Personalities as important as resumes when hiring, say ASC leaders

Marcus Robertson -

ASC jobs offer a few advantages when compared to hospital employment. One of them is the often close-knit work relationships ASC employees tend to have with each other, since ASCs are typically smaller than hospitals.

Keeping that healthy dynamic intact is critical, according to Benita Tapia, RN, administrator, and Andy Ball, CEO, both of Beverly Hills (Calif.) ASC Venture, a Cedars-Sinai affiliate; and Tiffany Jewell, BSN, RN, clinical director of Columbus, Ind.-based Wellspring Pain Solutions and Columbus Pain Institute.

Each of them shared their strategies with Becker's ASC Review during our August Orthopedic, Spine and ASC virtual event.

Note: This is an edited excerpt. Hear the full podcast episode here.

Question: What do you do to maintain a positive culture as you hire new people?

Ms. Jewell: When we interview our [prospective] employees, obviously we're really concerned about your skills, but more than that, we're really small — so getting the wrong person in here with the wrong attitude is detrimental. So as we're interviewing, we interview personalities.

Q: Are there any red flags in terms of being able to define somebody's personality during that interview process?

TJ: This is going to sound kind of silly, but if they can't smile in their interview, we watch for those things. We watch for their body language — do they make eye contact? Simple things like that. 

Ms. Tapia: [We like to] bring them in for half a day, or a day, so that they can meet the people they're working with. They can actually see what goes on because when you take on a new job, you want to make sure you're working with people you can relate to.

Mr. Ball: You can have the best resume in the world, and the [prospective] employee can interview very well, and then they turn up and it's just not a good cultural fit, or they're not quite what they said. You just have to be prepared to learn from those mistakes.

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