With candidates able to cherry pick from a list of job openings, identifying just how your dental practice is different and what more you can offer a candidate is vital.  As a recruiting consultant who interviews many candidates on a daily basis, we learn what candidates are looking for today from the candidates themselves.

They are, first and foremost interested in compensation, the hours, degree of flexibility and schedule options, benefits and perks, the equipment/technologies they will be working with, and the culture, which the candidate gleans from a review of Glassdoor, Indeed, social media sites, or talking to who they might know who has worked for the company.

Assuming you are competitive with all of the above, how do you get the word out that what you offer is different or more attractive than any another dental practice?  Dental practices must answer a candidates’ “why”.  Why should they apply to your job?  How are you different?
The way to highlight how you are different is to develop and actively market your employer brand.  What do you stand for?  What are you known for?
I am talking not amongst customers, but in the labor market.  What do candidates know about your company?
At the beginning of a recruiting assignment,
I typically interview for a job opening or two, without cost for one week.  What I am looking for is to learn what the candidates know about that particular company.
I once interviewed for multiple job openings for one week for a local company and learned that the company was known as the lowest paid employer in their industry in a 50 mile radius!  Suffice it to say, I did not end up taking that client on.  Wasting the client’s money or my time is not my best interest, nor theirs, as I too, have plenty client options with companies willing to ensure they are competitive and offering something more to candidates in order to attract top talent.

A dental practice needs to have a strategy for developing their employer brand in order to woo candidates, but it is a now and in the future proposition.  What I mean by that is, you can’t go about effectively developing your employer brand in the labor market, when the wolf is at your door and you have three current key vacancies.
A brand is simply a positive association with your practice in the labor market, but that positive association must be there long before you have a job opening.   A good place to start is to take a look at your top nearest competitors for talent.  Review their career websites to see what they offer and how they are differentiating themselves.   You will also have to look within, and honestly look at your “employee value proposition”, i.e. what do employees get out of the deal if they work for you verses your competitor down the street?   You have to be able to answer that question, legitimately, as there must be something of substance there for you to be able to compete, of which you can then promote.
The employers who are able to generate the largest number of candidates of which to choose from to fill their vacancies are the ones who have spent the most amount of time and effort in ensuring they are able to differentiate themselves as an employer, offer something different than the rest, and promote it through marketing before, during, and after your next vacancy.  It is a commitment, but with a big payoff.
I realize you may have a job opening right now, and you might have never even thought about developing an employer brand.  What to do?  Start now.  Start any time.  Time is a wasting.  If you prefer, enlist the help of some top marketing expertise as this is a long term initiative, not a one time fix.  Know too that you cannot stop working on your employer brand once your positions are filled.  It doesn’t work that way.  Again, it is a commitment, but with a big payoff.