The CARE Framework: Interview Smarter, Hire Stronger

Episode Summary:
Hiring in senior living is more than filling a position—it’s about protecting culture, improving retention, and attracting people who want to stay. In this episode, I sit down with Dana Weaver, CEO of Weaver Solutions, to unpack the CARE Framework—a practical, people-centered approach to interviewing that reduces turnover and raises the bar for leadership.

We explore why interviews are often overlooked, how your energy shapes the outcome, and the simple shifts leaders can make to walk into the interview room with confidence, clarity, and purpose.

If you’ve ever wondered how to attract A-players, how to ask better questions, or how to build a team that lasts, this episode is a must-listen.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why turnover starts (or stops) in the interview room
• The 4 steps of the CARE Framework: Clarity, Ask Better Questions, Reflect, Engage with Intention
• How your energy and story as a leader shape who you attract
• The cost of turnover—and why improving your interview skills could save thousands
• Practical tools to bring more confidence, alignment, and purpose into your next interview

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Dana Weaver and the CARE Framework: weaversolutionsllc.com/care
  
  
• Register for Dana’s upcoming training webinar on September 10th

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Transcript

Erin: 1:05

Today we are going to be talking about interviewing and a lot of us take for granted the power of an interview. I have said several times to people, what do you think about when you're interviewing somebody? When you're going into an interview? What is it? Are you motivated? Are you demotivated? Does it matter? Do you feel like it doesn't even matter what you say or what you do, but the problem is, is that it does, and it won't change until you change. The retention rates that we're seeing over 60% inside of our frontline, and maybe even as high as a hundred percent in turnover for our administrators, all boils down to the energy that you're bringing into the interview room.'cause you attract because energy that's inside of. And if you go into an interview and you feel like it's a waste of your time, you're not going to attract your a plus players. And even more important is do you know how to interview? Is it overwhelming to you? There are some key things that my guest today is gonna go over and it's far more than you would ever realize of how important the interviewing process is. Dana Weaver is our guest. She's the founder and CEO of Weaver Solutions, and she made a post on LinkedIn that caught my eye. And it is a simple framework that's gonna teach us how to master the interview process inside of our communities. So Dana, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here.

Dana: 2:42

Thank you. I'm excited to be here and I appreciate you having me on.

Erin: 2:47

Absolutely. you know, I love frameworks. To me, it's all about my, my saying now is, there is freedom and frameworks and God knows we need freedom in this interview process and hiring process. So we don't feel so heavy, when we are, have to do so many of'em So I'm excited to jump into this. Tell us a little bit about. This webinar that you're gonna do, this topic and how you support the industry, I wanna dive into it. So I'll let you take the lead.

Dana: 3:19

thank you. interviewing is one of those things that we all do, when we're looking, for people, especially in senior living. the turnover is very high, and we'll probably talk about that in a little bit. However, how many of you have been taught to interview. You've maybe experienced an interview, you've been in interviews where people are interviewing you and maybe you've had interviews where you're interviewing other people, but have you actually had a course on how to interview someone? I don't, I never had a course on how to interview someone, and I've interviewed hundreds of people over the years and. I realized when I was asked to do a training that on interviewing that there's not a lot of training out there, and if it is, it's not specific to aging. It's definitely not specific to aging, so. I created this framework and it's the care framework and we'll go into it in a little bit. for a senior living community, I have a background. I've worked in senior living for well over 20 years. My very first job was in an independent living as a dietary aide, and I have been a nursing home administrator. I have been an activity director, which instantly was my favorite job. And I've also, worked in an association where We were advocating for senior living communities and aging services providers. So I have this big, well-rounded knowledge. And another thing that I did was focus on workforce issues because turnover is so high, it, there's a lot of people out there trying to figure out how do we reduce turnover in nursing homes? And there's a lot of ways to do that. It's not one size fits all, but this interviewing piece is a key component to getting the right person in the room, to getting the right person working for your organization that might wanna stay longer, that align with your values, and also maybe has a heart for working in aging.

Erin: 5:23

Yeah, I, I do think it's very important the questions that we ask, and. I underestimated the power of questions until recently. I understand the power of questions because when you're a leader and you're asking questions, people take ownership of the answer. And when you're a leader just telling people what to do, you own the responsibility.

Dana: 5:45

Absolutely.

