Seeking legal interviewing strategies to avoid hiring whiny/entitled liberal employees (Vanity)

1/31/2006

[doctora]

My first vanity post and hope it's not an imposition. I'd really appreciate the suggestions from fellow freepers and I suspect others may benefit from this discussion.

I'm a doctor about to hire an associate for my practice. A few years ago I realized I was politically conservative which explained why very often a common thread among people I didn't respect was their liberal politcs. Their values were totally opposite mine. I've had some bad employees in the past - turned out they were all liberals (not that being conservative on its own makes one a good employee, to be fair). So it occurs to me a likely predictor of a bad employee (for me) is a liberal.

I hired an associate doctor two months ago who interviewed great but turned south fast. I fired him one month later. He was whiny, complained, treated my staff poorly, brought his personal junk to the office, felt entitled to running the place as he saw fit, etc. You guessed it - turns out he's a liberal. I even caught him Bush-bashing with a patient which I put an end to fast.

I've decided a liberal would be a very poor fit in an associate and I won't make this mistake again. (Also, there's a strong faith component to my practice: we're here to serve God, our bodies are God's Temple designed with the power to heal).

Politics isn't something one can raise in an interview and I'm seeking some ideas on probing for liberal traits. My office is in Western MA so I'm already playing against the odds.

Before I hire the next associate, I'm going to take him/her out to dinner with my husband. Hopefully, during a 3 hour dinner outside the office more will be revealed.

Any ideas on interviewing strategies to avoid hiring a whiny liberal?

Some thoughts that crossed my mind, especially to bring up during the dinner:

1) If has school-aged kids, ask how they feel about their school system. What they like and dislike about it.

2) What kinds of volunteer work they've done.

Any and all ideas very much appreciated.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Volvo's = safety conscious = most likely liberal. Ford will be at worst blue dog democrats.

[Zeroisanumber]

I'd hire whoever I thought was best fit for the job, but since it's your practice you can do whatever you think is best.

A friend of mine once told me that the best way to figure out whether or not a person is a racist is to "drop the n-bomb" on them. Think of some position of W's that you don't like and bring it up over dinner. See if your prospective employee takes the bait and opens up about his/her liberal politics.

BTW: Try to make it a politically neutral disagreement, one of my favorites is to criticize either the disbanding of the Iraqi army, or to say something like, "It's a shame that no one in the administration thought to protect the Iraqi National Museum."

The rest should be a cakewalk.

[3catsanadog]

Hang a "Bush/Cheney 2004" bumper sticker someplace conspicuous on the wall of your interviewing room.

Then hopefully most liberals will turn down further interviews and offers of employment.