Tonya Lanthier, RDH is the founder and CEO of DentalPost, one of the fastest-growing dental-related career service providers in the country. Additionally, Lanthier is a member of the Academy of Dental Hygiene (ADHA), Entrepreneurial Organization (EO) and Academy of Dental Management Consultants (ADMC). She is on the planning committee for the Northern District Dental Society (NDDS) Gala for Smiles, a public relations liaison for the Georgia Dental Hygiene Association (GDHA), and volunteers for the Georgia Mission of Mercy and the Ben Mansell Clinic. Tonya also works with the Georgia Department of Education's Business Advisory Committee. She is a talented and engaging public speaker, using her boundless energy and enthusiasm to deliver her message about helping practices find and hire the right team members.

Tonya Lanthier, RDH

What if I told you that even in a tight labor market you can use data to attract more candidates, build a better recruitment plan, and retain the team you already have? It seems counterintuitive because we think of a data-driven hiring process as a “screening out” scenario, where the more data and filters we apply, the more restrictive the outcomes are. In this labor market, filtering seems like a luxury, but that’s not always the case.

For years, I’ve warned about the cost of a bad hire and how we can avoid it by using data. I still believe that—even in this market. When times and resources are tight, it’s even more important to make informed decisions for your business and your dental team. Instead of thinking about data in the hiring process as a subtractive screen-out process, I prefer to think of applying data as an additive way to attract the better candidates (and more of them) and to avoid wasting time on the wrong ones.

Using Data for Better Recruiting Outcomes

When it comes to recruiting, research is our friend. How you present your job opportunity and your practice to potential dental professionals matters. When was the last time you investigated your own practice as a candidate would? How about the last time you researched what a high-converting dental job advertisement looks like? Or how standard benefits and compensation structures for dental professionals have changed by position in the past 6 months or years? It has changed, especially salary and workplace conditions.

Every year, DentalPost surveys thousands of hygienists, dental assistants, practice managers, and other front office team members on their level of job satisfaction and attributes of their workplace environment, practice leadership, employer recognition, financial compensation, benefits, and more. Over the past 2 years, compensation has risen for many—but not all. There is a direct correlation between income level, job satisfaction, and the intention of survey respondents to apply for a new job.

The results of our recent surveys, published in January 2022, indicate that those who received a pay raise in the past 2 years that exceeded a cost-of-living adjustment are the most likely to stay happily where they are. However, open comments show that job seeking is fueled by 2 desires: the desire for higher income and the desire to work at a higher level of professional potential. When finding and retaining talent, competitive compensation and an empowering work culture are key. It is essential to make those key factors visible to potential job candidates and actualized for your existing team members, too. Knowing this kind of information before you write and post a job description can be the difference between attracting mediocre talent and the best in the industry.

SmartView is DentalPost’s blind screening feature that is designed to help reduce hiring manager bias during the initial screening process.

DentalPost’s salary and satisfaction surveys have underscored what we know to be true from current conversations rippling throughout dentistry during the labor shortage. Once you have found the right talent, the compensation you are willing to pay and the work environment you have created will help tip the scales.

Screening and Assessment Tools to Help You Focus First on What Matters Most

Organizational behavior studies have shown that around the world, businesses with diverse teams perform better financially.1 In the United States, dental practices with an inclusive culture are twice as likely to meet or exceed their financial goals and 8 times more likely to achieve better business outcomes. This is because they attract a culturally diverse clientele and are more diverse in their thinking and problem-solving approaches.

This research is what drove me to launch SmartView, DentalPost’s new screening tool that helps hiring managers reduce potential racial and ethnical biases as they screen and shortlist job candidates. Here’s how it works:

Before starting a search, employers are encouraged to complete a Candidate Match Questionnaire that addresses their office culture, core values, work setting, and the preferred skills and work style of the ideal candidate.

When posting their job or purchasing a résumé search, employers can turn on SmartView, activating a blind screening process that temporarily hides candidate names and photos while the hiring manager reviews résumés and applications for the skills and characteristics that best meet the practice’s needs.

