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From Application to Orientation: What a Well-Oiled Funnel Actually Looks Like · Integrity at Scale™

• Hey. Hey, Dr. Tara Vossemkemper here and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Welcome back, or welcome for the first time. We are continuing our trek through the hiring gauntlet. If you are new here, this is a miniseries. We are focusing today heavily on application to orientation process. Basically, what I wanna do is walk you through what a solid hiring funnel looks like. So think of this as the point at which somebody applies all the way through the point at which they, uh, a complete orientation. We're not gonna get into the real nitty gritty with all of these things 'cause I could talk for literal hours about this whole process and how it can play out. But I do want you to have a broad brush stroke understanding of what this can look like and what are key components to each level of the hiring funnel. So let's go on. Before we really get into it, let's talk about the agenda. So we've got a few key things on here. One is just the anatomy of a funnel. Again, broad brush strokes. Two, we're gonna talk about the application phase. Three, we're gonna talk about a phone screen. Four is an interview stage. Five, we're gonna talk, offer and orientation. And six and final, we will talk about an approach to a funnel, and then we'll have some action steps. So maybe that's technically item number seven. Before we go further, make sure you subscribe to the podcast as you do this one. You can follow up on anything that's coming out at any given point in time and on the chat out weekly at this point, which is kind of awesome. Two, you can easily go back and binge listen episodes. Three, hardcore benefits people like you who need this in their life. So the more you like or the more you subscribe, the more it reaches other people who it will benefit. Ideally it benefit. Let's get into it though. I'm ready to talk about this. I love hiring stuff. So first, let's talk about a funnel that works, a hiring funnel that works. I will be clear here that I would add two more pieces onto a hiring funnel. So the process that we talk about from appli application to orientation are actually bookended by on the one side awareness and engagement and on the other retention and sort of pipeline building, so to speak. So think about. We're not gonna get into those today. We are focusing instead just on application to orientation. So with our first agenda item, the anatomy in the funnel that works, there's two key things. One is you have to have clear values. I think this goes without saying because I've said it, I don't, I've said it so many times at this point. You need values at your practice. They need to be living, breathing. Malleable things that you seek to live out that reflect who you are and how you all engage. By you all, I mean, you and your team engage with one another. So uniquely your values and your values should be reflected in how you are talking about your role and also how your hiring funnel looks over time. Like the things that are happening in your funnel should be, should point back to a value. Hopefully that makes sense. Second, we want role alignment with that at every stage of the hiring funnel. So if you have a marketing director, for example, doing a clinical phone screen, that doesn't make any sense, that's not role alignment. The person doing the behavior within the funnel should be responsible for that section. The things in the hiring funnel need to be role specific. I will say that there might be multiple people engaged in any one part of a funnel doing various things. That's totally fine. There needs to be ultimately one person accountable and responsible for the whole funnel that would. In a lot of cases be an HR person, not in every case. 'cause you might not have an HR person, so it might be visionary, it might be integrator, it might be clinical director, whoever it is in your practice, there's one person accountable for ensuring that it runs smoothly. And then there's also key people involved in the hiring funnel. And so that's where that role alignment at every stage really comes to life. So. Hiring funnel that works. Of course, we have a job ad the, or a position description from onset. From that point that you have a position description, again, thinking about your core values. This is actually reflecting who you are and you seek to hire from that. Then we've got application questions. We've got automation as much as possible. Then we shift into that application phase. But the point here is that from the very beginning, you should have a sense for here is how a funnel overall just functions. You have somebody coming in the door and they're filtered through a series of processes to assess if they are a good fit for you and for them to assess if you are a good fit for them. And then at the end, we all get to make a decision, or at any given point in time, we get to make a decision. But ultimately, a good fit is gonna make it all the way through the end and then say, yes, I wanna be here. Okay, so let's say somebody gets through the job ad. So this is the start of a funnel that works. They get through the job ad, they're excited, they click, and then they go to apply. Now we're in agenda item number two, but also specifically the application phase. The main purpose of this is to filter out anybody who's not going to be a logistical fit. So it's to share about the role and to share about what's expected at the practice so that the person who's applying sense for, oh, I actually do want this. I want to apply for this job. But it's also a filtering process, and so when people apply to a job, ideally