5 Hiring Mistakes to Avoid in Your PT Private Practice

I’m going to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made in hiring so you can have an easier time of it. You may very well be tempted to make these mistakes, but I advise you not to. You’ll have more success and happier staff if you follow these five guidelines to successful hiring I’m giving you here.

#1: Don’t Believe You Have to Hire Someone Immediately

There’s always a time element involved in hiring, right? You’ve got to fill your empty posts right now—you can’t leave that job unfilled another day!

If you believe this, you become a slave to time, meaning that you feel too rushed to take the time to find a quality employee who will be an asset to your practice. You feel you have to hire someone, anyone, right now. You’re desperate.

Don’t fall prey to this feeling or you could easily end up with staff you regret hiring.

#2: Don’t Succumb to “Resumé Overload”

You have a pile of resumés come in from all your different sources, like Indeed or wherever. And they are just lousy. You look through 50 of them before there’s one you’d even give a phone call to. Finally, you decide, “Well, this is the best available person.” So you hire them because they were a little better than the others.

This has definitely happened in my practices. One of my jobs as owner and senior executive is to make sure we don’t fall into this trap. This could apply to hiring PTs, OTs, speech therapists or any type of staff. Scarcity is a problem in recruitment but so is thinking that there’s not enough good candidates out there.

#3: Don’t Believe Your Own Justifications for Hiring the Wrong People

You could be tricked in the interview into thinking that you really like this person. They had a great interview, but you ignored some red flags about their past. They were job hoppers or had a troubled past. They were always sick or having accidents or having life problems. Don’t ignore those signs. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.

It’s so easy to justify hiring someone who wasn’t really what you were looking for. Maybe they interviewed really well. Their first weeks or months were great. But maybe there were some things you didn’t check out about them or you didn’t check their references. You might say, “Anything’s better than what we had in the past,” or “It’s better than what we’ve got, which is nothing.” That’s just a justification for making a mistake in this area. Don’t fool yourself into making any of these mistakes.

#4: Don’t Hire Someone Thinking You Can Fix Them Up Later

Don’t think that you can train people out of every flaw that you might observe in the interview. You might be fooled sometimes. Don’t just hope that you can train them to eliminate some major, undesirable characteristic. Let’s say there was some communication trait that you didn’t like, and it was just sitting there during the whole interview.

If you’re not willing to do the work to fix it up, if you’re not looking for a fixer-upper, don’t hire them.

#5: Don’t Hire Those Who’ll Disrupt Your Practice

My wife used to do hiring for my practices and that’s probably one of the reasons that we have many excellent staff who have been with us for so long. There’s a certain personality type that can never get past Roxanne: the backstabber, the covert, sneaky kind of person.

They look really nice on the surface, but when you rip the mask off, they’re dangerous. Roxanne was really good at spotting these types so we didn’t hire them for my practices. This type of person is a disruptor and they will disrupt your practice and your staff.

Never Violate These Five Guidelines to Good Hiring

These five areas can sink your hiring efforts, so never make the mistake of violating these guides. If you run into any of these five situations, do all your research and follow up on every loose end before you hire someone. If you don’t, you could very well run into trouble.

About Paul Silovsky

Paul founded Rebound Physical Therapy in Topeka, Kansas in 1994. He graduated from Washburn University in 1985 and received his physical therapy degree from the University of Kansas Medical Center in 1987. Paul is driven by the desire to help others reach their goals and live active and healthy lifestyles. He is a long-time Survival Strategies client, a member of the American Physical Therapy Association and the Kansas Physical Therapy Association. Paul and his wife Roxanne enjoy traveling, cycling, watching team sports and spending time with their three daughters and six grandchildren.