Once the hiring manager has completed their evaluation and is ready, they can rate the candidate to reveal the full profile details, including their name and photo. The employer can leave SmartView on for as long as desired in the hiring process.

This type of smart filtering helps reduce unconscious bias during the screening process so you can focus on the right data first, including candidate experience and assessment insights that are more helpful in evaluation than the traditional criteria we assign weight to, such as physical attractiveness and cultural background.

2. Tools to Assess Personality, Work Style to Assure a Good Fit

In the most successful recruiting and hiring processes, assessment tools are utilized to make faster and better connections between candidates and employers. Because DentalPost is the nation’s leading dental-specific platform for providing candidate and employer matching, we have invested in making research-based assessment tools for both job seekers and employers. The job seeker profile is designed to support a holistic view of the person, helping candidates understand themselves better so they can stand out to the right employer and, ultimately, make better career decisions.

Employers can view candidate assessments to learn the nature of a potential candidate or use them to assess their existing team members for improved team management. These assessments help expose the attributes needed in a new hire to complement the current team’s strengths. They also enable employers to assess their practice culture so they can enhance their own presence/profile. Below are a few of those assessments:

DISC Personality Assessment details the individual’s communication and work style, giving the hiring manager insight into whether the candidate can fill team holes and balance out the existing team.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) Assessment details the emotional strengths and weaknesses of the individual. People with high EI are invaluable in dentistry because they are in constant interaction with patients and coworkers, more easily providing exceptional service and developing relationships of trust and leadership.

Core Values Assessment helps both employers and jobseekers discern what is most important to themselves to better ensure the decisions they make lead to a great fit for long-term satisfaction and advancing goals. DentalPost also has an alignment questionnaire that helps job seekers express their vision of themselves to potential employers. This is where we see a lot of dental professionals expressing a strong desire to do more clinically, have increased autonomy to do their best work, or grow into leadership roles. Knowing this is critical to a hiring manager.

Workplace Culture Assessment shows the types of environments a job candidate or employee will work best in and enjoy most. It also helps dental employers better understand what it’s like to work within their dental practice.

Skills Assessment enables jobseekers to rank their skills by level of proficiency so they stand out from the crowd and attract the attention of an employer who needs those specific skills.

For recruitment, you must offer something job seekers truly want that they don’t currently have, but you also need to make a smart decision about who you will hire. That’s why taking time to study the assessment information jobseekers have provided in their profiles is invaluable.

Having access to and applying data in the hiring process should never be a luxury, no matter how scarce candidates are. The practices that are thriving in this challenging hiring climate are using data to attract and win over the best and brightest.

With data, dental hiring managers can be confident they are putting out the most competitive offer or be assured they have the information they need to create a better dental team and working environment.

In either case, our data strongly indicate that the use of assessment and screening tools leads to better hiring outcomes in both the short- and long-term, increasing dental practice productivity, workplace culture, and employee happiness.

To download the 2022 Dental Salary Survey Report, visit dentalpost.net/salary-survey. 

1. Rock D, Grant H. Why diverse teams are smarter. 

. November 4, 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

Articles

When time and resources are tight, it’s even more important to make the right hire. Data can help.

Using Data for a Better Hire 

Solo to DSO: How Successful Practices Hire. Photo courtesy of Mr. Music/stock.adobe.com. 

When I started DentalPost, I had spent years working and temping in more than 100 dental offices in Atlanta as a dental hygienist. Doing this gave me the perspective and passion I needed to launch DentalPost, which I founded upon the idea that dental professionals needed a better way to easily connect with and understand how to find their best match in a dental employer. I still have that same passion today, but it’s expanded. As a business owner and entrepreneur, I also have a passion for helping dental practice owners and partners better understand how to make better hires and create “sticky” dental teams.

Hiring has never been more challenging. I’ve experienced from all sides what works, what doesn’t and what we can do to stay competitive and creative in today’s hiring climate. 2021’s “Great Resignation” movement has affected all industries globally, including dentistry. But instead of talking about the Great Resignation, we should be talking about the “Great Restructuring” and what that means for dental practices as it relates to hiring. 

