18 Tips on Hiring the Right Wound Care Professionals

  In an outpatient wound center or an inpatient wound care program where specific skills are necessary and staff numbers are small, hiring the right person becomes a crucial test of the manager’s knowledge, skills, and experience. The following are tips and takeaways for hiring your staff.

  1. Assess the position need and organization as a whole.
      Important questions to ask include:
        a. Is everyone else as busy and productive as they might be?
        b. Is there any excess capacity?
        c. Are there employees whose skills are not being fully utilized?
        d. Is there anyone who is having difficulty with his or her skill set or tasks who might need to be supplemented?

  2. Develop a skill list.
      Determine what the job duties need to be filled. Will most of the person’s time be spent on non-essential paperwork, phone calls, or tasks such as cleaning and preparing exam rooms, patient set-up, removing dressings, checking vital signs, wound measurement, photography, filing, and administrative medical record management?

  3. Develop the job description.
      Write this as though they will be used for a performance evaluation and that makes the review of candidates for the position much easier.

  4. Determine the compensation.
      Salary must provide adequate incentive and be comparable and equitable with similar positions in the system.

  5. Recruit for the position.
      Consider whether to seek candidates through the Internet, newspapers, recruiters, job fairs, or word-of-mouth. Good applicants are often referred by existing employees—so don’t rule referrals out.

  6. Perform an initial screening.
      Select the top candidates and send those resumes to the medical director and/or hiring manager for review.

  7. If there are five extremely good candidates to interview, this will be a great recruiting process.

  8. Tailor the interview to the job.
      Use the job responsibilities and analyze the candidates to measure if they have the qualities needed to perform the job.

  9. Let the candidate do the talking to initiate personal contact.

  10. It is important that the chemistry with the candidate, the company, and the on-site team are compatible.

  11. Use well designed questions and well developed listening skills.
       Explore the candidate’s propensity to carry out the job responsibilities particularly with regard to the appropriate level of compassion and commitment to the productivity the staff is seeking.

  12. Conduct reference checks,
       verification of licensure (if applicable), and a personality profile test to ascertain whether the candidate has those traits that make the greatest contribution to the overall success of the team.

  13. A second interview with the two final candidates should be conducted to make the final decision.

  14. Future employees should be compassionate and in touch with various patient concerns.

  15. Once the final candidate is selected, the salary is determined and a verbal offer is extended.

  16. Once the new employee is on board the organization must create the most advantageous environment so that the person can excel.

  17. The orientation program, which includes a mentor or shadowing process, can be extremely helpful in this endeavor.

  18. Although the hiring process can prove to be tedious and even expensive at times, there is no doubt that the initial effort spent to find the right person will be extremely beneficial to all in the long-run.