Improve Your Healthcare Hiring Process With Peer Interviews

As the healthcare recruiting landscape changes, peer interviews are becoming increasingly important for hospitals and clinics to screen candidates effectively. Peer interviews provide a unique perspective during the hiring process, and can be instrumental in helping you find the right fit for your open healthcare position.

Conducting peer interviews can help you glean important insights about a candidate that may not be apparent from their resume or cover letter alone. In addition, these interviews provide an opportunity for candidates to ask questions about the role and the organization, allowing them to get a better sense of whether or not the position is a good fit for them.

If your company is not yet conducting peer interviews, now is the time to start.

What Is A Peer Interview?

A peer interview – also known as a peer-to-peer interview – is an interview conducted by someone who works in a similar role as the position being hired for. For example, if you are hiring a registered nurse, the peer interview could be conducted by another RN on your staff.

The hiring manager is typically not in the room during peer-to-peer interviews, which allows candidates to feel more comfortable speaking openly. This candidness is invaluable during the hiring process, as it can give you a better sense of a candidate’s true skills, strengths, and weaknesses.

How Peer Interviews Improve the Healthcare Hiring Process

Whether you are working in talent recruitment, are a hiring manager, or are responsible for human resources within a healthcare organization, peer interviews should be a part of your hiring process. Here’s why:

Peer interviews provide valuable insights about candidates.

Asking questions during a peer-to-peer interview that probe into a candidate’s clinical knowledge, patient interaction skills, and ability to work as part of a team can give you a much better sense of their fit for the role than a resume ever could. Personalities and responses can change when the candidate is speaking with peers rather than the hiring manager.

For example, a candidate may tell the hiring manager that they are hardworking, but then ask peers over and over about the workload and how many hours they are truly expected to work each week.

In addition, peer interviews provide an opportunity to get to know candidates on a personal level. This can be helpful in determining whether or not they will be a good cultural fit for your organization and their team. Involving peers that will actually be working alongside them can help unearth potential conflicts before the candidate is hired.

Peer interviews help reduce turnover rates.

When a peer interviews a candidate and has the chance to ask questions about their expectations for the role, it sets clearer expectations from the start. This allows both candidates and potential team members to determine more accurately if the role is a good match for the candidate. Peers can often foresee whether or not a candidate is likely to become disgruntled and leave the organization shortly after being hired.

Asking questions about a candidate’s career goals, long-term plans, and what they are looking for in a role can help you get a better sense of their motivations and whether or not they will be satisfied in the position. Peer interviews may also bring to light plans to leave within the next one or two years due to career goals, family commitments, or other factors.

In addition, peer-to-peer interviews help build buy-in from employees who will be working with the new hire. When employees feel like they have a say in who is hired, they are more likely to be invested in the new hire’s success. They will be more likely to go above and beyond to help them succeed. This helps reduce healthcare turnover rates for two reasons: (1) the new hire has increased support, and (2) the new hire feels a quick sense of belonging within the organization.

For busy healthcare organizations that are likely already understaffed, reducing turnover rates is an essential and challenging feat. By conducting peer interviews, you can avoid the time and expense of hiring and training new employees only to have them leave shortly thereafter.

Peer interviews help save time and money.

Hiring is time-consuming and expensive, so anything you can do to streamline the process is beneficial. Conducting peer interviews can help save time by identifying candidates that are not a good fit for the role before they move on to the next stage of the hiring process.

Hiring managers can also devote more time to maintaining day-to-day operations. These managers will have additional responsibilities to current employees and processes, which are often more highly valued than attending to the recruiting process. Having peer interviews can help to offload some of the responsibility from the hiring manager during the interview process.

Peer interviews also create a better candidate experience.

If peer-to-peer interviews are conducted well, candidates will feel like they have been given a fair chance to show their skills and qualifications. In addition, peer interviews can provide candidates with valuable feedback about their performance during the interview process.

Candidates also get the chance to ask questions about work-life balance, company culture, and the team they would work with if they were to get the job. This allows candidates to get a realistic idea of what it would be like to work at the company, which can help them decide if the company is a good fit for them. In healthcare especially, this is essential to ensuring that the best candidates are hired for the role.

Overall, conducting peer interviews is a win-win for both the healthcare organization and the candidates. By taking the time to conduct peer-to-peer interviews, you can save time and money while also improving the quality of your hires.

