If you said yes…you join the majority of eye care businesses that list finding good staff as their top challenge.   Many eye care businesses are their own worst enemy when it comes to finding great employees as only 21% of businesses have a staffing plan says the study from “Getting and Keeping Good Staff”.  Most businesses, including eye care are very reactive in their recruiting efforts.  They start recruiting once an employee has given notice and are under the gun to find a new staff member quickly.  Very few offices are “prepared to recruit” so this process becomes stressful and time consuming. 

As we all know…the quality of your hiring can make or break your business.  Proactive recruiting means you have a plan and are prepared to start the recruitment process immediately.  You have steps in place, tools to refer to and resources at your fingertips.  Speed, convenience and organization are essential to filling your job opening as quickly as possible with the best quality candidates. 

Here are our top ten tips for getting “prepared” to recruit your next eye care employee:

1.       Start a recruitment binder or folder on your computer to store the recruiting tools you will collect and create

2.       Write two or three great ads…keeping in mind you are selling your job opening and business to the job seeker , so make the ad stand out

3.       Have a list of places to advertise with links for easy access

4.       Have questions ready for a telephone interview

5.       Prepare questions for the first and second interview

6.       Create a list of questions for the reference checks with previous employers

7.       Develop an offer of employment

8.       Build a template for rating interviews and capturing important information

9.       Create an orientation and training plan for the new employee

10.   Put together a Welcome Package with everything the new employee will need during their first month including their personnel forms, tax forms, orientation and training, policies and procedures as well as a notebook for them to write down important information

Finding a new eye care employee does not have to be a challenge if you are prepared.  Since 80% of all job seekers are now online, start by posting your job opening on Canada’s Eye Care Jobsite – JOBS 4 ECP’S.  www.jobs4ecps.ca.  We target the eye care job seeker and draw them to our website making part of the recruiting effort easier.  Watch our blog updates as we continue to post new recruitment tools.