When considering your next hire, you might want to look at a candidate who not only has the medical background you want, but also has solid problem-solving skills. Think about it: In any profession, things go wrong or get off track, and you want to have someone on your staff who can handle issues with ease, calm, and creative thinking.

It demonstrates grace under pressure. As you well know, the medical world isn’t always known for its quiet, routine workdays. On any given day a patient will have at least one unforeseen problem that a medical professional will need to solve, possibly on the fly, and all the medical knowledge they possess won’t matter if they can’t respond calmly and quickly to help that person. Plus it calms the client/patient to know they have someone there who can help solve the issue using that combination of experience and level headedness.

It shows independence. You want someone on your team who doesn’t feel the need to run to a manager every time something goes wrong. This lack of confidence in one’s own abilities may indicate you cannot trust this person to make the right decision in a crisis, and the last thing you want to do is micromanage someone you hired to do a certain job. Of course you’ll supervise newer employees, but you should have someone on board who can handle most problems on their own, or at least make attempts before asking for help.

It’s a sign of creativity and logic. Problem solvers tend to first rely on their experience to figure out what to do in sticky situations. Barring that, they take that experience and twist it so they come up with a new solution using a combination of logic and creativity. You want to hire someone who thinks, “Well, what I tried last time didn’t work, but what if I attempt to do X instead based on what I know, and use this idea to make it happen?” Problem solvers do this sort of on-their-feet thinking without hesitation, and that definitely ranks as something you want in a medical professional.

So as you go through your next round of hiring, be sure to add a question about a problem the candidate solved to see how they handle working in the medical profession — you want your employees to handle the bumpier days as well as the smooth. Call the experienced recruiting team at Medical Professionals today to let us help you recruit the top healthcare professionals you need.


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