they have some very strategic questions that are part of that process. Those strategic questions are based on you and your team, what you think is the fit for this role or not? So if I'm hiring and I need someone fully licensed, able to practice entirely independently, and somebody applies that's provisional, or maybe a, you know, very early stages provisional, pre-licensed professional, my answer's gonna be no. They might seem great. But if I need somebody who is fully licensed, functioning independently, I have to respect the need of the practice. And therefore the answer is no. I. So a strategic question is licensure level, for example, ability to practice independently. There also might be strategic questions about, uh, specialty or modality or, you know, the way people provide services in terms of in person or online, something like that. All of those things point to questions that require a yes or no answer that can immediately filter somebody out who's not a fit. Again, we're specifically talking about the logistics of the position. The thing that you need filled at your practice, there are logistics required. Clarify what those are and ask them yes or no right away. People who are not going to be a fit get to be done. I take it to be done because nobody wants to waste their time. I don't wanna waste somebody else's time if they're not fit for the practice, I don't want them to continue down this hiring funnel. And then, you know, we do a full interview and it's like, oh, actually no, you're not licensed so we don't need you working for us. That's a fucking insult. That's an insult to them. And it's also just a literally a waste of everybody's time. After that application phase, you're gonna shift into doing something like phone screen. This is to clean up loose logistical ends. So ideally in that application phase, you're filtering out folks who logistically are not a fit. But sometimes it's just you need more information. So this, the application phase and the initial questions are not going to capture everything that you might need to know. And I would say that you probably shouldn't have 50 questions because that's just, that's a lot of questions. You don't wanna overwhelm people before they even get to apply or get through the application part. So the point of the phone screen is to clean up loose logistical ends. But what you should also do is a broad sweeping style of questions related to culture and skills related to the position that they're applying for. This is not to make a final decision, this is to move them through to the next phase, which is the interview stage. In the phone screen stage. However, what is very important when you do things like ask questions that are value-based or values-based questions or culture-based questions, or when you're doing even skills-based questions, do not ask generic questions. Ask very specific questions about how this thing is lived out in their life. So if you value that is own your shit, which is one of my favorite. That's one of my practice's core values, and it's one of my favorite values. I might say to somebody, share a time in life where you made a mistake and you fessed up to it. How did you own up to it? What was the outcome? Specifically? How did you own your shit? That's what I'm wanting to know, is how did you enact this value in your life? So your question should not be, do you agree that owning your shit is a very important part of life? Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely it is. Cool. Thank you so much. That's not helpful. That's a non-answer. That's a generic, vague answer. I wanna know. How do you own your shit? What are the ways that you fuck up? How do you take responsibility for shit that you mess up and that you have to then own? And if you can't tell me anything, that's a problem. So behavioral based questions, very specific questions for each of the core values that you can ask about. From there, if they move through, they move on to the interview stage. This for me is where rubber really meet road. This is the last stage in the application interview process before offer and orientation or offer and onboarding. So in the interview stage. One thing that's important is you need to decide who is involved in this process and also why are they involved. So it's not enough to say, well, I want my whole team there. Cool. If you want your whole team there, that's awesome. But what I really wanna know is why, what is it about your whole team being there that's going to lend itself to successful completion of this hiring funnel? Why is them being there beneficial to the process or to this person, or to the team? You just need to have a rationale for why that's in place and why you have the people involved. So that's one thing is you clarify who's involved and just understand why they are in place. Second part of the interview stage. I just wanna go over almost like a rubric for what the interview process can look like. There's a few steps involved in the interview process, even at this point. So first, and I will tell you what we do, you do not have to take it and make it your own. I'm just gonna let you know the process that we go through, it's very intentional. Really multilayered. Don't have the time to get into all of the ways in which we are intentional and how each thing connects to a variety of others. But please just trust me that it is. So the sample structure would be something like you have a meet and greet with key members of your team. We do this, and I don't let any direct supervisor be involved in that process. So this is purely between the candidate and then team members. After the meet and greet, then we move them on to, um, a, a bigger interview that is, and by bigger