Hiring a new employee can be a daunting process. A great employee is truly invaluable to a practice, but hiring a bad fit can be a very costly mistake. We’ve gathered some red flags to look out for in a candidate so you spot a potential problem employee before hiring them.

Avoid Hiring a Bad Employee at Your Optical Practice

Before the Interview

• Email correspondence: Was the candidate able to provide timely responses to your emails or did you have to wait for days to receive a response? What about scheduling an interview time? Were they able to commit to a day or did they reschedule multiple times? These are all tell-tale signs of how important the interview and job is to the candidate. You should allow a couple of scheduling conflicts, but changing the interview date after committing to one multiple times might mean that they are not making the interview a priority on their schedule.
  
  
• Google the candidate: Beyond looking at their resume, try Googling the candidate’s full name to see what search results show up. It’ll be rare to find someone caught up in controversial news, but it can’t hurt to check. Checking on social media platforms is also another way to reveal details about a person you’d never be able to uncover in a one-time interview.

During the Interview

• Interview etiquette: There are many things to look out for while interviewing a candidate. But simple interview etiquette to look out for include punctuality and never checking their phone for texts or emails at any point throughout the interview.

After the Interview

• Check references: It’s easy for a candidate to list and talk about their accomplishments, but are any of them actually true? On top of validating their claims, you might also want to check for their work ethic history.
  
  
• Involve other team members: There are other staff members who have to work closely with your new hire, so it’s important to get the opinion of at least one other staff member to be fair. You could also get others involved by asking them if they made observations about the candidate when coming into the interview. Were they rude to the receptionist or janitorial staff? That can be very telling about a person’s true behavior.
  
  
• Following up: Was the candidate good about following up on the interview? A simple thank you email goes a long way to show that they appreciated your time. You should also look out for their ability to follow through on the little things mentioned during the interview. Did they mention that they were going to send you an article discussed in the interview? Following up on little details shows that they are detail oriented and good at keeping their word.

For more staff management tips, download our official staff management guide for eyecare.