Erin: 5:46

And so asking questions inside that interview process is really how you. Correct me if I'm wrong, own the room, own the conversation, and, and can control the narrative, the flow of the interview because you understand what you're looking for and I think not enough people know what they're looking for and they walk into the room with Zero direction.

Dana: 6:13

Absolutely. or, and the, they may have been given a list of questions from hr. To ask.'cause you have to, let's ask everyone the same question. Well, not everyone is. You can, you can't put everyone in a box. We're all individuals. We're all people. So the question, a lot of the questions that they have created for you to ask during the interview aren't designed to help you really dig deeper into finding out who that person is. You can have a standard set of questions, but they need to be designed right so that you can really get to the crux of that person, who they are, what they bring to the table, what are their strengths, what are not their strengths, and so having those questions created beforehand, doing that pre-work is really important for when you actually sit in the interview.

Erin: 7:05

Yeah. Absolutely know what you want. I was actually talking or speaking to a coaching client a few weeks ago and we were talking about their next hire. And a manager, and it was, okay, what do you need? What does your community need? you hire, do you hire for leadership and you teach skill. or do you hire for skill and you teach leadership? Because I think that's two different things. And then depending on what your community needs, do you have a lot of skill players but not any leadership? Or do you have a lot of people who don't need the leadership, but need that skill, that skill type manager and that, and that's really important to note.

Dana: 7:46

absolutely understanding who your players are on your team. So if you're an executive director and you're hiring for a critical manager position on your management team or executive team, knowing the strengths and the weaknesses of all the people on that team, you can hire, just like you said, to fill the gap of the weakness and their strength may be. Filling that gap that others don't have, and that makes a really strong team, but we often don't think that far ahead.

Erin: 8:16

Yeah. So true. Okay, I'm ready to dive in. Sure. To this framework, because I love frameworks. So tell us this, the care framework, where did it come from and how. Just tell us all the things. Okay. Tell us all the things about this framework and hopefully the listeners can take this with them, to their next interview.

Dana: 8:40

Yes, I can guarantee you'll take at least one thing with you to your next interview that will help you. In the process. So just to give you a little bit of background, when I created this or who I created it for, I had the HR director tell me that they were really frustrated with the interview process because they would bring people in to be interviewed or people would apply, you know, for the position to be interviewed. And some of their managers weren't even showing up. They weren't showing up for the interview because they thought possibly that, the other person might not show up or that even if they did the interview, they weren't going to, be a good candidate. Or maybe they'll ghost them before the first day because that happens a lot in this field. And so, that really shocked me as I was hearing that. And also I was learning through having conversations with them that. There were people on their team who didn't know anything about interviewing, and they'd sit down across from someone and the interviewee would spill their guts, their whole life story, and he didn't know how to take. Control of that situation so that he could interview and really get to know that person in the way that he needed to. So that's kind of how the care framework was born. And true confession, I put all of the pieces together for this training and I thought, okay, I need to organize it in a way that people will understand it. Thus the framework, creating the freedom. I love how you say that. And I threw it into chat, GPT. And I'm like, can you help me create something? And what it spit out was really interesting. It said,'cause I wanted a mnemonic, I wanted something that would rhyme or something like that. And it said. Let's do the care framework because what are they doing? They're caring for people in senior living. It makes total sense and it's something that you can remember. So care stands for clarity, so you wanna find clarity and know exactly what you're hiring for before you have people in that interview. Program or the interview process. you wanna know what you're looking for, what gaps or what, what type of culture you have. So who are you looking for to fit in that culture? What is the need? just know exactly what you're hiring for. And then the thing is, is if you don't know what you're hiring for or you're not clear about it, you're just gonna hire confusion. And then that's gonna lead to the turnover that none of us want. So that's why that's one of the reasons that this is so important. The A is ask better questions. And Erin alluded to it just a moment ago. I really believe that asking questions is a key component to leadership, and I think it's the foundational component to being a good communicator. And you have to be a good communicator in order to be a good leader. And it all builds upon each other. So when you can master the art of asking really good questions to understand people better, They're gonna feel seen and heard, and you're gonna be able to build credibility with them, and they're gonna see you as someone with credibility and a leader and in charge of the situation. Whereas if you walk in not knowing what you're doing, you're not gonna have that, that level of, charge. What I like to say with this in the asking better question questions is asking great questions opens the door to alignment and alignment, and weak questions let misalignment slip by unnoticed. So if you're asking. Weak questions. Are you not even paying attention to the questions that you're asking? You're just going through the motions. You're getting, you're letting misalignment sleep. Slip in, and you might not be hiring the right person for that position, and they might not show up because it's not aligned. They might only stay for, a certain amount of time. We know that. Retention is way bigger than the interview process. But if you don't get this part right, you're more likely to have turnover than if you get to the interview process. Right? The R is reflect and relate and. You wanna be able to, after you ask those really good questions, reflect back to that person what it is that they told you so they know that you understood, and you can be clear on what they were trying to tell you, because if you get it wrong or you assume that you understand what they're saying without asking. Questions back or trying to reflect back to them what they said, then you might have an expectation for them when they start work that they really didn't tell you or they weren't trying to tell you, and there's a mismatch and all of a sudden you, you start off on the wrong foot. And then the e engage with intention. you engage the conversation with intention, which means it goes back up to the C in clarity too. If you're gonna engage them with attention, you have to have. Taking the time at the beginning of the interview before you even meet with the person to really understand and get clear on what you're looking for. So then once you have that clarity and you're going through the conversation, you can go back and you can engage them in additional questions. The best candidates are evaluating you too. So if you're coming in there and you're not, if you're not prepared or you show up late or you look disheveled or whatever, it's the same on both sides. They're evaluating you and if you don't show up in a way that represents the organization well, or even represents yourself well, because let's be honest, we, we are our own brands. It is becoming a bigger and bigger deal. So if you're not showing up, well that shows in the people that you're trying to interview and your team. Yeah. you wanna make sure that you're showing up well, they're evaluating you and frankly, interviewing is the first step to onboarding.'cause that is one of the first touches they have with your organization. If that doesn't go well, why would they wanna work with you?