I mean it's just a little bit longer. The meet and greet is like an hour. This next portion is a conceptualization and clinical skills. So living out in front of us how they do their work. So it's not just, how do you talk about it? It's put your money where your mouth is. Like show me how you do it and do these things line up. And then the last piece, again, all of this is intentional, so if you have questions, please follow up with me. But the last piece to all of it is direct feedback. So not only do we ask them to engage in direct reflection on what just happened, what they just did, but also we give them direct feedback or very purposeful reasons. That's our interview stage. So that's a loose structure, meaning, again, a meet and greet, a plan conceptualization, case conceptualization. Skills portion, meaning we wanna see them in action. It's gonna be something like mock therapy for us 'cause it's a group therapy practice and then direct reflection, they hop off, we debrief, everybody does a survey after the fact. So we've got objective data. Then we segue into the offer. So this is our next agenda item. The offer plus orientations, I would say slash onboarding as well. So. After somebody's gone through that, and I have all the data, we make a decision quickly because I'm not trying to waste anybody's time, including my own. We make a decision quickly and then we send an offer. This is a stage of a hiring funnel, meaning that somebody is responsible for this thing. In our case, it's our HR person. In your case, it might be you, it might be your clinical director. It might be your integrator. It might be your director of operations. It doesn't matter. You have a person who should be responsible for this thing. I should have added this on, at the end of the interview process, we let them know, they'll hear with us, they'll hear from us within a week. We usually follow up the next day and sometimes the, sometimes two days after, depending on what people have on their plates. So we send the offer. We also really then dig deep into our systems. So from the point at which they sign an offer and accept. Now we kick off an orientation and onboarding process. All of that is planned out. So who does what at what point in time? It's all on paper. It's all, well, uh, paper. It's in a Google Doc, but actually it's in a Google sheet, but it's in writing is my point. It's in writing and it's also baked into Bamboo hr, which is the HR system that we use that I fucking love. If you don't use it, look into it. Baked into Bamboo hr baked into our google Sheets or Google Doc, Google Docs, et cetera, and each person knows, is very clearly communicated. Who's responsible for what. My point here is that when somebody has made an offer and they accept, do not ghost your systems, you should lean heavily into your systems. If you don't have a system for after somebody accepts, get together with leadership and get on the same page. We need to know what's expected. We need to know who's expected to do what at what point in time, and in all of it, I wanna make sure that the person, the candidate, feels taken care of in that process. And so even looking at it through the lens of, if I was a candidate stepping into this, how might I feel about it? Does it work for me? Is it safe? Is it thorough? Is it thoughtful? Et cetera. So another piece to the offer and orientation stuff. And I'm not gonna get really in depth with orientation or onboarding because that's, it's just a lot to get into right now. Something else that I think is, should go without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Every step of the way there should be core values, culture, vision. I. All of the things related to EOS, like your VTO for example. All of those vision-based things, including core values and core focus and all of that should be embedded in not only this entire hiring funnel, but I would say even more explicit. The at the point at which they start with you, your candidate turns into an employee. There should be very clear messages about who we are, how we operate, what's expected, where we're going, period. So do not make the mistake of assuming that once somebody has heard it in the interview process, they know it, so they're gonna be fine. No, they don't know it. They are learning everything about your whole group. I would say you need to be very, very intentional with sharing all of those culture-based things, all of those vision-based things, all of the VTO related concepts with the new employee. Okay, we're almost done. Stay with me. You've been, this is great. You've been doing really good so far. Last two things. Number one, funnels are not one and done. So if you think, okay, I'm gonna set this and then we're good, please don't do that. You might set it, but I would encourage you to revisit it on a consistent basis. Case in point. Recently got feedback from an intern about our onboarding process for clinical interns. So amazing. First of all, to get that feedback. It's directly informing not only what we're building out with the mentorship program or a fellowship slash mentorship, but for me also it informs, oh shit, we need to tease out our hiring process for new employees with an onboarding process for interns into employees. And a separate one for interns coming onto the practice. It directly feeds into the evolution of who we are and how we show up, and that might seem like overkill, but to any one person who comes into a group, in any one of those unique positions, as an intern, as somebody transitioning from intern into employee, or as an entirely new employee, their experience of us is very distinct. And so the onboarding processes should be distinct to reflect the uniqueness of where they