How To Hold Effective Interviews That Net Rockstar Employees With Nathan Shields And Adam Robin

Ever wonder why some interviews feel off? Discover effective strategies to enhance your PT clinic’s hiring process with our latest episode.

In this podcast episode, Nathan Shields teams up with recruitment expert Adam Robin to tackle the surprisingly tricky world of physical therapist interviews. Discover why old-school hiring just doesn’t cut it anymore and how to make your clinic stand out to top talent.

Learn why treating interviews as a sales opportunity can lead to more enthusiastic hires and how job shadowing can reveal if a candidate truly fits your clinic’s culture. Plus, get the lowdown on why quick hiring decisions can be your best friend in today’s competitive market.

Ready to transform your hiring process and build the dream team for your clinic? Don’t miss out on the insights this episode has to offer.

Want to talk about how we can help you with your PT business, or have a question you want to ask? Book a call with Nathan – https://calendly.com/nathan-adam-discovery-call/nathan-adam-connection-call

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My good buddy, Adam Robin , is with me again. What’s up?

What’s up, Nathan? I’m glad to be here.

I can’t remember, but there have been a few times over the past number of episodes where I’m like, “I don’t think I ever did a topic regarding,” fill in the blank. I’ve been doing this for almost years. It’s amazing to think that there are plenty of things that I haven’t actually discussed, but I’m saying it again. In this episode, we’re talking about something that I haven’t focused on. I guess that’s a better way to put it. That is the interview.

Right now, we’re talking so much about recruiting a physical therapist because everybody needs a physical therapist and what needs to get done. If you’re still looking for a physical therapist, you need to be talking to Adam. You need to talk to Will Humphreys. You need to look at our previous episodes to see what it takes to recruit somebody. Figure that out. You brought this up, Adam, because it sounds like a number of our coaching clients may be doing the recruiting process and now the interview is seemingly clunky. Is that what you’re seeing? Are you seeing something’s not going quite right in the interviews?

Everybody’s got their ideas about ways to do things. By the way, this is Adam’s ideas. I’m sure if you listen to somebody else talk about it, they might have different perspectives. In my opinion, the hiring process has changed. You can no longer hire, recruit, and onboard patients the same way.

The hiring process has changed. You can no longer hire, recruit, and onboard PTs the same way anymore.
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What do you mean by that?

Back in the day, pts were abundant or more abundant.

It’s always been a struggle. I will admit, it’s not like this.

We’ve got this idea that the interview is like a test. It’s almost like, “Are you good enough?” Prove to me why I should grant you permission to where. I don’t know where that’s come from, but I think you crumple that up and throw it away because what we’re doing is we’re selling an opportunity. We might have to start thinking about what we need to create to close this client, new hire, or candidate.

How do we convince them? How do we enroll them in the idea of working with us and integrating them with our culture, helping them get what they want so that they would be happy and more excited about working with us? It’s more of a sales process. I think that the recruiting piece is about how I get the leads. The interview is like, how do I close the deal? There’s a disconnect there with how to show up, the type of energy to show up, the questions to ask. The things that you’re looking for.

I don’t fault any of the owners for it because we’ve never been trained on how to do an interview. We’ve been part of the interview our entire lives and now you’re asking us to do it. We’re going to replicate what we think an interview should look like, what we’ve been through before, and what we’ve experienced in the past. We’ll bring down some questions off of Google that tell us what to ask. Part of it is, I think a majority of it is the sales process if you’ve figured out during the interview, that person is a value fit.

We always talked about value-based hiring and value-based firing. We would talk about our values during the interview and observe their body language while doing so. Some people talk about values and maybe they get slightly more relaxed or look at the walls and aren’t engaged as much. One of our values was growth. What have you done in the past 1 or 2 years to better selves? What are some of your goals for the next five years? What books have you read recently? Those would be things that would exemplify growth if they answered those in the affirmative. We do that with each of the values. Are we talking specifically about the in-person interview or the phone interview?

The in-person.

You probably talk to them a little bit and maybe it’s virtual because they’re on the other side of the country, but it’s that interview we’re talking about. You talk about some of those things and you want to hear about them. Ideally, they’re doing most of the talking. Ideally, they’re telling you all about them. You’ve provided some insightful questions that require more than one-word answers. I thought I was so cool because I’d ask, “What do you think some of your weaknesses are?” You are not expecting that one.