Erin: 15:06

it's so true. So maybe, okay. C is for clarity. Yes. A is for alignment, R is for reflection, which is a word that I love. And e is for engage with intention.

Dana: 15:18

Let me, the A is actually ask better questions.

Erin: 15:22

Ask better questions. Yep. which can be alignment. Yes, yes, but it's ask better questions.

Dana: 15:27

Yes.

Erin: 15:28

I should know that. That's like my favorite. Okay. That is important because a lot of that is coming in there with direction. if you could put four letters to spell direction, it would be this framework. be intentional if you want more peace, if you want more freedom, if you want more, Alignment in your community. The only control that you have over that to me is communication. The interview process and how you protect and respect the boundaries of policies and procedures and, you know, staff handbooks and, and all those types of things. And I think, you're right, we don't pay enough attention to the interview process.

Dana: 16:13

Mm-hmm. At all. We know what's happening as executive directors, we know it's happening and we're hoping it's going right, but we don't really put the thought into. Have we prepared them to have a good interview? Mm-hmm.

Erin: 16:25

Yeah. It, to me, diving into this idea of control and stewardship, and it is, when you, when you talk about the interview process this way, you have to really look at it as a leader. Stewardship is really the most important thing you can come into To the interview process with, because stewardship is all that you can control, which is how you show up, how you prepare. The questions that you ask and control is you think you're gonna walk in there and they're lucky to be in this interview with you. Well, that's not the case. You know the industry, and depending on the small town that you're in, they know what type of community. Potentially through word of mouth. This community is, and it's your responsibility to, like you said, represent it as good as it is. Change the narrative because you're turning it around or to reinforce the negative words or positive words that they have heard. Yes, and that's really important.

Dana: 17:33

Yes, most definitely. And that go, that goes back to that engage with intention, going back and asking clarifying questions, as people go deeper, I think that helps to, it helps you to get, obviously more information, but it also gives you a bigger picture of what this person is all about and what they can bring to the table.

Erin: 17:56

can you create buy-in from them as as the interview? especially if you're trying to build a culture that is based on your strengths as a leader. You wanna be able to identify what that looks like in, in potential new hires and, and I think. I, I say this often, but when we are a leader, whether we're turning around a community or we are in a community that's doing well, there's 80% of your comm, your team that's not performing as well as the 20% of your team. And so when you talk to the 20%, when you talk to the people who are moving the needles, you are going to get more buy-in from maybe another 20% of the 80% and move them over. When you go into the interview, I think it's important for you to know what that 20% looks like in your community.

