Permanent placement
The hire is not the hard part. Finding somebody worth hiring is.
WORKFORCE runs permanent searches for dental practices across British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Washington, for every role in the building. You keep the decision. We do the finding, the screening, and the parts nobody enjoys.
Both routes end in an offer
What differs is how much of the middle you personally do, and how many of the dead ends reach your desk.
One vacancy, two routes
Same hire. The difference is whose evening it is.
You post an advert
You write the advert
An evening, and it is your evening
Whoever is looking that week replies
Plus everybody who applies to everything
You read all of them
Between patients, or after the practice closes
You arrange interviews
Around a schedule that is already full
Some do not turn up
Which you find out on the day
You make an offer
And wait to hear whether it was accepted
We run a search
We learn the practice
One conversation, and it is the important one
We approach people who are working
Rather than whoever happens to be looking
We screen and have the awkward conversations
Money, notice, and whether they are serious
You get a short list
Three or four, not a stack
You interview and decide
This part is yours and stays yours
We hold the offer together
Counter-offers included
Schematic. The widths show narrowing and are not quantities, because how many people answer an advert depends entirely on your city, your role and the month. Adverts do work. The question this is answering is where the effort sits while they do.
Three reasons hiring in dentistry is harder than it looks
01
The people you want are not looking
Anybody good is employed and reasonably content, which means they are not reading job boards on a Tuesday. An advert reaches the people who happen to be searching this week, and that is a genuinely different population from the people you would most want.
02
The screening lands on the busiest person
Somebody has to read the replies, arrange the interviews, chase the ones who go quiet, and rearrange a schedule around all of it. In most practices that somebody is already the person with the least spare time in the building.
03
You find out about fit far too late
Two interviews tell you whether somebody presents well. They do not tell you whether they run to time, how they are with a difficult patient, or whether your team will still be intact in six months.
- 01
We work out what you are actually hiring for
Two practices advertising the same role frequently want opposite people. Before anything else we establish which one you are, including the parts that are awkward to write in a posting.
- 02
We approach people rather than wait for them
Across our own network and beyond it. A good share of the professionals we place already temp with us, which means their work is known rather than described.
- 03
We have the conversations you would rather not
Money, notice periods, why they are really leaving, and whether they are serious. These are much easier from us than from the person they might end up working for.
- 04
You get a short list and you decide
Three or four people worth your time, already screened against the role. You interview, you choose, and nothing moves without you.
- 05
We stay in it until the start date
The fortnight between a verbal yes and a signed start date is where hires die, usually to a counter-offer. Somebody should be managing that, and it should not be you.
Every role in the building
Each of these hires goes wrong in its own particular way, so we have written them up separately rather than pretending one process fits all six.
What a placement costs
A permanent placement carries a fee. It varies by market, because pay and demand differ from one region to the next, and it is quoted before anything is agreed. It is priced to stay competitive with what a recruiter would charge you for the same hire.
The published city rate card is a separate thing entirely. That covers set hourly rates for temp coverage of hygienists, assistants, chairside and reception. Permanent compensation is agreed between you and the person you hire, and we advise rather than set it.
Yours as the employer
When you hire somebody permanently, you are the employer. Confirming registration standing, insurance arrangements, background screening to whatever standard you set, contracts and onboarding are your responsibility and your advisors’, not something we can carry for you. We introduce the candidate and pass on what we hold.
This is genuinely different from temp coverage, where the professional is our employee and licensing and insurance are verified by us. We would rather draw that line clearly than let you assume a check happened that did not.
Tell us about the vacancy
The role, the practice, and what you want this person to take off your plate. We will tell you plainly whether we can fill it and what it would cost, before you commit to anything.