“Are you good enough?”

Here comes the left hook.

“Why should I choose you?”

“What do you think some of your weaknesses are?” Everyone’s going to say, “What are your strengths?” I can’t tell you how many times, disappointingly, people would say, “I care too much.” I’m like, “Come on.” That’s not an honest answer. I agree with you. Once you’ve determined this is a value fit, I think part of it is, “These are some of our expectations in terms of productivity. Do you see a problem with that? Do you have any concerns, questions about that? We don’t need to go any further if you do.

That’s the price drop.

It’s like, “I got an amazing culture, I’ve got amazing people. Who wouldn’t want to work for me?” That’s the type of attitude you’re talking about, isn’t it?

The way that I look at things is like I’m the owner. Along this journey, I started to realize, and this is for me and my company, that I no longer had a physical therapy business. I have a coaching company, and I coach physical therapists on how to get the most out of their careers. I coach them on leadership. I coach them on setting goals, taking action, and making an impact. I coach them on marketing, coach them on sales and performance.

You didn’t say anything about treating patients. Let the con ed do that.

I have a coaching company and coach others on running a physical therapy business. Whenever that shifted for me, I realized I have a product that I’m selling. I am selling a greater possibility for the people looking for an opportunity and who are looking for the ability to get re-engaged and re-excited about their career. I have a company that can help them bridge that gap between where they are and where they want to go in their career. That’s what I’m selling.

Give me an example of some of the things that you’re saying when you’re selling your clinic.

I’m going to give a shout-out to Chris Smith. Chris Smith is a mentor of mine. You could check him out. He has a program called the Campfire Effect, in which he has a sales process called the Enrollment Narrative. The first question I have is going to be like, “Nathan, I’m super grateful for you to be here today. I’m interested in learning more about what’s most important to you. Tell me, what are your career goals? What do you want out of your career?”

What I’m doing there is I’m helping them to dream a little bigger about what’s possible for them. What can I do with my career? Maybe I’ve had these career goals that I’ve let die. I got stuck in the PT mill that I’m working at. I’m giving them the place to dream about what’s possible. Once I can help them realize what they want and I can envision myself helping them get that, we’ll be kicked on gas.

I’ve heard everything you’re saying and sometimes it’s like, “I’ve always wanted to get into pediatrics. I’ve always wanted to learn how to work with neurological patients and start a pelvic floor program. It’s been a dream. That’s why I became a physical therapist.” “We don’t have pelvic floor in our clinic. I would love to do that. Tell me more about what type of possibilities that would open up for you. Why would that make you happy?” I’m selling them on the idea of going after that.

You’re not telling them what you can do for them. You’re like, “What would that do for your life if you had that opportunity?”

Just like you’re selling the plan of care to your patient, you’re selling. Along that journey, you’re going to listen to what they want. You’re going to listen to what’s stopping them from getting there. You’re going to ask some value-based questions to make sure there’s some alignment there, but you can do the enrollment narrative and you can help people get where they want to go. You can also weed them out with some good value-based questions as well.

I don’t think Chris does this, but I think he does a version of it where some people have said, “If at any point do during this interview you feel like it’s not going to be a fit, feel free to let me know and I’ll give you the same courtesy. That way, you don’t have to feel like you’re stuck for an hour,” and that kind of thing. Chris’s version is like, “If at any point during this conversation I think that we can be of value to each other, I’m going to let you know that.”

That’s how I like to start it. When we frame the interview, it’s like, “Nathan, I want to let you know today, I’m here to learn more about you. We don’t even have to make any decisions today. Let’s get to know each other, and if it’s a good fit, that would be great. We’ll talk about what it’s like to work together. If it’s not, that’s okay, too.”

We don’t have a follow-up appointment. “At the end of this conversation, we’re going to decide if we’re going to meet again.”

We’re going to decide, “Do we want to have another conversation?” We’re decompressing the room like, “There’s no expectations here. You can let your guard down. I want to learn a little bit more about who you are. I want to be authentic with you. I want to be real with you. Next question, what’s the most important thing in your career and how can I help you get it?” You lead them down that enrollment narrative and it’s a much more fun way to do an interview.

