I’ve seen a strong candidate lose interest while three locations try to decide who should call them. And I’ve seen two offices interview the same hygienist without realizing they were competing for the same person.
That’s the tricky part of hiring across dental locations: you need a consistent process, but each practice still has its own schedule, team, and local market. Here’s how to make the experience feel coordinated for candidates and useful for the people hiring them.
Start with the role, not the location
Before posting a job, define what success looks like in the role. Write one scorecard for each job family, then use it across locations.
For example, a dental assistant scorecard might focus on clinical support within the role’s scope, infection-control habits, patient communication, reliable room turnover, and teamwork. A front-office scorecard could focus on scheduling accuracy, patient communication, insurance workflow, and follow-through.
Be specific about the first year. What should the new hire learn, own, or improve? Which skills must they bring on day one, and which can they develop with training?
Locations can differ in schedule, commute, patient mix, and approved pay range. The definition of success should stay consistent for the same role.
Quick check: If two hiring managers can’t describe success in the role in roughly the same way, pause before opening multiple requisitions.
Make interviews comparable without making them stiff
A standardized interview doesn’t have to sound scripted. It gives every candidate a fair chance to show relevant skills, and gives your managers a shared basis for comparing answers.
Use the same six core questions for candidates applying to the same role, with a few additional questions when a site has a specific job-related need.
Six questions to use across locations
1. Tell me about a time you helped a patient or colleague through a difficult interaction. What did you do?
2. Describe a busy day when priorities changed quickly. How did you decide what to handle first?
3. Tell me about feedback you received that changed how you work.
4. What do you do when you notice a process or handoff isn’t working as expected? 5. What helps you communicate well with a team when the schedule is under pressure? 6. What would you want to understand about this role, schedule, and location before deciding it’s right for you?
Ask for a specific example, then use consistent follow-ups: “What was your part?” “What happened next?” “What would you do differently?”
Score each answer using the same simple scale:
• 1, Little evidence: The answer doesn’t show the relevant behavior or skill. • 2, Partial evidence: The candidate gives a general answer but few useful details. • 3, Clear evidence: The candidate gives a relevant example and explains their actions. • 4, Strong evidence: The candidate gives a specific example, explains the result, and shows thoughtful learning.
Let interviewers score independently before discussing the candidate. Keep notes focused on the answer and job criteria, not impressions like “seems like us.” The American Dental Association also recommends preparing interview questions, recording answers, and rating candidates after interviews in its dental team recruiting guidance.
Keep one candidate pipeline, not one per office
Separate spreadsheets and inboxes make duplicate outreach almost inevitable. A shared applicant tracking system is ideal, but a carefully maintained shared tracker can work if it has a clear owner and access rules.
Choose one central recruiter or recruiting lead to own each candidate record. Set a simple first-contact rule before recruiting begins. For example, the recruiter contacts the candidate first, confirms their preferred location and schedule, then assigns the candidate to a site or coordinates introductions to more than one.
If a candidate applies to one office but seems better suited to another, don’t quietly forward their résumé. Ask permission to share their information and explain why the other location may fit. Candidates should know who will contact them and what happens next.
A shared tracker you can copy
Keep it current. A candidate should never receive conflicting interview invitations or two offers from your own organization without an intentional conversation.
Set a timeline before a candidate gets stuck waiting
Speed matters because candidates keep making decisions while your team coordinates calendars. Agree on service levels for each step, and give every candidate a next-step date, even when the answer is “we’ll update you by Friday.”
A practical starting point:
1. First contact: Reach out within one business day of identifying a promising application. 2. Interview scheduling: Offer available times promptly; ask managers to share interview availability in advance.
3. Interview feedback: Have interviewers submit scorecards the same day.
4. Decision and offer: Set a short internal deadline after the final interview. Don’t let routine approvals restart the process.
5. Candidate updates: If a decision slips, tell the candidate when they’ll hear from you next.
Pre-approve compensation bands and standard offer terms for each role and market. Make exceptions possible, but define who can approve them and how quickly. That way, a manager isn’t left saying, “We’d like to hire you, but we’re waiting for someone to approve the number.”
Keep pay fair across locations
Pay can vary across markets. Fairness doesn’t require identical wages everywhere; it requires a clear, consistent reason for differences.
Build bands by role and level, then review local market information, responsibilities, schedule demands, required credentials, and internal pay relationships. Document the method. Review it regularly, especially when a location repeatedly loses candidates over compensation or struggles to fill a role.
There isn’t one universal percentage difference that makes variation fair. A high-cost market may justify a higher range, but avoid informal exceptions that depend on who negotiated hardest. Compare
employees doing comparable work, check applicable state and local pay-transparency rules, and involve HR or legal counsel when needed.
Expert tip: Share the approved range early. A candidate shouldn’t complete several interviews before learning the compensation won’t meet their needs.
Give the hire a clean handoff
The recruiter owns clear communication, candidate history, accepted terms, agreed start date, and any outstanding hiring steps. The location manager owns the welcome, schedule, first-day plan, role training, and introductions to the team.
Before the candidate starts, confirm who will handle each item. Share practical details: where to arrive, what to bring, who to ask for, what the first shift looks like, and how training will work.
Without that handoff, a new hire can arrive to an unprepared team, an unclear schedule, or a manager who assumes someone else covered the basics. Those first days shape whether the person feels expected, or like another name on the roster.
Don’t let your own locations poach each other
A candidate may be a stronger match for a second-choice site. Ask about commute, schedule, and location preferences before closing the door. With the candidate’s consent, make a warm introduction to the other manager and explain what makes that opening different.
The same care applies after someone joins. Internal transfers can offer a real path to a schedule, specialty, commute, or leadership opportunity that suits an employee better. But when one office repeatedly recruits from another without coordination, the group simply moves its vacancy around.
Set a transparent internal-transfer process. Give the current manager notice, agree on a transition plan, and track the reason for the move. If several people leave the same site for another, investigate what’s driving that pattern.
Track a small set of useful numbers
Review results by location and across the group. Look at:
• Time to fill: How long does an approved opening take to reach an accepted offer? • Interview-to-offer rate: Are interviews producing clear decisions?
• Offer acceptance rate: Are pay, schedule, role details, or timing causing candidates to decline? • 90-day retention: Are new hires staying through the early adjustment period? • Source of hire: Which referral, job board, school, or recruiting source leads to hires who stay?
Use the numbers to find friction, not to shame a location. A slow hiring process may point to unavailable interviewers. Low offer acceptance may signal a mismatch between the posted schedule and the real one.
Mistakes that make multi-site hiring harder
Watch for these common traps:
• Letting every office create its own interview questions and process.
• Comparing candidates without a shared role scorecard.
• Keeping separate candidate lists that create duplicate calls.
• Allowing pay ranges to drift without a documented market reason.
• Delaying offers while routine approvals move from desk to desk.
• Treating a candidate’s second-choice location as a dead end.
• Ending the process without telling candidates where they stand.
Consistent hiring still needs local judgment. Keep the role expectations, questions, scoring, candidate records, and approval rules steady. Let each location explain the realities that genuinely differ.
For more on the roles and locations RSMC supports, visit our dental staffing and recruitment page. And if you’re trying to fill several dental positions without making candidates, or your managers, navigate a different process at every office, feel free to reach out to the RSMC Team. Call +1 650-447-1527 or email careers@rsmcservices.com to talk through multi-location recruitment support.