What makes a new hire valuable? Not only have I asked this of interviewees, but interestingly enough, I’ve often been asked this by the candidates themselves. While the specific answer may vary depending on the candidate and the position, the guiding principles remain constant. Whether it’s within the medical field (as discussed here) or across various other industries, the value of a new hire is often contingent on the expectations that we, as evaluators and interviewers, put into place.
Value is a moving target. The same qualifications could be quantified as high or low value depending on the year, setting, career-stage or state-of-mind of the local leadership making the hire. For example, in the era of population health care, institutions often switch between needing quality-conscious clinicians willing to work hard and see more patients, versus needing surgeons or high end interventionists. Moreover, the characterization of value can differ significantly across the needs of private practices, community hospitals, tertiary hospitals, and academic medical centers. To ensure high value in each of these settings, there must be alignment between the offerings and the needs.
Ultimately, when evaluating a potential new hire for any of these settings, there are a variety of essential traits that the individual must embody. To make things a bit simpler, I’ve boiled it down to one…