I love the decompressing of it. “I’m not deciding right now if I’m hiring you or not. You and I are going to decide if we’re going to have a second date or if we’re going to have another conversation. If you’re not feeling it, great, that’s fine. If I’m not feeling it, that’s fine too. Let’s decompress and get to know each other.” As you’ve done this, have you found that there’s a point during the conversation where either it clicks and you’re like, “Yeah, I want this person?” Have you had the other side of it where it’s like, “I don’t want this person.” Have you had both experiences as you’ve gone through this?

Yeah, of course. Everybody’s going to have a little bit of a different culture. For me, I’m a culture of passion. I’m a culture of emotion. I’m a culture of excitement. When I’m asking these questions, I want to see them get excited, too. I want to see you get reignited about like, “I’ve been missing this. This is exactly what I’m looking for. I’m looking for somebody who can help me get excited about work again and who can hold me accountable, push me, challenge me, and help me be a better version of myself.”

When I can start seeing them get excited and start buying into the idea of going for what they want, that’s an indication to me that, “I’m having a good conversation with this person. This is a fun conversation.” Instead, on the opposite end of what I’ll hear from people who aren’t a good fit for me are, “I just want a job. I’m just looking.”

“I just need to pay my student loans.”

“I just want to come in. I got about 3 or 4 more years to work and then I’m going to retire.” I don’t want to get into all that stuff.

Those are no-go’s for you.

You’re going to have a hard time fitting in in my company because we’re a team of go-getters and we’re looking to grow. That’s going to be a hard fit. You’re going to bog us down and we’re going to bog you down. We’re going to overwhelm you with all of our energy and our excitement.

I know this isn’t what we’re talking about specifically, but how do you make the transition between the recruiting efforts that you’re doing to that call? I know you work a lot on LinkedIn. Is it like, “Let’s jump on a call sometime,” and it ends up being this call or what does that look like?

What I’ll typically do is first do a quick phone screen.

You are doing a little bit. You’re doing something now, 5, 10, 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes, tops. “I’ve got fifteen minutes, and I want to ask you a few questions to see if you want to come in person.” We’re basically scraping the surface of that.

What are some of those questions like?

“Where do you live? Do you have any career goals? What’s the transition for?”

“What’s your background like? Where’d you go to school?

“I don’t know if this is a good fit or not, but I’d love to meet with you. Do you have time next week to sit for a couple hours?”

You’re massaging the recruiting cycles and working on that strategy and plan, and then you’re doing a fifteen-minute max phone interview that leads to this interview right here, right?

Correct. At this time, I’m either interested or curious. If I don’t have a good feeling on that phone call, if I don’t feel excited about the idea of meeting with them, then they probably wouldn’t make it to the interview process.

You’re screening along the way. I’m sure people are like, “What are you doing on the recruiting side?” We’ve done the episodes on that. You’re going to have to go back and find those.

Look in your phone book or look in your cell phone.

I was going to say, who has a phone book anymore?

Contacts. You got about 35 to 40 pts in there that you’ve been working with over your career. Call them up. There you go. That’s how you get leads.

Use Your network. Leverage your network.

Have lunch with them. Sit them down and ask them what their goals are. There you go. You got twenty leads right there.

Find your PT school alumni so that you can reach out to people in your class. I like it. Leverage your network. Getting back to that interview specifically that we’re talking about, we decide we’re going to have another conversation. What is the general format for that conversation? Are we talking about numbers and terms at that point? What is that looking like?

It’s been transforming over the last couple of years, but what’ll happen is I invite him in for a two-hour working interview/in-person interview and it’s like, “Welcome to the clinic, let’s get to work.”

I’m talking about right after you say, “Are we going to have a second date? Are we going to have another call?” Is that second call setting up this working interview? I’m assuming it’s like if people are out of state and they’re calling you about your job.

Is this after the phone screen?

Yes. You did the fifteen-minute call, you did the call about telling me about your life and dreams. We’re going to decide if we have another call. Is the next call the in-person two-hour block?

No. That’s going to be the in-person piece. We’ll do a fifteen-minute screen. From there, they’re coming in for a two-hour interview with me, but we don’t necessarily have to decide on whether we will work together or not during that time.

You’re wrapping that initial in-person interview into your two-hour screen, like job shadow, that kind of stuff. We would do two separate things and I don’t know if it matters either way, but we would have an in-person interview. If we liked them, we’d invite them back for the 2- to 4-hour shout job shadow. Do you wrap it all up in one?