Dana: 18:53

Yeah.

Erin: 18:54

How do they work? What are some common characteristics? what do they appreciate from you as a leader? And then to bring that energy into the interview process, into this care framework. Yeah.

Dana: 19:10

that's really important. I haven't talked enough about the energy piece because you mentioned it at the top of the podcast, and we've had the conversation a little earlier. This whole energy that you bring to an interview, if you come in and you look a certain way, you're disheveled, you aren't prepared, all the things, that's a negative energy that you put in there. And then if you sit back. And you're tell me about you, because it happens. Sadly, this happens. Tell me about you. You're not gonna get very much information and you're already telling them that you're no fun to work for. you're not gonna be a great place to work. I mean, you energy. Is so important. If you started off with high energy and positive energy, you're gonna get a positive result from that person. And if you don't, you know that's the person that you don't wanna hire for that position. Yeah. So preparing all of these things and bringing that great energy shows you, it makes it a lot easier to say, yes, I think this person is gonna fit here nicely, or No, I don't think this person is gonna fit here nicely. It gives you more clarity around that and goes back to the c.

Erin: 20:19

Yeah, it's, yes. I, I think it's important. I say that word a lot important. you as the leader need to know your story, your community story, and communicate it effectively. And the leader, you can make that story up, not and falsify it, but it doesn't have to come from the corporate office. It's your community. What do your residents love the most about living here? What do your residents really compliment the most? What does your team say about working here? And then you create that story for you to take into every interview.

Dana: 21:04

Absolutely. And stories are so important. I know that kind of gets off topic, but if you can tell a really good story about your organization or your company or your lo individual location, that that is a bridge that bridges the person being interviewed to you and your organization and bridges are really important for us to build.

Erin: 21:29

I think the main thing to take away from this episode is you are in more control of who you hire than you think. You just have to value the interview process more than you are right now.

Dana: 21:43

even if you can put 20% more effort into the interview process, you're gonna have better results. Yeah, so doing that, I did promise, I'm not sure when, if we're about done or not, but I did promise that everybody would walk away with one thing that they could do differently in the interview process if they don't take anything else away from this conversation. When you're interviewing someone and you ask them a question, and it could be the simple, tell me a little bit about you.'cause everybody gets. To that, and they only give you five words as an answer.'cause that's gonna happen. If you're interviewing hands-on caregivers. if you're hiring for, dietary, different things like that. If they're not used to talking about themselves, you're gonna get that five word answer and you wanna know a lot more about them. And the easiest thing that you can do is say, that's great. Tell me more about this. And that takes'em to a different LA layer. They might be comfort uncomfortable at first, or they might just sit there and look at you, count to eight, or count to 12, either one, and just be quiet and be comfortable with the silence. And they will start talking because they're gonna get uncomfortable with the silence too. And they will start telling you more, and you can keep going as many layers into that as you want. By just saying, wow, that's interesting. Tell me more about that. And that you can ask that question after any question that you ask in the interview process, and you're going to get a better answer than if you just sat there and listened to them and said, thank you. And then go onto the next question. So one of your goals should be to dig deeper into that conversation or into the answer that they give you.

Erin: 23:25

Yes, I, there's two questions that I always ask in an interview. one of them was, tell me, well, I guess it was three. Tell me about the best supervisor that you ever had. And I got to hear that story. Tell me about the worst supervisor you ever had, and I got to hear that story. And it, it's the worst supervisor that you ever had that really can give you some details about, Their relationship with authority and how they treat authority and the way that they talk about other people. It, it can be a real eyeopener. The other question that I used a lot, was my community is the Chick-fil-A of the senior living industry inside my area. Okay. So can you tell me what makes Chick-fil-A different from Taco Bell?

Dana: 24:16

Oh, did they ask you, did they ask you any clarifying questions about that?

