After interviewing two applicants for a dental reception role, you may remember who was easy to talk to but struggle to explain who showed the skills the job requires. A pleasant conversation can leave the practice owner with very little evidence to compare. The next interview needs a clearer purpose: find out how the applicant handles specific parts of the work, and give them enough information to assess the role themselves.

Prepare the questions, the evidence you are looking for and a short administrative simulation before meeting anyone. Keep the core task consistent across applicants. The aim is a decision you can explain, including what remains uncertain and what the practice would need to teach.

Start with the work, then choose the questions

List a few observable responsibilities from the actual job. For reception, these might include clarifying a caller's request, recording an agreed next step and asking an appropriate colleague for help. “A good personality” is too broad to tell an interviewer what to look for. “Checks an unclear request before promising a response” describes an action that can be discussed and observed.

Separate what the person must already be able to do from what your onboarding process can reasonably teach. Familiarity with one particular booking system and experience in your exact workflow are different from the ability to notice missing information. Do not dismiss experience, but do not let a number of years stand in for an explanation of the work someone actually performed.

Set those distinctions before seeing the applicants. Write down the support you can provide, including who will demonstrate a task and who can answer questions. A requirement described as teachable is not a meaningful promise if nobody has time to teach it.

Ask five questions that invite evidence

Use the same core questions in the same order for applicants to the same role. Follow-up questions can clarify an answer without changing the standard you are applying. For an administrative position, the following questions are a starting point to adapt to the advertised work:

Ask for enough context to understand the situation, the applicant's own actions and what happened afterwards. If the result is unclear, record that uncertainty. Someone admitting they did not follow up has given you information to explore; someone describing a polished success story has not automatically demonstrated every skill you need.

Invite applicants to avoid names and identifying details from previous workplaces. For someone entering the field, agree in advance which comparable examples from other work, education or volunteering you can accept. Assess what the example demonstrates, then identify which parts of the role still need to be checked.

Use career history to ask better follow-up questions

For relevant previous roles, ask a consistent set of questions: what did the person do, what work are they pleased with, what was difficult, what feedback did they receive, and what prompted the next move? A chronological discussion can show where you need clarification. It does not turn a series of answers into a personality test.

A repeated difficulty deserves a question about context. Ask what the applicant could influence, what they tried and what they learned. Do not assume that several job changes prove a lack of commitment, or that remaining in one workplace proves effectiveness. Avoid drawing conclusions about honesty from the smoothness of a story.

Where a reference would help resolve a specific, job-related uncertainty, discuss the proposed contact and obtain the applicant's permission before proceeding. Do not surprise their current employer with a call. A reference who pauses or offers a brief answer has not supplied proof of poor performance; keep confirmed information separate from your interpretation and from questions that remain unanswered.

Try a short, clearly fictional reception scenario

Here is a hypothetical assessment exercise, not a patient case or a claim about hiring results. An interviewer plays a caller who asks what information is available before deciding whether to book. The applicant receives a small information sheet with fictional office details, the information reception may provide and the person to ask when an answer is missing.

Explain the task before starting: this is a role-play, no real patient will be contacted, and the applicant is not expected to diagnose, recommend treatment or know unpublished practice rules. Give everyone the same preparation material and an opportunity to clarify the instructions. The exercise should test the stated administrative skills rather than knowledge of a hidden script.

Look for observable actions. Did the applicant clarify the question? Did they use the supplied information accurately? Did they acknowledge an unknown instead of making up an answer? Did they offer an appropriate next step while leaving the caller free to wait or decline? Do not award points simply because the fictional caller agrees to book.

After the role-play, introduce one piece of feedback and invite the applicant to try that part again. For example, explain that a response time was not given in the information sheet and ask how they would handle that uncertainty. Record the first attempt and the response to feedback separately. Neither a single mistake nor a fluent second attempt settles the whole hiring decision.

Score the evidence, including its limits

Prepare a short scoring guide before interviews begin. For the criterion “handles an unknown appropriately”, an illustrative four-point scale could be:

  1. Invents an answer or makes an unsupported promise.
  2. Recognises the gap but leaves the next step unclear.
  3. Explains the limit and identifies the appropriate person to ask.
  4. Also checks that the caller understands the proposed next step.

This is a practice-designed guide, not a validated prediction of future performance.

Use a separate “not observed” entry when the exercise did not give the person a chance to demonstrate a behaviour. Missing evidence and an observed unsupported promise are different findings. Add a brief factual note beside the score, such as “asked the caller to clarify the request” or “promised a response time absent from the information sheet”.

If more than one person interviews, have each record their assessment before discussing it. When scores differ, compare the evidence and the meaning of the criterion. A total can organise the discussion, but it should not hide a required skill that has not been demonstrated or a training commitment the practice cannot meet.

Let the applicant assess the practice as well

Describe the real demands of the role and the support available. Explain how questions are escalated, how new staff practise unfamiliar tasks and what happens when the reception team is busy. Leave time for the applicant to ask about the work and the proposed induction. Their questions may expose an expectation your job description left unclear.

A vacant position can create pressure to decide quickly. Keep that operational problem visible without changing the assessment criteria halfway through the process. If a candidate has a development need, name it and decide whether you can provide the necessary supervision. Do not rename a gap as “potential” merely because the roster is difficult to fill.

Likewise, a quieter speaking style is not a conclusion about someone's ability to help patients. Return to the requirements you wrote down and the actions you actually observed. The decision should describe the work the applicant can do, the questions still open and the support needed, rather than a fixed judgement about who they are.

Bring one usable interview sheet to the next meeting

Put the role's essential tasks at the top of one sheet. Under them, leave space for the five core questions, short evidence notes, the role-play criteria and any follow-up needed. Finish with two boxes: what the applicant demonstrated, and what remains to be checked or taught. Keep notes relevant to the hiring decision and limit their circulation to the people involved.

Before using the sheet, run the fictional scenario with a colleague. Check whether the instructions actually provide a chance to demonstrate each criterion. If a task is confusing, improve the task before judging applicants against it. After the hiring process, review where the questions produced useful evidence and where they only produced general statements.

For the next interview, the useful preparation is modest and concrete: five job-related questions, an agreed scoring guide and one clearly defined role-play. Together they give you material for an accountable decision and a clearer induction plan. They cannot remove uncertainty, but they can make it visible before you offer someone the role.