Interim Post Archives - RDH Resumes and Career Guidance

How to Survive in a Toxic Work Environment

November 8, 2015 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

“Be thankful for the difficult people in your life, for they have shown you exactly who you don’t want to
be.” – Author Unknown

You walk into work and hear someone say, “Oh, I’d better clock in.” You reply with, “Only if you want to get paid.” The final response, “It’s the only reason I’m here.” Sound familiar? Maybe the tone reflects on moments you’ve experienced where you work. It doesn’t exactly set the mood for the day. It can put you in a difficult position. Unfortunately, it happens far too often. Sure, we all have days where we feel like we are not at the top of our game but to have this negativity routinely can be hard to tolerate in a work environment and leave you feeling stressed.

Toxic people have a way of infecting an entire work area. It can be easy to overlook the ripple effect at first but when your eyes and ears finally open to it, it’s unnerving. It can range from someone constantly making negative comments about work situations to gossiping about others. Ultimately, negativity in the work place is contagious and dangerous.

Creating a positive work environment may not be as difficult as you think. Here are a few ideas to help

1. STAY POSITIVE
Challenge yourself. If someone says something negative-give a positive comment in return. Make this a daily ritual. It doesn’t have to be just at work either. You would be amazed at how it can turn someone’s mood around.

2. CHOCOLATES/CANDIES
Keep these on hand at all times and give them to someone who sends out a negative comment or gesture. Tell them it looks like they need it more than you. It really confuses them and can sometimes get them to stop and think about how they are acting.

3. WALK AWAY
Simply by removing yourself from the situation keeps you out of reach to have any kind of effect. This may not always be possible but can at least reduce how much you have to endure when you can.

4. REFLECT
Make a comment to get their attention as to how their behavior is affecting others. You might say something like, “I’m sorry you’re having such a bad day”. If someone is gossiping about someone at work, make a positive comment about the person such as, “I like the way that _______treats others/answers the phone. It doesn’t matter. Just keep it positive.

5. NEVER JUDGE
No one is perfect. It has been in my own experiences that those who tend to talk about others or talk negative about work are unhappy with their outside lives. For them, talking about others makes their own lives seem better. By thinking about where they may be coming from, it can help you to understand why the person acts as they do.

The bottom line is that how you react to the situation presented to you will often set the tone for your day. Envision the work place that would be ideal to you and work to change it. It doesn’t take much to turn the negative into positive. Focus on what’s important to you. Best of luck.

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Cheryl Olvitt is an avid dental hygienist who has expanded her dental duties to help other hygienists evolve their dental professions into a more practical environment. Visit here website at hygieneconceptsllc.com

Good and Bad Dental Hygiene Job Interview Appearance Choices

October 17, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

There are lots of wrongs and rights when it comes to choosing your appearance for a dental hygiene job interview. What you wear really does make a difference – the margin between the successful candidates and several of the unsuccessful ones in dental hygiene can be very thin at times because the market is so saturated.

Since you have lots of choices, let’s talk about what works and what doesn’t.

Keep in mind (disclaimer time – lol), while this comes from my own experience and doing lots of research, you may find some variations to these tips that are acceptable. My hope is mostly to get you thinking about these things so you can make great choices.

Clothing

Wear a pant suit, dress, or skirt suit with an appropriate blouse or top. Conservative tones and solid patterns are also advisable. Avoid sleeveless tops and make sure skirts are an appropriate length (not too high). No scrubs (unless it’s a working interview – make sure you clarify that ahead of time). No jeans.

Hair

Shouldn’t have to say it but make sure it’s washed that day. Long hair is often best tied neatly in the back. It’s popular to color hair entirely or in strands, consider going natural, but at bare minimum highlight it conservatively.

Footwear

Heels are okay, just don’t break out the four-inchers for your interview. You want to be comfortable, but mostly you want to be able to walk. Avoid open-toe shoes.

Nails

Keep them neatly cut with a conservative color.

Tattoos and Piercings

If you like tattoos that’s okay, but avoid showing them all off – win the employer over with your personality just in case they think tattoos are ugly. Piercings are similar, and fortunately can often be removed ahead of time. In fact, simplify your jewelry ensemble and if you like a lot of it, leave a lot of it at home.

Perfume

Be very cautious about the scent you give off. It may be pleasing to you but not to others if it’s too strong or something that conjures up a bad memory, so keep it minimal.

In summary, everything counts – you are being judged from many different angles in a job interview and you simply don’t know who you is going to be accepting of your style so it’s best to strive for that awesome-average look when it comes to dress.

Accelerate Your Ability to Land a Dental Hygiene Job

October 14, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

Some time ago I was sitting on a plane next to a gentleman I had never met before. We started making small talk about this or that and hadn’t really made any connections so I was pretty resigned that we had very little in common and the conversation would soon be shutting down. Then he dropped a line about having lived in Oregon for a time.

Having grown up in Oregon I suddenly became more attentive and it wasn’t long before we were going back and forth about all kinds of things we had in common. It turned out to be a great visit, lasting the entire flight, as we shared stories about common things we had experienced in Oregon.