Erin: 24:24

Most of them did not. And then I got responses like that ranged from, well, taco Bell sells Taco and Chick-fil-A sells chicken. And I'm like, well, that's true. that's true. One time I got an answer, Chick-fil-A discriminates against, homosexuals, and I was just like, well, that, that's. That's not true, but, and that's not where I was going with this, it was more, obviously it's service, it, it's the service and, and it was like, I want the cars to be wrapped around the building where people wanna move in here because we provide such excellent service. So, can you smile? Can you say, when somebody says thank you, that it's my pleasure. like, can you, do you have that ability to, to say that? I mean, that wasn't a requirement. We didn't necessarily make that, but it was just, can you live up to that standard? but it was always so much fun to hear people's responses. I. Yeah,

Dana: 25:22

it's a great critical thinking question because they can an, they're probably not thinking about what's behind the question, but if they can really think about to that level of service or they can, ask you additional questions to really understand what you're trying to get at, that shows that they're a critical thinker and they're going to. Do everything they can for either the older person that lives in the community or whatever their job is to go above and beyond because they know to get deeper and ask those questions, and then ultimately what delight their customer.

Erin: 25:57

Yeah. Yeah. So true. Okay, so you have something really exciting coming up that everybody who's listening to this episode can sign up for because we believe and are very passionate about the interviewing process. the interviewing process is just as important as the discovery and the sales process. The only difference is the sales discovery process is a revenue generating. activity for your community, but with as high as retention rates are in the industry right now, interviewing could almost rival and save you as much money as getting a new resident into the community. I mean, let's face it, senior living is a 91 over$91 billion industry. And we are talking about retention rates that are higher than almost any other industry, and it is wreaking havoc on, the finances and the stability inside of our communities. So paying attention to the interview process is a huge responsibility that companies should want to invest inside their leaders and leaders. If you're listening, you're going to want to invest in yourself. So, Dana, tell us all about your opportunity.

Dana: 27:14

Sure. Can I, I wanna add on what you just said. Just go ahead a little bit. Go ahead and, because what I, I've done a little bit of research recently to find out what is the actual cost of turnover, because when I used to talk about it a lot, it was between two and$3,000, maybe up to$5,000, depending on. The part of the country that you're in, but now it's anywhere from$2,000 to eight to$10,000 for turnover. Per person. That just blows my mind. And so if you are having such a high percentage of turnover, let's even say you have 50% turnover, think of how much money that is going out the door. That you could be putting back into your team to train them to do better, to help them learn what you need them to do better. You know, all the things. And then some of that money can also go back to the residents and help them. Have better experiences and a better life. So, the exciting thing is, is you can reduce that with this. And I have created a webinar that I'm super excited about that dives really deep into this care process. It's gonna be September 10th at 10:00 AM on, central Time. I'm in central Time, and the website to go to is. and she'll probably put it in the show notes, but www.weaversolutionsllc.com/care and the webinar is$47 for an hour and a half, so it's really good money for learning a lot of really important things that potentially could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And whoever you bring to this webinar, you will be able to, or they will be able to walk away with the confidence that they need to sit in front of the person that they're interviewing and guide the process. So the story I told about, I don't remember if I said it before or after, but there is a story that, there was a gentleman that came into my training and said. I don't feel confident in leading the conversation and, And, I don't feel comfortable in leading the conversation and. The other person just completely takes over the, the whole interview and tells me their life story, and I don't get enough information. I don't feel confident. And so after this training he told me, he came up to me actually and said, I feel like I can lead this conversation now. And he did lead the next conversation he had, and he was able to make a hire that he was proud of. And when your team can be proud and confident, they're gonna keep doing things to make them feel proud and confident in our field. Such a negative Nelly, for lack of a better word. I mean, it's just, it can be Debbie Downer all the time. And when you can put that confidence into your team, that is invaluable for you because it saves you time and angst and also for your team and for your residents. And it just, it really is the first step in building retention. Yeah,

Erin: 30:35

it's certainly a step you wanna be prepared for and to truly understand you attract who you are. Yes. join this webinar. I think it's really important, the care framework is. To me, again, there is freedom in this framework. Being able to be clear and intentional and asking the appropriate questions and being reflective, which I'm just going to say because I was a non-reflective person, in a lot of different ways. Reflecting is a very powerful tool. It really is the power of the pause. The ability to reflect. Even now I'm guilty of shiny object, the shiny objects I wanna chase after this. I like this idea, but it is truly can you perfect one skill at a time and it is worth the pause to do that. So if you have time, register for this webinar and make interviewing a skill that you want to improve. Very, very important. Thank you, Dana, for being here, being a guest and bringing this important topic to our attention.

Dana: 31:51

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I always like to talk about this stuff.

Erin: 31:55

Yes, Me too. Alright. for my listeners, aspire for more for you so you can own your story, create your future, knowing that enough is your foundation. Have a great day.