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Hiring a Physical Therapists
Learn how to find and hire excellent physical therapists with this step-by-step guide and answers to frequently asked questions.
Physical therapists are experts that help patients recover from injuries, manage pain, manage chronic diseases, and more by utilizing their expertise of massage, exercise, and movement practice. Finding qualified physical therapists has grown to be exceedingly difficult because of their specialized training. Proactive, automated hiring techniques are necessary.
A Physical Therapist’s Employment Process
A step-by-step manual for hiring highly qualified physical therapists for your clinic or hospital. includes a thorough procedure that will assist you in quickly finding and hiring the top physical therapists.
Attract the most qualified physical therapists
- Sell your private practice or hospital
Make a list of all the factors that would make a physical therapist want to work with you. What makes your practice distinct and special? What kinds of physical therapy are your areas of expertise? Do you employ modern methods or technologies? See how you stack up against similar universities’ offerings by doing some research.
Think about the kind of physical therapist you need and the perks that would appeal to them in order to draw a candidate who would be the greatest match for the position.
Physical therapists appreciate several things, such as:
- Bonuses and wages that are competitive.
- A solid retirement strategy.
- Possibilities for trip.
- Complete life and health insurance.
- Adaptable working hours.
- compensation for license fees and mileage.
- Reasonable hours of labor.
- paid time off for vacation and sick days.
- Subsidies for education and chances for advancement.
- Task that is meaningful and job happiness.
- A setting that is supportive of workers.
Ask other physical therapists in your practice what they like best about their jobs and/or the office setting. To learn more about how past and present clients have experienced your services, talk to them as well. It’s a good idea to read internet reviews to receive frank comments that you can utilize to help you write your job posting.
Create a candidate persona based on the kind of physical therapist you’re searching for. For instance, if you want to hire a recent graduate who can go to patients’ homes, give them advantages like travel reimbursements and advancement chances.
- Create an engaging job posting for a physical therapist.
Your chances of finding the ideal applicant for the position will increase the more specifics you can provide in your job description. Provide a brief description of your facility or private practice and a list of the duties, abilities, knowledge, credentials, licenses, and certifications that each candidate must possess. Be sure to specify if they will need to deal with billing, health, and electronic medical record (EMR) software.
Provide a complete and honest description of all the responsibilities, specifications, and restrictions of the position. Try to be as open as you can. List any undesirable elements of the employment, if any.
- To make it simpler, use a template for a job description for a physical therapist.
Your task will be made a little bit simpler because a physical therapist job description template will provide you a lot of the boilerplate details you’ll need, such responsibilities and credentials.
Start by utilizing our sample job description for a physical therapist.
Explicitly state the qualifications, responsibilities, and restrictions of the position you’re providing.
Make careful to describe the job’s nature in the description. Provide as much specifics as you can about the patient, such as the kind of physical treatment they will need and how long it will take (long-term vs. short-term care, etc.).
Add your location so that applicants can plan routes, compute travel times, or think about relocating if the position is given.
Focus on these elements to produce a compelling job advertisement since many physical therapists value flexibility, professional advancement, and meaningful employment.
Promote the opening
- Advertise your position on broad websites like Indeed.
Start by placing a job posting on generic job sites like Indeed. These are excellent starting points because they are both free and receive a lot of traffic.
- Make sure Google picks up your job.
Your job ad might be shown in search results thanks to Google for Jobs. This can significantly improve your ability to find work. By having it correctly formatted on your website or by employing a service (like Betterteam) that automatically generates a properly formatted jobs page for you, you may get it picked up by Google.
- Look for employment sites specifically for healthcare professionals.
Your search will become more focused on physical therapists who could be a better fit. To post employment openings, use a website for healthcare professionals.
- Directly hire applicants from physical therapy programs.
Your chances of recruiting excellent applicants who are knowledgeable about the most recent physical therapy treatments rise when you build pipelines from physical therapy programs. Also, you can be sure that anyone you hire from a reputable institution or university will be properly licensed and certified, as well as having completed the necessary background checks.
- Organize an open day.
A excellent method to introduce prospective employees to you and your business is to invite the public into your private practice or hospital. Inform everyone about the great job you’re doing, and inspire physical therapists to join your team.
Invite a handful of your top physical therapists to the open day, so they can provide knowledge, respond to inquiries, and represent your facility as brand ambassadors.
Have an open day on the weekend or for a few evenings throughout the week when most physical therapists or physical therapy students should be able to come to draw in the largest crowd.
- Create a mentoring program.
A great way to increase your network of physical therapists and establish a solid reputation is to start a mentoring program. You may develop fresh talent and foster ties with potential employees by partnering students and recently graduated grads with seasoned mentors. You’ll have access to a talent pool of physical therapists by the time you’re prepared to hire new ones.
In the long term, a mentorship program will reduce your hiring expenses since it is simpler to make a choice when you already know the candidates and are familiar with their qualifications, talents, and areas for improvement.
- Encourage a handful of your finest and most knowledgeable physical therapists to accept the position of mentor.
