In the medical industry, there is no underestimating the need for empathy from your staff. With patient care as a prime directive, employees in healthcare need to provide a sense of care and understanding to what are essentially their customers. But how do you know whether or not a job candidate boasts empathy as a soft skill?

What follows are a few strategies for detecting an empathic nature within the candidates for a position in the healthcare industry.

Finding Empathy on a Résumé can be Difficult

Finding candidates with empathy by perusing the résumés sent in for a job posting isn’t an obvious process. A simple keyword search will find any job applicants that mention it on their CV, but additional verification during an interview is still a good idea. Any recommendations or endorsements from a candidate’s references that mention exemplary patient care is a good bet, so make sure to follow up on that question with those references when you contact them directly.

The Interview is the Best Place to screen for Empathy

Ultimately, you will need to use the interview to truly verify the level of empathy of your job candidates. The résumé screening process will narrow down the number of applicants, but it is vital to earmark one or more interview questions for finding out more about a candidate’s empathy. Pay close attention to how they answer these questions.

A good question for this purpose can leverage a real word patient care scenario to see how the candidate would react when placed in that situation. If an applicant is fresh out of school, frame a similar question around a family situation. Additionally, questions about working in a collaborative environment also help to verify their empathic nature.

If multiple staff members are involved in the interview process, collect opinions from all of them regarding the empathy of the candidates before making that final hiring decision.

If your organization needs additional staffing assistance, look no further than Pinnacle Workforce. As one of the nation’s top healthcare employment agencies, our knowledgeable staff can help your medical business with a robust supply of quality, empathic, candidates. Make it a point to meet with us as soon as possible.