Getting hired as a dental hygienist really is more art than science. Employers may say they want “a hygienist with two years of experience and knowledge of Dentrix,” but let’s face it lots of hygienists fit that description. What they really want is someone they can connect with professionally – someone that “gets” them.

But it’s difficult to get to that point until you make smaller connections – maybe you know someone in common, maybe you graduated from the same high school, or possibly you have an interest in something they like to do also. It could even be a small connection you have with someone else in the office – someone you know personally or maybe even you have a friend whose mom works there. Anything is fair game and will help you!

Here’s some tips that will help you accelerate the creation of those connections to help you land that next dental hygiene job.

Make a Game Out of It

There’s a popular theory (Six Degrees of Separation) that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away from each other. So, for the next dental hygiene job you apply for turn it into a little game where you try to figure out if the office is six steps away or fewer from someone you know or some other connection you have. And then start writing down all the connections you have. There are probably more than one when you start really digging in.

To find these connections, visit their social media pages and website. But also Google their names – studies show most employers are doing that with your name so you might as well play the same game to see what you can learn that will help you. Talk to your friends and family, asking them if they know anything about that office. Talk with former employers and co-workers as the dental community are often much less that six steps away from one another in your area.

Cover Letter

You would never share connections you have with someone on your resume – there’s no section for “Things We Have in Common” – unless it just happened to be that they know someone you worked for or you went to school with someone they know. But with your cover letter, there’s nothing wrong with pointing something like this out so long as it’s not the focal point and you’ve clearly established your qualifications in the paragraphs above it.

Interview

Hopefully by the time you are in an interview setting with a potential employer you’ve really done your homework and are ready to share some connections. Think carefully how you will bring things up, but it’s pretty common for employers will ask you to begin by telling them about you. That’s a great place to drop something in like “enjoy mountain biking” if you know the dentist does ahead of time. It goes without saying that honesty does factor so if you really are not in to mountain biking then don’t offer it up – it may come back to bite you!

For the most part, you want to limit your discussion about things in common to the initial ice-breaking or perhaps at the end when you are wrapping things up. Let the interviewer guide the discussion, you will get a clear sense of whether it means much to them and can dive deeper into the discussion or if you should move on to something else. Some people are simply very private and will not acknowledge a connection and that’s okay because in even though you may not see them react positively, they may be doing so inwardly and that’s just as important.

Finding a New Dental Hygiene Job Checklist

October 13, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

Finding a dental hygiene job can take months and even years in the current job market climate, depending on what kinds of things you do to market yourself. While you can’t always predict when you will need to search for a new job, there are lots of things you can do if you are in a position to prepare for it.

Whether you are preparing to graduate or are just planning your next career move, here’s a simple checklist to ensure you are doing all the right things to begin the search.

Your Target Market

Define the area you want to work in. Pinpoint a specific radius and create a spreadsheet with the name and address of every dental office within those boundaries. This is who you will concentrate your marketing on – your “target market”. If you don’t have time, hire someone on Elance.com or Fiverr.com to do it for you (could be as little as $20).

Define Your Brand

Decide how you want to “brand” yourself. For example, are you an experienced, easy-going, friendly, hard worker, tenacious, a great salesperson, exceptionally skilled at hygiene, flexible in terms of days or hours? Choose two or three things and hone in on them in the messaging on your resume, cover letter and other printed materials. But also have it become a part of what you say when people ask about you. This is how you position or differentiate yourself from others so you can stand out.

Locate the Place for Job Announcements

Studies show, three out of every four jobs that get filled were never advertised. There’s a huge secret job market you can only tap into through networking (both online and in-person – see below for tips on that). However, you can’t ignore positions that are advertised on job boards and other places. It’s important that you know where dental offices are posting job announcements where you live. There are lots of national job boards and local ones, too (see the list we have put together at GetHiredRDH.com).

Another resource is your local staffing agency – they, too, have job listings – and we have a list of those across the country at GetHiredRDH.com. Sometimes dental practices will use a staffing agency to setup several working interviews. So get connected and stay connected with your local staffing agency as a resource for openings.

Get Resume Kit Ready

Get your print materials ready go (this includes what we like to call your “resume kit” – the resume itself, cover letter, business card, a testimonial sheet, a CAR sheet. Create a stunning design that makes you stand out and look different than all the other resumes offices will get. You can see samples of these in our store at GetHiredRDH.com. For testimonial sheets, start collecting positive feedback you have received (verbally or in writing) from employers, co-workers and even patients. Because of HIPAA law you will need permission from patients or you could simply attribute the quote to “anonymous patient.”

Create a Postcard

Going door-to-door handing out resumes is very time consuming and can get kind of discouraging. Should you do it? Yes, if you have the time, but get your name out there first by sending a post card that can reach every office in your target market on the same day or staggered over several days. Then do follow-up visits as you have time. Design a post card that tells offices you are available to work on a temporary or permanent basis (we have templates or full custom design services to help you with the design and we recommend VistaPrint.com for the printing).

