Qualified, engaged and compassionate healthcare employees are essential – for patients and for health systems. Hospital and care provider reimbursement will soon be based solely on patient satisfaction and the ability to provide efficient and quality care. The best way to hire top talent that’s willing to go above and beyond is by investing in value-based healthcare. This model is critical for healthcare recruitment success in today’s complex landscape.
To get you started, here’s a comprehensive list of behavioral-based questions drawn from Cielo’s extensive healthcare talent acquisition experience. These questions will help recruiters and human resource specialists pinpoint vital, value-focused traits during the interview process. Use them to determine how to adapt recruitment strategies and the overall recruitment process to find the quality candidates needed to succeed in value-based healthcare.
Leadership potential
- Tell me about a time you noticed someone on your team who was struggling. Can you discuss the situation and how you resolved it?
- Tell me about a time you had to make a quick, difficult decision. Can you describe the situation and the results?
- Healthcare leaders are often required to take unpopular positions related to organizational issues – describe a time you were in this situation. Why did you take the unpopular stance, and what were the results?
- Describe a time you successfully demonstrated your technical knowledge and contrast this with a time when you weren’t able to do so. What did you do differently? Why?
- Tell me about a time you were able to create agreement and shared purpose from a scenario/situation in which all parties originally differed in opinion and/or objective?
- Give an example of a time you were successful at empowering either a colleague or a group of colleagues to accomplish a specific task.
- Discuss a time you stepped into a challenging situation, took charge, fostered collaboration, and achieved quality results.
Willingness to be a team player
- Discuss an instance where you were frustrated trying to communicate with a person or group. Why? How did you go about resolving this situation?
- How have you motivated your colleagues to embrace a team mentality? Why do you feel this was important?
- Tell me about a time you worked toward a goal with a group, but your team failed to meet the goal before the deadline. What caused the failure, and what would you have done differently? Do you believe it’s possible to find success through failure?
- Tell me about a time you worked in a department that was short staffed. How did you work with your team members to prioritize and complete the necessary work?
- What does being a “team player” mean to you? Share a detailed example of how you’ve acted as a team player in your current or previous role and how the experience was rewarding to you professionally and personally.
- Discuss a time you were working with a manager, coworker or client who was unsatisfied with either your performance or the performance of a group you were a part of. What did you do to remedy this issue, and what was the overall result? Could it have been avoided?
- Tell me about an instance when you played an integral role in helping a team (or work group) recover and get back on track following unexpected challenges or issues?
Tech savvy
- Tell me about a time you identified an opportunity to leverage a computer program or another technology to increase either financial or operational efficiency.
- Tell me about a time you recognized you were not leveraging technology to its fullest potential. How did you go about fixing this and building upon current performance? What was the outcome?
- How do you keep up with the latest technology in your specialty/industry and ensure your knowledge/skills remain current with the evolving landscape?
- Tell me about a time your team was an early adopter of new technology. What led to the decision to move forward in this area?
- How do you approach or respond to new technologies that have been implemented on short notice within the workplace?
- Do you adapt quickly to new technologies, or do you require extra time and attention to adapt? Is there an advantage to one or the other? Can you provide an example?
Ability to think critically
- Tell me about a time you were part of a project where you had a better idea or resolution than the leader of the project. How did you go about sharing that idea without undermining the leader? Can you provide specific details about the project?
- Tell me about a time you had to define a problem, collect and analyze the data, and draw a conclusion. What was the overall outcome of the project?
- Describe a situation in which you solved a complex problem with a creative, unique solution. What was the challenge, and how did you go about resolving it?
- Tell me about a time you had to quickly analyze facts, define key issues and immediately respond or develop a plan that produced quality results.
- Describe a situation in which you had to think through information that challenged your own views or beliefs. How were you able to overcome this?
These 25 questions are designed to help recruiting professionals think differently about how to evaluate potential candidates in healthcare. Understanding value-based healthcare and how investing in it impacts healthcare talent acquisition is essential for hiring the right candidates in this ever-evolving industry.
