Photo courtesy of Dr. Thanh Mai (first row, right, as you look at photo). Dr. Mai, who is seen here with the other doctors in his practice, shares the difference the right job ad headline makes to your ability to get the best new hire.
Testing job ad headlines that deliver an ideal new hire
By Thanh Mai, OD
June 18, 2025
Need to hire with high velocity and finally get the A team you’ve been looking for? Some practices are testing job ad headlines looking for the pitch that delivers them their ideal team members.
Fixing the Staff Funnel by Testing What Makes an Effective Job Ad
Smart practices are now treating job posts like digital ads, split-testing titles, hooks, benefits and offers.
Instead of posting:
“Seeking Experienced Optometric Technician”
They’re testing:
“No Experience Needed — We Train! Fun Eyecare Team Hiring Fast.”
Instead of using “optometric technician” in job ad headlines, I’m testing these job titles in the ads:
“Medical assistant”
“Optical assistant – entry level”
“Medical assistant – entry level”
“Medical assistant – no experience needed we’ll train”
You get the picture. You can split test forever – just make sure you change no other variable (same body copy, compensation, geography) other than the headline.
It’s simple: when you market your job openings like you market your practice, you win. The most important marketing piece is the headline.
Carefully Track Results
We tracked the number of applicants generated by each headline. “Medical assistant with no experience needed” got five times more engagement than “seeking experienced optometric technician.”
“Optometric tech” isn’t a keyword or key phrase which an Indeed job seeker will typically punch in.
The result? More applicants. Better culture fits. Higher retention.
Build an Online Hiring Funnel
Practices have built hiring funnels: landing pages, team videos, online screeners and auto-interview scheduling links—just like a patient acquisition campaign. At the very minimum, you need an about us page and career page. Those are just the table stakes, folks.
Other Articles to Explore
Spur Referrals for Open Positions
“Refer a Rock Star, Earn $2,080—Paid Out Every Other Friday You Stay Employed with Us”
The best hires usually don’t come from job boards—they come from your team’s network.
That’s why more practices are launching referral programs that reward loyalty, not just introductions. Here’s a version that works:
$2,080 Referral Bonus
**Paid out biweekly over 12 months—**only if your referral stays and thrives.
Here’s how it works:
- Your employee’s referral gets hired.
- They stay on the team.
- The referring employee earns $80 every two weeks they’re still employed.
That’s right—every other Friday, the employee who provided the referral gets a mini thank-you. Stick rate = payout rate
This structure encourages your team to refer great people. It rewards long-term fits, not short-term churn.
And it adds up fast: $2,080 over the year, just for helping build a team worth working with.
Because when your people bring in great people—and those people stay—everyone wins.
Offering Huge Signing Bonuses in Headlines for New Associate ODs
At a recent business conference, I was sitting in on a session led by a consultant who works with fast-scaling dental practices. Halfway through the talk, he casually dropped something that made the entire room lean in:
“We don’t wait for resumes. We just offer ridiculous signing bonuses—$30K, $50K, even $100K—to get the right dentist in the door fast. If they’re a fit, it pays for itself in a few months.”
These dental groups weren’t hoping someone applied on Indeed. They were going out and finding people, offering them something so compelling they couldn’t ignore it, and getting docs in practice now—not three years from now.
“No other dentist hires like that, so when we do it, we stick out immediately and get tons of interest,” the consultant explained.
That’s the power of selling the opportunity, not just listing the role.
I know an OD who has been looking for an associate for seven years in Oklahoma. He’s in a rural area a few hours away from major metros. He’s been posting a $120,000 per year associate position and getting no bites. I told him that wouldn’t be enough to entice anyone and his response was, “That’s a ton of money for these necks of the woods!”
That’s irrelevant if you haven’t found anyone five years later. As I write this column, he’s still looking.
The military does a fantastic job hiring ODs to uproot their lives for years on end by paying their student tuition. A similar model is used to staff ODs for Indian Health Sites. Success leaves clues – model it and you’ll win.
Takeaway: Hiring Is Not HR—It’s Growth Strategy
If your biggest bottleneck is doctor availability, you don’t solve it by waiting for someone to walk through the door.
You solve it by:
- Building a pipeline (creating an externship/residency program with optometry schools, local colleges, constantly recruiting year round)
- Hunting, not waiting
- Offering something worth talking about
- Running ads like a marketer
- Following up like a closer
The practices scaling fastest today aren’t the ones with the newest gadgets. They’re the ones with the right people in the right seats—because they went out and found them.
Sometimes that means $40,000 upfront. Sometimes it means donuts and a fun ad. But every time, it means treating hiring like your most important marketing campaign of the year.
Because it is.
Thanh Mai, OD, is an owner of Insight Vision Center Optometry, a Vision Source practice in Costa Mesa, California, Optometry Corner, a Vision Source practice in Irvine, California and Eyecon Optometry, a Vision Source practice in in Reseda, California. In addition, Dr. Mai owns Project Eyecare, a Vision Source practice, in Mission Viejo, California. To contact him: tmai@visionsource.com
