Hiring a New Hygienist? Try This...

Now that you have a clear picture of what you want, it's time to find some candidates! Most dentists will take an approach that recruiters refer to as the post and pray – you put up an ad and wait. In future articles, we will talk more about where to post and how to right great ads that will make you stand out. In this article, we are going to dive into a technique to proactively reach out to passive candidates, thos who are gainfully employed but might move for the right opportunity. A great place to start with this is LinkedIn.

If you do not have a profile, then STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND BUILD ONE NOW. A great resource for this is Craig Fisher, who is a renowned LinkedIn expert who speaks on using the platform for recruitment marketing. Here is a link to one of his presentations that provides a good starting point for building a good profile.

With that rant out of the way, let's get back to finding talent. There are many ways to find candidates on LinkedIn, but one really effective way is to source through the built-in education filters.

Let's say your hygienist just gave notice – go on to your LinkedIn home page and hover over the 'interests' drop-down. Then click on the 'education' drop-down.

From there, click on the 'schools' button on the bottom of the page.

When you get to the 'Find your school' search bar, type in the name of a local school that has a hygienist program.

At this point, many people ask, "But aren't there people who might of attended school in another state and moved to my location? Yes, that is true – and there are numerous ways to search LinkedIn to get at those candidates. But limiting your searches to local schools is a great solution for quickly identifying candidates.

Click on the 'more' link to see all of the filter options.

Click on the geographic area and type in the keyword you are searching for.

As you can see, in a few quick steps I was able to find 79 hygienists in the Phoenix area to reach out to. You can then email them directly through LinkedIn using inmails or look on their profile to see if they list an email.

I would start these emails by introducing yourself, then include two to three lines about what you are looking for, three to four lines about why your practice is special and then end it asking them if they or anyone they know anyone who might be looking.

In later articles we will talk about what job boards to use and how write effective ads for the boards.

Adam McWethy, MA-HRIR, SPHR, is the Human Resources Manager at Spear Education.