Co-written by Dr. Ian Aguinaldo, Founder of Aesthetics MD and Gras Skin Clinic in Manila, Philippines

“Hiring the best is your most important task.” – Steve Jobs

As we speak with practice owners and hiring managers, one of the most common complaints is, “I’m having trouble hiring and keeping great nurse injectors.”

For this article, I teamed up with Dr. Ian Aguinaldo, Founder of Aesthetics MD and Gras Skin Clinic in Manila, Philippines, to provide our readers with tips on how to hire the right nurse injector.

Hiring great employees is one of the important steps that needs to be taken by any company to achieve scale and success. It can be scary, tedious, and unpredictable. However, with great hiring systems in place, it becomes much easier to do successfully. Interestingly, the process of hiring a great injector is quite similar whether your practice is located in the United States or abroad, because the same basic principles apply.

Here’s what Dr. Aguinaldo and I believe you can do to improve your chances of hiring great people.

1. Know the rules of your location

Do some research and make sure you know exactly what your potential hires can do in your state and/or country. Work with an attorney who specializes in your practice type. Make sure your job description is 100% consistent with what your registered nurse (RN), nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA) can do. Often, those 3 types of providers have very different scopes of practice. Ask your attorney to let you know the state scope of practice for each service and for each provider type you’re hiring. For example: Can an RN in my state perform Kybella injections? Who has to give the order for those? Do they have to be performed on site?

2. Set the level of expectations

Before anything else, we suggest that you really think about what kind of provider you would you want to join your bandwagon. Set your expectations and competencies. Make sure to articulate these in the job description. For example, some people want a great salesperson, but don’t mind if that person is not necessarily the best team player. Other people want a reliable team player who will work well with others. Other people want someone who’s already trained in injectables. Others want someone who’s never been trained so they can train them from the beginning.

3. Showcase your clinic’s culture and brand

Detailing your clinic’s values and culture throughout the recruitment process will give you a better chance of recognizing and engaging with candidates whose values align with yours. A business can only be as good as the people who keep it going. The employees, as well as the job applicants, hold as much importance as the customers of a company. They are the most valuable brand ambassadors a company can have. To be able to successfully sell a brand to paying customers, the employees need to be connected emotionally to the company’s goals and values.

In order for you to guard your company brand and culture, you must let your candidates see the type of company you are and the type of culture that you have and if this will fit them. This will eliminate candidates who are not aligned with your values and brand. Great candidates don’t just choose on the basis of the job description, and the amount of salary they’ll get, but also based on the values a company has and the type of people she or he will be working with.

4. Create a detailed job description

A detailed job description represents a clinic to its prospective candidates. Make a job description that stands out from the rest. Describe in detail what success looks like for you and what the daily tasks will be. Not sure where to get started? Job descriptions are public on Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. Look for your competitors’ job descriptions and start from there. Alternatively, see how big brands craft their job descriptions; they don’t necessarily have to be in your industry.

5. Have several steps in your application process

Have a detailed step-by-step recruiting process and don’t make exceptions. One possible process is: resume review, phone interview, in person interview, reference check, job shadowing, background check. After you receive several applicants, narrow down the pool to those to whom you’ll extend a phone interview. After the phone interview, invite the best candidates for an in-person interview. Have everyone be interviewed by several people. Don’t just stop at calling a person’s written references – see if you perhaps know someone at their current or past employer and can call them. Most people won’t list a reference on their resume who won’t give them a glowing review so you have to go beyond those references.

6. Interview to select the best candidate

An interview is an important step of the hiring process. You need to fine-tune your interview process. It’s usually considered a best practice to conduct a structured interview which includes asking the same set of questions of all candidates, assigning them the same tasks and situations, and then evaluating them equally with the same references. The questions should be strategic that reveal the skills, the qualifications and the personality traits of the candidates.

7. Run background checks

Running background checks is a great way to gain insights about your candidates other than what is mentioned in their resumes. Google them or go through their social media accounts. It can help you verify their skills and ensure that you are about to hire employees who can keep up with your ethical requirements. If they are always ranting about their previous job, it’s a red flag for you. There are many online companies through which you can do a background check for less than $50 per person. One such company is IntegraScan, www.integrascan.com.

8. Consider using a recruiting firm

If hiring isn’t one of your core competencies or if you think you won’t have time to thoroughly do all of the above steps, we recommend retaining a recruiting firm to help you hire your next injector. In the United States, Mary Beth Hagen’s firm Titan Aesthetic Recruiting has a good network of injectors and they pre-screen every candidate before recommending them. Their website is https://titanaestheticrecruiting.com.