Build a Professional Online Presence

Find out if you need to do any online cleanup. Studies show, employers will Google your name before they decide to bring you in for an interview. What will they find? Give it a try yourself and see if there are any “skeletons” or things you need to remove. Google your name in the web browser standard search, but also image search. And, google the e-mail address you plan to use on your resume as some employers will try to learn more about you by searching your e-mail address too.

Create and prep your online presence, making sure your key branding messages are showing up prominently on a LinkedIn page at minimum. You also might consider creating your own website (yep GetHiredRDH.com can help you with this also). Or, maybe consider creating a Facebook page (independent of your personal page) as a professional profile page. You could also look to create a video resume to post about yourself online or a blog where you share your thoughts on dental topics.

More Online Strategy

If you are on Facebook or Twitter, start liking or following the pages of potential employers, this will give you some very valuable information about them and, who knows, maybe they will learn a little more about this new person that started liking them too. Start participating in Facebook and LinkedIn Group pages for dental hygienists (there are hundreds of them) – this is a great way to network and meet lots of peers.

Practice Interviewing

Have you ever wondered how people get good at answering questions from the media? Repetition, anticipation, and more repetition are the secret ingredients. They first sit down and think through all the questions they might get asked, then they answer them on paper, then they practice their responses, over and over and over again until they get it exactly how they want it without sounding canned or rehearsed.

You don’t have to be a pro at it – most people interviewing are very sensitive about these situations and will be okay with you showing some “nerves” but the great thing about practicing so much is not only will your responses sound better, you will feel more confident too. And confidence is an attribute that is hard to overlook in any potential employee.

Wardrobe Check

Make sure you have thought through how you will dress in your interviews and even have one or two go-to outfits that make you look and feel professional. Clothes don’t make the person, but there’s no doubt you can feel much more confident when you love what you are wearing.

In-Person Networking

Start attending conferences and monthly association meetings and bring your business cards along. Look for opportunities to sit next to people you don’t know and introduce yourself to them, but also sit with a few you do know as this will help you feel more at ease when you meet new people.

Seven Tips for the Best Dental Hygiene Cover Letter

October 10, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

Cover letters are often forgotten as a tool to help you stand out in your dental hygiene job applications. A well-written dental hygiene cover letter is a great way to expand on some things about you that might be more difficult in your resume.

Here are six quick tips to help you out with your cover letter.

Seven-Tips-for-the-Best-Dental-Hygiene-Cover-Letter

Keep it all Short: Never ever use more than one page for a cover letter. In fact, 5-6 paragraphs of 1-3 sentences each is plenty. Remember, yours is only one of dozens they are getting and they just won’t take the time to read all of them. If it’s shorter (easier) to get through you stand a much better chance.

Use Bullets: In one of your paragraphs where you list some qualifications you have (hard or soft qualifications), put your list into bullets. This creates a visual break for a reader and makes it both more appealing to read but also easier as the person can simply scan it.

Consistent Design: Create a subtle design that matches your resume. If your resume uses color, use a little bit of color in your cover letter. If you resume has your name in a big font at the top, do the same only a little smaller on the cover letter. If you resume uses Calibri for a font, use it on the cover letter, too. The point is to make your cover letter and resume look like they are coming from the same family but are not identical twins.

Paragraph One – Acknowledge the Job: Let the employer know in the first paragraph where you heard about the job and that you are applying for it. Knowing where you heard about it is a courtesy to them so they know what ways are most effective in advertising openings.

Paragraph Two – Acknowledge Hard Qualifications: If they want someone with two years clinical experience and experience working with Dentrix, you want to acknowledge first and foremost as they are minimums of what they expect and so you wan to make it clear, early on, you meet that need.

Example. “From the ad I see you are seeking someone with two years experience and a knowledge of Dentrix. Having worked in three different offices over the the last five years, I have not only used Dentrix but also other dental software and am very comfortable with them.”

Paragraph Three – Acknowledge Soft Qualifications: These are things related to your personality, work ethic, or professionalism. Similar to the technical stuff, you want them to know you are aware these are things they are seeking and that you meet the need.

I will often use also use this paragraph to transition to some things about you (your personal brand) you think they will appreciate but haven’t specified in the ad, and I will include them in bullet form (see comment above about bullets).

For example:

Unique ability to build relationships with patients that result in greater compliance
Highly professional in my interactions with co-workers and patients
Live within five minutes of All Smiles Dental and personally know several existing patients

Paragraph Four – Wrap it Up: Simply tell them you look for ward to discussing your qualifications and showing how you can be a great fit in the form of a formal interview, or working interview. Then leave them a phone number to reach you and add your signature line beneath that paragraph.

How to Survive in a Toxic Work Environment

Good and Bad Dental Hygiene Job Interview Appearance Choices

Accelerate Your Ability to Land a Dental Hygiene Job

Finding a New Dental Hygiene Job Checklist

Seven Tips for the Best Dental Hygiene Cover Letter

Creating a Transitional Resume for a Dental Hygienist

Contact GetHiredRDH Now

Positive Resume Action Words

Passive vs. Active Writing

Positive Personality Adjectives

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