With the labor market tighter than ever before, it’s critical to find and keep the best candidates for open positions in your business. One of the keys to successful hiring in this climate is to spend more time with applicants. In the short time allotted to most employment interviews, it’s difficult for the candidate to know as much about the position being offered as they should. Likewise, the employer has a limited opportunity to get to know the “real” applicant during the interview. One way to up your hiring game is to include job shadowing in the process.  After the initial round of interviews, ask only top candidates to return and spend a few hours shadowing those with similar job descriptions.  

Benefits to the practice:

• Reduce the time and cost of turnover and the cost of not finding the “best” candidate.
• Less formal environment allows staff to get to know the applicant better and assess attitude and personality traits that may not have shown during the interview.
  • Is the applicant enthusiastic?
  • Does the applicant ask appropriate questions?
  • Does the applicant fit in with the culture of the practice?
  • Are there any red flags?
• Ideas for more successful onboarding may arise after getting to know the applicant better.

Benefits to the applicant:

• Better understanding of what the job truly entails 
• Opportunity to ask more questions in a less formal setting
• Opportunity to find out if they are physically comfortable in the environment

Make your hiring process more effective and reduce costly staff turnover by adding job shadowing to your HR toolkit.  

Pro Tip:  Since the applicant is likely to be exposed to PHI, make sure to have them sign a HIPAA-compliant shadowing agreement.