stand. So it might seem like overkill, but on the receiving end, if I was stepping into that, I would feel really well cared for and really seen and supported. That's sort of the goal here. That's a big part of the intention is to make sure that the people engaging with this, they, they feel good where they're like, oh, I get this. I understand. It's clear, it's thorough, it's thoughtful, it's intentional. Okay. And then they get to relax. Indirectly, it feeds into safety, you know, it feeds into psychological and emotional safety. So I think one of the key pieces too the funnel not being one and done. Either ask yourself or just, you know, ask your team maybe, how often are you tweaking your funnel? How often are you looking at this and thinking to yourself, how do we make this better? And maybe somebody snuck in. You think, okay, well how do I adjust that? Or maybe you get feedback from a new employee and you say, Hey, what was it like to be onboarded with us? Every stage of your funnel, you can make adjustments and tweaks. They all deserve their own attention. So I would say don't think of it as overkill. Think of it as intentionality and thoughtfulness and ensuring that every step of the way with you, somebody trusts where they are going. They trust the path that's in front of them. One other piece to the funnel, not being one and done. There are certain metrics that do matter in relation to a hiring funnel. One is gonna be drop off points, sort of a duh, you know, where are people falling off? You might look at that section of the funnel and say, damn, we lose a lot of people at this point. A second is a hire to retain ratio. So it might be that your hiring number is just obscene, but you can't retain employees. Okay. That tells me something. It might be that your retention is obscene, but you cannot get people in the door. That also tells me something. So the data can tell you, it gives you, it gives you information on where to look a little more closely at your hiring funnel to figure out what's going on or what's going wrong. Okay, a couple of action steps for you. So don't, don't crap outta me. Now we're almost there. One is, and again, take or leave. I would say just choose one. Don't do all of these unless you really want to, but you don't have to. Three options here. Number one, draft or update your hiring funnel document. So if you don't have a hiring funnel, start one. If you do have one, update it. Look at it, tweak it, make adjustments, make amendments. Do something with it. Number two, second option for an action step. Identify one place you can automate in your funnel without dehumanizing the process. You don't need to automate the whole thing. I, I don't like the idea of dehumanizing something or automating so much that you constantly, you know, the person on the other end might be questioning, am I ever gonna fucking talk to a person? Like, is this all AI or a robot? Like, hello, I'm here. Instead, think about it like, is there something that is just really redundant and repetitive that I can automate and boom, speeds up the process, doesn't feel dehumanizing and saves a lot of people, you know, time, energy, headache, et cetera. That's your second option. Third option for an action step is to share your hiring funnel. If you do have a documented, share it with a, some, a trusted colleague, either a leader at another practice, maybe if you're friends or in cahoots with anybody else or I. A lot of group practice owners have group practice owner friends. So I would say send it to somebody that you trust, even in another state. It doesn't fucking matter. My point is send it to someone you trust and ask them, where do you see the risk in this? Like, what do you see as a weak point? What would you say? Hey, you might need to look here a little bit closer, or, oh, interesting to do that. Uh, why not this? So you want somebody basically to poke holes in what you've created, and you might ask them that if you're sensitive to whole poking. That's what she said. If you're sensitive to somebody poking holes in something you've created, then just ask for one point of feedback. You might say to them, look, I, I don't want a bunch of holes poked in this. Can you just tell me one area that you think I should address? If you want it all, tell 'em as much feedback as you can give me, but at minimum, just tell me one area that's an issue. Boom. Simple. Easy as that. Right? Easy as pie. If you are just tired of beating your head against the wall. You really want some support in figuring out how you could craft a hiring funnel, how you do it with intention and with thoughtfulness, and with ensuring that the person on the receiving end of it feels good, feels safe, feels grounded, and like they know what to expect. Join the membership. We have hiring based trainings in there. I do things PRN as needed, so if you want a specific hiring thing, you would just ask me and I would do it. Long story short, membership is a seal of a price you get me twice a month live. One for Q and as to talk through those high and related issues. Two, for a live training to craft out even further hiring funnel, for example. There's a shared portal with a variety of resources and there're including already some hiring based things and a private community so you can get additional support when and if you need it, probably when it's always a matter of when and not if so, join me in the membership. You can go to www.taravossenkemper.com, click on the membership. Boom. There it is. Super easy. It is great seeing you. I really appreciate you being here and doing this with me. It has been fun as fuck, and I hope to continue for a long time. That said, I will catch you on the flippity flip. Alright, bye.