the impact on relationships (with clients, other staff, and insurers) created by the transition to a new employee.

Research has shown that most employees don't leave to earn more money elsewhere. During the Great Resignation of 2021-23, employees who quit their jobs cited a lack of appreciation as the main reason they were resigning (three times more frequently than financial benefits)!¹ Earlier research found 79% of employees who quit cited not being appreciated as a key factor to their decision to leave.²

The logical deduction? Make sure your employees feel valued and appreciated. This will avoid the hassle of recruiting new team members. But be aware of three things:

Not everyone feels appreciated in the same ways.
Over 50% of employees prefer being appreciated in ways other than words.
Younger employees want to be appreciated by their colleagues as much as their supervisor.³

Don't carry the weight of responsibility all on your shoulders; teach your team how to show authentic appreciation to one another. Add this to developing a flexible approach to defining the position you are hiring for, and you'll experience a successful recruiting process.

References

Sull D, Sull C, Cipolli W, et al. Why every leader needs to worry about toxic culture. MIT Sloan Management Review. March 16, 2022. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-every-leader-needs-to-worry-about-toxic-culture/
Branham L. The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It's Too Late. 2012; Amacon Books.
White P, George G. How preferences for types of appreciation differ across employee age groups. Strategic HR Review. 2021;(1):25-30.