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How To Conduct A Peer Interview in Healthcare

Understanding the importance of peer-to-peer interviews is only the first step. Next, it's important to understand how to integrate this process into your healthcare recruitment process. In the healthcare field, this can be a bit more tricky than in other industries, as potential interviewers have patients, productivity, and other responsibilities that often cannot be placed on hold.

In order to get the most out of peer interviews in healthcare, here are the recommended steps to take:

1. Define the goals of the peer interview.

What specific information are you hoping to learn about the candidate? Make sure each interviewer is aware of these goals so that they can tailor their questions accordingly. A scoresheet or categorized questions can be helpful in keeping interviewers focused and completing interviews in an efficient manner.

2. Choose your peer interviewers wisely.

Not every employee will be a good fit for conducting peer-to-peer interviews. Choose employees who are optimistic, have good interpersonal skills, and are able to provide constructive feedback. Avoid those who are experiencing burnout or who have recently expressed a desire to leave the organization. You may also want to consider choosing peer interviewers who have different styles so that candidates can get a well-rounded view of the company culture.

3. Schedule peer interviews in advance.

Since peer interviews are often conducted during work hours, it's important to schedule them well in advance so that potential interviewers have time to clear their calendars. If possible, try to schedule peer interviews for times when the candidate will be least likely to have patients or other obligations, such as lunch or another break.

4. Keep peer interviews short and sweet.

Peer interviews should last no longer than 30 minutes so that potential interviewers can get back to their patient care responsibilities as soon as possible. Candidates should also be made aware of the time limit so that they can prepare accordingly.

5. Follow up with peer interviewers after the fact.

Be sure to debrief with peer interviewers after each candidate has been interviewed. This will allow you to get feedback about the process and make any necessary changes for future interviews. You should also thank peer-to-peer interviewers for their time and participation in the process.

By following these steps, you can ensure that peer interviews in healthcare are conducted efficiently and effectively.

Peer Interview Questions To Ask Candidates

When conducting peer interviews, it is important to have a set of questions prepared in advance. This will not only streamline the process but also reduce the burden on the peer-to-peer interviewers, who are likely focused more on their patient care responsibilities. These questions should be specific to the role you are hiring for and focus on the candidate's ability to perform the essential duties of the position.

Here are some sample peer interview questions to ask candidates for a healthcare position:

1. Can you describe a time when you had to deal with a difficult patient?
2. What is your experience with handling confidential medical information?
3. Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond for a patient.
4. Have you ever had a conflict with another coworker? How did you handle it?
5. What experience do you have with providing compassionate care?
6. Tell me about a time when you had to work under a lot of pressure.
7. Can you describe a situation where you had to make a quick decision?
8. Can you think of an instance where you went above and beyond to help a coworker?
9. What experience do you have with providing care to patients with [specific population relevant to the role]?
10. How do you deal with stress or frustration?
11. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult family member or friend of a patient.
12. What other settings have you worked in? What challenges did you face in these?
13. What experience do you have with [role-specific skill]?
14. What do you look for or value in a team member?
15. Tell me about a situation where you disagreed with the treatment plan of another healthcare discipline. How did you handle it?
16. How do you balance meeting productivity standards and providing the best care possible?
17. [For inpatient care] How do you respond in an emergency? What role do you naturally take (e.g., leader, follower, helper, calming force)?
18. How have you struggled with work-life balance in the past? What techniques or strategies have you developed to overcome that?
19. How do you help those who are grieving the loss of a loved one, loss of function, or another difficult situation?
20. How do you ensure that a patient or coworker accurately understands what you have told them?

Asking peer interview questions like these will give you insight into a candidate's ability to handle the challenges of working in healthcare. It is also important to give candidates the opportunity to ask questions of their own. This will help you gauge their level of interest in the position and their ability to communicate effectively.

Ready To Start Integrating Peer-to-Peer Interviews?

The peer interview is an important part of the healthcare hiring process. By interviewing candidates with similar jobs, you can get a better idea of how they will fit in with your team and if they will be sticking around for the long term.

If you are looking for more healthcare recruiting strategies, be sure to visit iHire's Resource Center. You'll find articles, webinars, and industry insights on a variety of recruiting topics, including healthcare recruiting!