- Join forces with nearby schools and institutions that provide physical therapist training programs.
- Create connections between mentors and trainee physical therapists or students.
- Look for fresh talent in the physical treatment industry.
- Get references from the staff.
A fantastic strategy to locate outstanding talent is to ask current workers for recommendations. To encourage staff members to contribute to the hiring process, establish an employee recommendation program. In essence, the scheme pays out for any recommendations that result in employment. Ensure that it is understood by your staff that the physical therapist they recommend must possess the required knowledge, training, experience, work ethic, and attitude.
- Utilize the careers page on your website.
Establish a careers page on your company website and post job descriptions, application deadlines, and notices of openings there. This method will be more successful and personable for candidates who are aware of your hospital or private practice and are interested in working for your organization. Keep your careers page consistently updated with the most recent positions.
Keep a careful check on the careers part of your website so you don’t miss out on physical therapists who have a real interest in your organization. Applicants who already know about you and the services you provide are likely to apply via your website.
Verify potential hires
- Examine your candidates
Being your initial contact with the application pool, screening candidates is a crucial stage in the recruiting process. The people you meet during this procedure will include both those who meet your job description’s qualifications and those who don’t.
Sending prospects a few simple questions by email is a quick and simple technique to determine which ones are suitable, such as:
- When and where did you finish school?
- When did you start working as a physical therapist?
- Where did you do your internship or where have you worked?
- Do you have the time to visit patients in their homes for sessions?
- Do you possess any other certifications relevant to the job?
Make two piles: one for the “maybes” and the other for those who satisfy all of your criteria to aid in automating the screening process. After that, you may begin working your way down, beginning with the applicants who satisfies all standards.
- Background checks should be done.
The majority of physical therapists go through background checks before getting their licenses, but it’s always a good idea to do one more during the hiring process.
It is advised to run background checks once you have screened the pool of candidates to confirm information including job history, criminal history, credentials, and more. You may accomplish this by using one of the many software platforms that provide background check services.
- Do a phone call interview
Do phone interviews with the applicants you’ve selected to gauge their suitability and expertise for the job. You should be able to choose the top applicants using this procedure.
Physical therapists may want to ask the following:
- Have you ever dealt with [x] injuries?
- Approximately how long have you been a physical therapist?
- What credentials do you possess?
- Do you have any particular physiotherapy interests?
- Can you give an example of a moment when you dealt with a challenging patient? What did you discover?
- Would you be able to work throughout the holidays?
- What salary goals do you have?
it’s a warning sign if the answers they give during the phone interview and the ones they gave in response to the email screening questions differ noticeably.
When you start your search for a physical therapist, be sure to keep your ideal candidate persona in mind. Pay close attention to the candidates’ credentials, years of experience, and skill set. You should ideally have 10 or more candidates who fit your candidate persona.
Observe and evaluate your applicants
- Hold a face-to-face interview.
Invite prospects for a formal interview once you have narrowed down the pool of applications to those who fulfill the requirements of your job descriptions. Interviews are a wonderful opportunity to evaluate a candidate’s work ethic, dependability, personality traits, and expectations for the position.
Examples of interview inquiries include:
- How do you evaluate a patient’s health? How do you monitor advancement?
- What software do you want to employ to provide a stimulating environment?
- What approach do you take while working with timid clients?
- Can you give an example of a time when you and a coworker worked together to develop a physical treatment plan?
- Share a few of your trickiest situations. What treatments did you employ?
- Evaluate the applicants’ functional abilities
Physical therapists are highly educated professionals who ought to be familiar with the human body and various treatment options. Do a practical and/or detailed evaluation to assist gauge the breadth of the candidate’s knowledge and work experience to make sure your ideal candidate is capable of carrying out his or her responsibilities to the best of their abilities.
Pay special attention to the candidates’ practical use of procedures and look for individuals who can exhibit outstanding understanding of treatment strategies for a range of ailments and age groups.
Most applicants find the assessment portion of the hiring process to be highly stressful, therefore your exam should also allow you to determine how well prospects perform under pressure.
Choose and hire a new physical therapist
- Make a proposal
Once you’ve located the appropriate physical therapist, you should make an offer to them right away because they could be considering other candidates. The easiest way to do this is frequently to start with a casual phone contact and then follow up with a letter or email outlining the position, its compensation, and its advantages.
- Get your new physical therapist started.
The employment process’s crucial last stage, onboarding, should not be skipped. A thorough and well-organized onboarding procedure can help you make a strong first impression and get your new recruit up and running quickly.
FAQs:
No, the field of physical therapy is not in decline. Physical therapist employment is expected to rise by 18% between 2019 and 2029, which is substantially greater than the average for all other industries, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.
What qualities should a physical therapist have?
- Sound logical and analytical reasoning.
- A current physical therapist license.
- Outstanding interpersonal communication abilities.
- Kind and sensitive to the smallest details.
How much money is made by a physical therapist per hour?
The average pay for a physical therapist is $43.35, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.