If you haven’t yet heard of The Great Restructuring, it’s what business analysts are predicting businesses looking to maintain and grow must do in 2022––scrutinize expenses, cut operational costs and find new ways of working to address supply chain issues, new technologies, and higher labor costs.

New hires demand significant wage increases, which triggers long standing employees' demands for commensurate compensation. If we’re paying higher wages, shouldn’t we at least do more to assure that we attract the very best talent and retain the valuable team members we have? While the market rates aren’t in our control, there are some things that can help us make the most of the situation.

Here are steps every hiring manager can take right now to start making better hires, faster:

Do a culture check. Would you want to work at your office if you didn’t own it? Can you live up to the “Find a job you love” standard or are you just a production factory? Be better. Set an intention to be a dental practice that every RDH, DA and Front Office person aspires to work for. 

Take assessments of the existing team. This is a game changer! Doing this helps to identify soft skill gaps on the existing team, in order to identify who would be the best fit to complement the team. A well-rounded team with different strengths and drives is key to keeping things running smoothly. Missing that problem solver? How about an influencer type with charisma that inspires the team? Maybe there are too many dominant personalities and you could use someone who is happy to follow another team member’s lead. 

Write a better job advertisement. Our job description needs to paint a compelling picture of what a job seeker can expect in the role. A good employment relationship is a win-win. Instead of focusing on “What’s in it for me,” write the job posting from the place of “What’s in it for them.” This is an advertisement, rather than a job description. This is where we get to woo them and sell ourselves and our team. 

Scale Up Your Profile. Love your practice and think it’s a great place to work? Shout it from the rooftops! Employer Profile Pages on DentalPost are a great resource for a practice to showcase its unique “persona” to jobseekers. Stand out in a sea of sameness with a custom image gallery highlighting the office and team, as well as a personalized introduction to add a bit of personality to the practice profile.

Understand the Competition. To win the talent war, we need to understand our competition. Look at the job postings from other area practices. What are they offering? Is their ad more compelling? What details can be added to your job postings to make it more compelling to a potential candidate?

Know who you are looking for. When we’re short-staffed, our knee-jerk reaction is to find someone fast, but hiring the wrong person can end up costing us time, energy and money in the long run. (Did you know a bad hire can cost us up to 60% of an employee’s salary?!) But, when it’s done right, we save time and money. Be clear about who you are looking for. It pays to take time to laser focus on the skills and traits we most need and want in a new hire. One key step toward this is to map the strengths and skills of the existing team using DentalPost’s free online assessments tools. This will help to better see the holes and gaps in team members’ abilities, talents, and potential. It will also help save time and money by channeling efforts so that we are narrowing in on only the best possible fit for our team, saving time and money in the end

Reduce Bias To Uncover Hidden Candidates 

Our biases can (and often do) get in the way of hiring the best people for our teams and businesses. The result? Overlooking great candidates in the screening process - something few of us can afford these days. We all have both conscious and unconscious bias. The good news is that there is something we can do about it.

Rather than go on gut instinct, which can sometimes mislead us, we instead can focus on the skills and personal qualities that make for a great dental professional and team member, and bring harmony to our practice. A well-rounded team with different strengths and drives is key to keeping things running smoothly. 

SmartView by DentalPost is the only unbiased screening tool in the industry that can actually help hiring managers expand the candidate pool by temporarily removing candidate photos and names. This lets your hiring manager focus on the things that really matter to the role – skills, assessments and profile scores - rather than personal preferences which aren’t reliable hiring criteria. Unbiased hiring and screening opens us up to candidates who may be a perfect fit, but who we may have otherwise overlooked.

Take advantage of premium hiring packages from the start. A comprehensive hiring approach that adds a resume subscription to your job posting can help save you time, money and maximize your hiring efforts by reaching more candidates right from the start - something we all need in today’s hiring climate. 

Hire smarter using data. Once we identify and short-list top candidates, our next “secret weapon” to help us dig deeper includes assessments, ranging from skills and core values to personality traits and emotional intelligence. Again, evaluate the existing team to identify gaps. Need leadership on the team because it’s lacking? Or maybe there are too many “big picture” folks and not enough detail-oriented team members? 