I do. The reason why I do that is I do think that it’s important to take your time. I also think that the more practice that you have with hiring, the better you get at it. I also think that in the climate nowadays, you haven’t got time to wait. If you want to close a deal, the speed to closure is an important factor because there are so many hooks in the water. This could be your next clinical director who helps you open up the next three locations. The sense of urgency behind getting to the offer should be there. We need to get there as quickly as possible.

That’s a good mindset to have. You can’t do all this recruiting effort knowing that it’s hard to find a physical therapist, so take your time and pump the brakes once you get to that point. That’s not a good idea.

You can't do all this crude recruiting effort knowing that it's hard to find physical therapists.
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I think it’s important to get to that a little bit quicker.

I like what you’re doing as well because we got to recognize that we have to respect people’s time, come in for an in-person interview, and then separately come another time for a job shadow. I highly recommend the job shadow, by the way. I wouldn’t hire somebody without it, no matter what the position. This takes more time. It’s hard. To do it all at once, I like that idea. Knowing your clinic, you’re not the person that they’re shadowing.

No. We got to get the team involved because here’s the thing. You’re going to hire some knuckleheads. If you’ve been in business at any length of time, you’re going to hire some knuckleheads who you shouldn’t have hired. Those are also good because you get to learn. You and your team get to learn. It’s like, “Do you remember that list of people that we fired? Remember what they were like? Remember all those indicators that we learned? We don’t want that anymore.”

Now your team is becoming more aware and they’re starting to be like, “Red flag here.” I think the key is hire a little bit quicker but make your onboarding process a little bit more rigid and less risky after the hire. Instead of like spending 90 days of a bunch of rigorous onboarding, let’s get to work pretty quick and let’s see if this is a good fit. Even the initial 90 days of employment is still like a probationary period. If you don’t make it through the 90 days, onto the next.

Let’s leverage that 90 days to make sure this is a fit. Let’s not drag our feet there, either. I get it. I love the job shadow and I’m surprised how many people don’t do it, but it is not a very common practice. I wish more people would do it because it whether it’s following you, if you’re the only provider, that’s fine. Ideally, they’re following another provider if you have one in the clinic because it’s at that point when they’re peer-to-peer that they can let their guard down a little bit and you can get a truer sense of who that person is.

They’re going to say things and do things in front of someone else that they wouldn’t do or say in front of their interviewer. We missed some bullets, a couple of hires because I thought after the interview, “This was great,” and then found out afterwards from the team like, “No, she did this and that. She said that or they were on their phone and didn’t even engage with us or the patients.” I’m glad we missed some of those people. It’s a great filtering process.

You have to go through those to become more aware of what they look like during your interview process. You also have to understand that as you do more and more interviews, you start to get clear on the type of avatar you’re looking for. You also start to get clear about who your avatar is in disguise. Who’s the person who looks like your avatar but also has this other evil villain behind the curtain? Maybe they’re a little passionate and high-energy, but they’re also super anxious and get overwhelmed all the time. You can mistake those two. Understand who your avatar is and also the chameleon in the group, if you will.

As you do more and more interviews, you start to get really clear on the type of avatar you're looking for.
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There’s a beauty behind the fact that as you’ve lived, as you’ve expressed, hired, and fired according to your values, you start naturally developing a culture. During that shadow is also a time for them to experience that culture. If they are not a fit, then they will self-select. I love the job shadow because of that. Hopefully, more people do it. I’m assuming you’re going from interview to job shadow. Are you then sending them off, getting the team’s input, and returning to them a day later? Is that how it goes after that?

Yeah, so almost. We typically will do job shadow then interview because there’s a great opportunity for you to be like, “What’d you think?” I don’t necessarily do all the interviews, but if it’s a great fit, if it’s a knockout home run, then we’ll present an offer. Most of the time, we don’t because during that interview and during that shadowing process, after I have an opportunity to talk to them about what’s most important to them and I get them excited about that, then I get to ask them like, “What do you think about working here?”

If you’ve served them well, if they’re a good fit, if they’re aligned with your values and if you’ve helped them realize what’s most important to them, they should naturally be more connected to you and the idea of working for you. What you want to hear is, “This place is amazing. I’ve learned more about the dreams that I’ve let go and I’ve learned about what’s most important to me here. I can see myself growing and I can see how you can get the best out of me. I would love to consider working here.”

