Learn More About Candidates Through Behavioral-Based Interview Questions

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Recruiting a new physician can be a time-consuming process with high stakes. You need to fill a position from an increasingly limited pool of candidates, but hiring a provider who is a poor fit with your practice can result in an unsatisfied recruit, place stress on existing staff, alienate patients and ultimately lead to lost revenue when that physician leaves.

Part of a successful physician recruiting strategy rests with the interview. You want to assess the potential recruit’s clinical skills but also evaluate how well he or she will fit into your company’s culture and how well he or she will engage with the other staff and patients. Using behavioral-based interviewing techniques can help.

What Is Behavioral-Based Interviewing?

Behavioral-based interviews stem from the theory that past behavior is the best predictor for future behavior. It is a method of questioning that requires interviewees to provide concrete past examples of how they handled a specific situation or how they acted and reacted to specific circumstances. The behavioral-based questions are designed to reveal how the candidate responded to a real-life work situation and thus provide a sense of how that candidate might act in a similar situation if hired.

How Do You Decide Which Questions to Ask?

First, you must identify the core job-related competencies and behaviors that are critical to success in the job at your organization. Once those competencies are identified, you can develop questions designed to elicit a response with details about the interviewee’s past experiences that reflect the identified job-related competencies and behaviors.

Tips for Asking Behavioral-Based Interview Questions

To get the most out of a behavioral-based interview, you should develop the structure in advance. During the interview itself, keep the following tips in mind:

  • Don’t ask leading questions. In other words, don’t reveal what you are attempting to assess with the question. For example, if you ask a question intended to evaluate the candidate’s functioning in a team setting, don’t preface the question with a comment such as, “Teamwork is very important here.”
  • Do ask follow-up questions. Based on the candidate’s response, you’ll likely need to ask additional probing questions. For example, if the initial response is too vague, you’ll want to ask additional open-ended questions to get the candidate to elaborate further.

Examples of Behavioral-Based Interview Questions for Physicians

Some common competencies sought in physician candidates include leadership skills, empathy for patients, ability to handle stressful situations and conflict, teamwork and communication abilities. Below are some sample questions designed to assess these competencies:

  • What is your experience supervising a diverse group of employees, and what steps did you take to ensure the employees’ best fit for their jobs?
  • Tell me about a situation where an interaction with a patient had a strong impact on you.
  • Describe how you handled a high-stress situation on the job.
  • How have you handled a dispute with a colleague?
  • Describe how your contributions at your last job impacted the team.
  • Have you experienced a situation with miscommunication with a patient or colleague, and how did you resolve it?

Once you develop your behavioral-based interview questions, you need candidates to interview. Let Adaptive Medical Partners help you find qualified physician candidates to join your team.

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