Having everyone on the team take the “DISC” personality assessment helped us see what makes us tick. Then, we were able to determine what we were missing. Plus, if you already know the soft skills required for the open position, it will make it easier and faster spotting the right fit. For example, for a Front Desk Coordinator, the ideal candidate would ideally need to be a “CS” (Conscientious, Supportive) personality type. Anyone with all “D” type was likely to clash with the team dynamic. While you never rule someone out completely based on their DISC assessment, it’s a great tool in helping make a smart hire. 

The "DISC" assessment helps practices understand an applicants personality type before hiring. 

Know how you compare. Are you being competitive in the marketplace? See how your practice stacks up, and what changes you can make to attract and keep the best talent!

More than ever, we all have to level up our hiring games to be successful in this new era of employment. Go beyond and get outside your comfort zone when it comes to your search. An open mind combined with perseverance and extra effort yields great rewards. When we take an active role in attracting and bringing people into our businesses, we give ourselves the advantage and increase our odds of hiring right the first time, and building teams that thrive.

Take a look at some of the tools and tips to find the right fit for your practice when hiring new employees.  

Solo to DSO: How Successful Practices Hire 

What if I told you that even in a tight labor market you can use data to attract more candidates, build a better recruitment plan and retain the team you already have? Would you believe me?

It seems counterintuitive, because we think of a data-driven hiring process as a “screening out” scenario, where the more data and filters we apply the more restrictive the outcomes are. And in this labor market filtering seems like a luxury. But that’s not always the case. For years I’ve warned about the cost of a bad hire and how we can avoid it by using data. I still believe that, even in this market. Because when times and resources are tight, it’s even more important to make informed decisions for your business and your dental team. So, instead of thinking about data in the hiring process as a subtractive “screen out” process, I prefer to think of applying data as an additive way to attract the better candidates (and more of them) while not wasting time on the wrong ones.

Using Data For Better Recruiting Outcomes

When you know better, you do better. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work, right? When it comes to recruiting, research is our friend. How you present your job opportunity and your practice to potential dental professionals matters. When was the last time you investigated your own practice as a candidate would? How about the last time you researched what a high-converting dental job advertisement looks like? Or how standard benefits and compensation structures for dental professionals have changed by position in the last 6 months or year? It 

 changed—especially salary and workplace conditions.

When finding and retaining talent, competitive compensation and an empowering work culture are key.

Every year, DentalPost surveys thousands of dental hygienists, dental assistants, dental practice managers, and other front office team members on their level of job satisfaction as well as attributes of their workplace environment, practice leadership, employer recognition, financial compensation, benefits and more. Over the last 2 years, compensation has risen for many––but not all. There is a direct correlation between income level, job satisfaction, and the intention of survey respondents to apply for a new job.

The results of our recent surveys, which will be published in full detail in January 2022, indicate that those who received a pay raise in the last 2 years that exceeded a cost-of-living adjustment are the most likely to stay happily where they are. But open comments indicate job seeking is fueled by 2 desires: the desire for higher income and the desire to work at a higher level of professional potential. When finding and retaining talent, competitive compensation and an empowering work culture are key. It is essential to make those key factors 

 for your existing team members, too. Knowing this kind of informationbeforeyou write a job description and post can be the difference between attracting mediocre talent and the best of the industry.

Screening & Assessment Tools To Help You Focus 

Organizational behavior studies* have shown that around the world, businesses with diverse teams perform better financially. In the United States, dental practices with an inclusive culture are twice as likely to meet or exceed their financial goals and 8 times more likely to achieve better business outcomes. This is because they attract a culturally diverse clientele and are more diverse in their thinking and problem solving approaches. *

Sources: Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company

This research is what drove me to launch 

, DentalPost’s new screening tool that helps hiring managers reduce potential racial and ethnic bias as they screen and shortlist job candidates. Here’s how it works:

Before starting a search, employers are encouraged to complete a Candidate Match Questionnaire addressing their office culture, core values, work setting, and the preferred skills and work style of the ideal candidate.