You want to get that because guess what you get to do now? “We have to think about it. Let me think about that for a little bit.” You get to pull back. Now you’ve served them. Now you get to pull back and be like, “We do have some expectations that are going to be required to work here. Is it okay if we go through that productivity?” All the things that you don’t want to go right now. You start with what they want and then you end with what you want.

At that point, it’s like, “What do you think about that? I want to help you get this, but we would need these things for that to be an even exchange. What do you think about that?” “Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I can totally get on board with that.” Fantastic. Let’s talk about what an offer would look like. What does your dream offer look like?” You can get that picture and then it’s like, “Great. I’m going to talk with my team and we’re going to put together an offer. If you have any more questions, I’ll give you a call tomorrow and we’ll talk about what we can offer you.” “Cool.” “All right, great.” That’s my process.

To speak to your process a little bit, how many people have you hired in the past year?

PTs, none. I haven’t had to. Several PTAs. I’ve hired 4 speech therapists and 2 OTs. I’ve hired 4, 5 or 6. We hired three therapists.

You don’t have an issue with finding physical therapists, either, which is crazy.

No, I have four candidates in our pipeline, and we’re going to make an offer. We’ve got several interviews lined up, so yeah, we’re doing well with it.

What more do you want to say about the interview process? I think we covered soup to nuts almost after the marketing. Is there a way you have bumbled things after that interview and the offer?

I think that the biggest mistake that you can make is to get too excited about a hire. If you get excited and want to send out an offer, that could come back to bite you. In my opinion, it’s a good idea to sit back, wait, digest, and talk with your team about it. Have a little bit more reflection about the experience. I have made mistakes sent out an offer a little bit too quickly.

The main takeaway is it’s a sales process. It’s not an interrogation. It’s not a test. All you’re trying to do is help you and the candidate get clear on what is most important to them and what their dream outcome would look like. If you know what they want, then you know what they value. You know their intentions. If you can do that and you can help them realize what they want, if their value aligned and you can help them get there through mentorship or whatever it is, then try to find ways to make that work and don’t find ways not to make it work.

I think there’s opportunities there, especially for some of the younger PT graduates where they have student loans are an issue. If they might ask, “Do you have a student loan repayment program?” “No.” “Let me look into it.” Don’t say that. Just say, “Let me look into it. Tap into our network and we can help you figure out what an appropriate student loan repayment program might look like.” Don’t off the cuff say, “No, I can’t help you there.” See what you can do. Say, “I’m going to look into that.”

Nathan, let me ask you a question. Let’s pretend like you owned a practice and this candidate walked in. Rockstar. The next Will Humphreys. They said, “I would take this job and help you blow this company up if you could help me with student loans,” would you be willing to do that?

I’m going to find a way.

Of course. The response is like, “Will, we don’t have a student loan program, but for the right people, I would love to support you with that. I’ll write it in the contract, but I’ll have something for you within the next three months.” Let’s create a possibility here.

There’s opportunities and I think that we need to be open to them. I love your conversation about how to structure that conversation, and I think we could all do a little bit better with the interview process. Let’s let our guard down and get to know these people and let’s make sure that we like them. Let’s work with people that we like. That’s something that I’ve learned over time. I want to work with the people that I like being with outside of business because these are people that you’re going to be around for a long time. You’ll see them more often than your family, especially as a small clinic. You better like them a lot.

It almost never not works out if you like them and if they like you.

At least you respect each other.

I’m willing to give a little. You’re willing to give a little. We’ve got some common goals. We see things similarly. I want to support you. You want to support me. That’s a hard thing to beat.

Everyone wants to work with people that they like. They consider them family and enjoy being around them. Anything else you want to add?

None at all. I think it’s wise for you to sit and think about what you’re saying in the interview and your intention. Be mindful that you’re selling an opportunity.

If they have questions, they can reach out to you, Adam@PTOClub.com or me, Nathan@PTOClub.com or check out the website and book a business call with us. We can talk you through it.

Don’t forget to check out the Facebook group. There is tons of content in there. Free resources are available for those who join the group. We’d love to have you hang out with us there, too.

Alright, thanks.

Alright, peace out.

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