DentalPost has invested in making research-based assessment tools for both jobseekers and employers.

On posting their job or purchasing a resume search, employers can then turn on SmartView, activating a blind screening process that temporarily hides candidate names and photos while the hiring manager reviews resumes and applications for the skills and characteristics that best meet the practice’s needs.

Once the hiring manager has completed their evaluation and is ready, they can rate the candidate to reveal the full profile details, including their name and photo. The employer can leave “Smartview” on for as long as desired in the hiring process.

This type of smart filtering helps reduce unconscious bias during the screening process so you can 

 including candidate experience and assessment insights that are more helpful in evaluation than the traditional criteria we assign weight to, such as physical attractiveness and cultural background.

• Tools To Assess Personality & Workstyle To Assure A Good Fit

In the most successful recruiting and hiring processes, assessment tools are utilized to make faster, better connections between candidates and employers. Because DentalPost is the nation’s leading dental-specific platform for providing candidate and employer matching, we have invested in making research-based assessment tools for both jobseekers and employers. The jobseeker profile is designed to support a holistic view of the person, helping candidates understand themselves better so they can stand out to the 

 employer and, ultimately, make better career decisions.

Employers can view candidate assessments to learn the nature of a potential candidate or use them to assess their existing team members for improved team management. These assessments help expose the attributes needed in a new hire to complement the current team’s strengths. They also enable employers to assess their practice culture so they can enhance their own presence/profile. Here are a few of those assessments:

 details the individual’s communication and work style, giving the hiring manager insight into whether the candidate can fill team holes and balance out the existing team.

 details the emotional strengths and weaknesses of the individual. People with high EI are invaluable in dentistry because they are in constant interaction with patients and co-workers, more easily providing exceptional service and developing relationships of trust and leadership. EI is the new smart.

 helps both employers and jobseekers discern what is most important to themselves to better ensure the decisions they make lead to a great fit for long-term satisfaction and advancing goals. Dental Post also has an alignment questionnaire that helps jobseekers express their vision of themselves to potential employers. This is where we see a lot of dental professionals expressing strong desire to do more clinically, have increased autonomy to do their best work, or grow into leadership roles. Knowing this is critical to a hiring manager.

 shows the types of environments a job candidate or employee will work best in and enjoy most. It also helps dental employers understand on a deeper level what it’s like to work within their dental practice.

 enables jobseekers to rank their skills by level of proficiency so they stand out from the crowd and attract the attention of an employer who needs those specific skills.

Once the hiring manager has completed their evaluation and is ready, they can rate the candidate to reveal the full profile details, including their name and photo.

For recruitment, you have to offer something jobseekers truly want that they don’t currently have, but you also need to make a smart decision about 

 you will hire. That’s why taking time to study the assessment information jobseekers have provided in their profiles is invaluable.

With data, dental hiring managers can be confident they are putting out the most competitive offer or be assured they have the information they need to create a better dental team and working environment. In either case, our data strongly indicates that the use of assessment and screening tools leads to better hiring outcomes in both the short and long term, increasing dental practice productivity, workplace culture and emp

Screening and assessment tools can assist in ensuring you make the best hire for your dental team.

Using Data to Make a Better Hire 

It’s no secret that hiring is the greatest challenge facing our industry today. Along with dental hiring managers nationwide, we hoped to see an increase in jobseeker activity and more applicants when federal unemployment benefits ended in early September. While we’ve been happy to see an uptick in activity for dental assistant and front office positions, dental hygienists are still largely inactive.

Industry-wide, attracting more dental hygiene applicants is a mystery that everyone is seeking to solve––but its root causes run deep and are the equivalent of a perfect storm for talent scarcity:

 It’s real. Hygiene work is highly physical and the new PPO and safety measures, new production schedules and the “make up for lost production and revenue” game is making it harder.

 Even before COVID,dental schools weren’t producing enough candidates to meet the growing patient demand of an aging population.

 Many RDHs who worked part-time or who were a few years away from retiring have left the industry.

We’re not out of COVID yet and it shows. Our surveys are showing that some dental professionals are being more cautious, and waiting it out to see what happens before leaving what they know and are used to. Even if their current employer isn’t meeting their standards, it feels safer to stay where they are until things feel more settled.

Some clinicians don’t see a lateral move as worth it, believing the grass won’t be greener on the other side. If they get a pay bump, many don’t believe much would change for their career.

As for the hygienists and other job seekers who are looking at job postings, we are seeing a lot who are passively browsing to see what is happening out there and where they might find a closer job or career growth opportunity. Some aren’t yet ready to leave the patients and co-workers they care about. Some worry the grassmay not be greener. All-in-all, when they make a move, they want to be strategic about it.

Despite these challenges, there are ways to win in this very competitive market.

5 Things You Can Do Today to Attract & Keep Talent in Today’s Market

So how do you get enough quality candidates, keep them engaged throughout the interview process and, ultimately, have them accept and stick around?


Engage in both active and passive recruiting

. When hiring, employers often default to slapping up a job posting in as many places as we can afford, which is basically a “spray and pray” method. But to be successful, we also need to actively recruit through proactive resume searches and candidate outreach. Doing proactive outreach to a candidate often means you need to have something competitive to offer. If there was ever a time to invest in combination resume subscription and posting packages, it’s now. Successful practices are doing both and it saves time and money in the long run.

Exceptional people are looking for an exceptional job to get them to leave. What’s a great job? Well, it’s not a laundry list of responsibilities, skills or even must-have personality traits. A great job is one that challenges the person and offers satisfaction and growth beyond just financial compensation. Is there any opportunity in the role for leadership and growth? If not, find some. What aspects of your employee/employer relationship will allow and support both the candidate and the practice growing together?

Make your office better. Cultivate an attractive and sticky culture.

This is one of the top things cited by candidates as reasons for quitting–toxic workplaces. Is your office rooted in respect? Does every supervisor treat team members with respect? Doing so, means team members feel valued and when that happens they tend to stick around longer. Can you improve operations that improve quality of work life and patient experience? Do it! Can you implement core value-driven activities that make working at your practice more purpose-driven? Can you better communicate and give employees buy-in to the business health and growth and not just the practice production?

Expand your hiring mindset and your candidate pool. 

Hiring is a whole new game in 2021.We can’t keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. Recognizing and being aware of our unconscious bias when it comes to candidate screening is a good place to start. As humans, we make thousands of judgements and decisions a day. Most of it is not anything we’re conscious of. When it comes to people we are far more likely to favor and trust people who are similar or familiar to us. So, it stands to reason that we would have a bias towards hiring them. This goes back to our tribal nature, where familiarity with people and places was critical to our personal safety. We use this same thinking when evaluating candidates to place in our practices to care for patients. And we do it to our detriment because we aren’t focusing on the things that matter—like skills, training, experience and aptitude. To reduce hiring bias in the screening process, DentalPost recently launched Smartview, a new blind screening feature that temporarily hides candidate names and photos so hiring managers can focus first on what matters most–experience, special training and personal details.

Improve the overall compensation to include benefits. 

While a toxic work environment is the most cited reason people want to leave their jobs, this one is a close second. It’s more common than not that dental professionals are not provided benefits when working with private dental practices, even when they have been employed for several years with the practice. Combine this with the additional work, more intense work conditions and risks associated with COVID-19 and it stands to reason that dental team members feel they deserve a raise. Given compensation is driving some of the lateral moves in dental hygiene teams, it behooves dental hiring managers to understand current market rates (which have increased due to COVID-19 since the last DentalPost Salary Survey).

Hiring should be the number one priority for dental practices today. It’s the greatest challenge facing our industry and the research shows it will continue to be an issue for the next decade. The great news is that if we take these steps outlined above, we will not only fill team gaps, but we can begin to address some of the more systemic issues plaguing the dental practice today by creating a better practice culture by articulating and living out our core values. If, as dental leaders, we can get these things right, we can keep our industry attracting the best and brightest providing dental professionals a better place to work, a better quality of life so they can provide and a better patient experience.

Hiring is the greatest challenge facing our industry and it should be the number one priority for dental practices today. 