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Best Dental Hygiene Resume Delivery Tips

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Lots of hygienists ask if it’s appropriate to follow up after they submit a dental hygiene resume.

Best Dental Hygiene Resume Delivery TipsMost of the time it is okay and I would even encourage it, but check the job announcement for guidance as a few will sometimes indicate they don’t want you to call them.

Honestly, most hygienists feel too intimidated to follow up so it can be a good way to gain a small advantage, improving your chances for an interview.

Here are some thoughts to consider:

Confirming They Got It

E-mail, postal mail, and in person are the best ways to submit a resume. But only an in-person delivery leaves you feeling confident they got it.

So this can be a great reason (excuse) to contact the office the next day. If the ad says not to contact them, simply include a line in your e-mail asking if they will confirm receipt. You could also drop in on them to see that they received it.

If you are mailing the resume by postal mail, you could pay extra for delivery confirmation to ease your mind a bit. Or you could do all three (e-mail, postal mail, and hand-deliver it) and, no, I don’t think that’s overkill for a job you really want (nor do I think they will either).

Best Strategy

Here’s the best strategy for most situations:

  1. E-mail your resume as soon as you can get it out the virtual door.
  2. Then, drop it off the next day or two so they can see your attention to detail in preparing a nice printed copy of your materials. More importantly, this gives you the opportunity to make a connection with the front office person(s). Remember, these are gatekeepers to the hiring process – if you appear distant or uncommunicative to them they will let the doctor know and guess who will NOT get an interview? Win them over and it can really help your chances.
  3. One week later, if you have not heard anything, drop in on them again. You could call, but in person is so much better and you may even have a chance to catch one or two additional people. Just say you were in the neighborhood and wanted to check in on the process, but if you sense they aren’t too busy ask some questions about the office. Give them  a compliment about an observation you make about what they are wearing or maybe about the office decor.

If you are interviewing other places, you could even say something like this:

“I love your office – everyone is so friendly and it’s close to where I live. Some of the other jobs I have applied for haven’t been that way so I really look forward to hearing more about this opportunity and how I can be a great fit.”

Think of this process as a do companies that advertise. They try to create as many positive impressions as they can with you so that their product (in this case you) stay at the top of their minds or at least somewhere above other candidates.

Best Time
I would also suggest you drop in or call when the office is potentially less busy (mid-morning or mid-afternoon) as you will get a better opportunity to interact with them during those times. Other good times, if it works out, is just before or after a holiday or when the weather is bad as they also tend to be lighter days.

Following up is an opportunity to bring your candidacy to the top. Use these tips to help you stand out from the crowd.

Worst Font for a Dental Hygiene Resume

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Are you in love with Times New Roman? I’m not and here’s why – everyone uses it! It gets my vote for worst dental hygiene resume font.

Worst Font for a Dental Hygiene ResumeAesthetically it’s a serviceable font and has been sort of the go-to type face for a long time. But I’m all about helping you stand out and to make your dental hygiene resume more memorable let’s go a different direction.

So here’s some quick tips on fonts to help make the words on your resume leap off the page:

Most Important

Rule number one with fonts is to be consistent. Don’t use lots of different fonts, in fact I would highly recommend you only stick with one throughout your entire resume packet (ie resume, cover letter, testimonial sheet, and CAR Sheet).

Consistency is a hallmark of looking professional and organized – both traits you want to show a potential employer.

Size

Every font is different in size. You can put two fonts next to each other of the same size setting and one will look way bigger. The best way to gauge if it’s too big or not is to print it out and have a look – don’t trust your computer monitor as it lies about a lot things (colors, sizing, etc.)

Depending on the font you use, a good size is between 10 and 12. I tend to write resumes in about 11 point with the fonts I use. Some people will use the size of the font to compensate for the lack of information on your resume, but I think that’s a mistake. I think it’s better to use a normal size font and simply increase the spacing between lines – looks more professional.

Styles

There are different styles of fonts out there. The two most common are serif and san serif fonts. Serif fonts have little flags at the tips or ends of lines called “serifs” whereas san serif fonts don’t have them. Times New Roman has serifs, while Arial does not, by way of comparison.

I like minimalism in resumes – keeping them simple, succinct and clean. For me, serifs clutter up the page (even if only subtly). I think they have their place in other types of documents and certainly with books, magazines and newspapers but not resumes

I would also advise against choosing script- or gothic-style fonts. I think gothic is self-explanatory, but scripts are the ones that look like your handwriting (Kirsten, Comic and Balloon are common examples). Those have no place (ever) on a resume – don’t even consider them.

Bold & Italic

In certain places you will want to place emphasis on specific words – usually headings and sub-headings. Bold and italic are great ways to do that, so long as you keep them consistent and use them sparingly.

If you bold or italic too much, these type treatments lose their impact on the reader. So save them for places where you want to make an impression. They also help guide a read through your document. Our eyes are naturally trained to look for little road signs to help us navigate a document efficiently – too many signs leads to overload and we get lost.

ALL CAPS

The only place I would suggest you use all caps is with your name. All caps in a section of text can really make you look either computer illiterate or obnoxious – not the image you want.

Recommended Fonts

All computers come with their own sets of typefaces, so play around with a few. Type up a line of text and then copy and paste it several times on a page with each line using a different font, then print that off and decide.

One of my favorites right now is the current default for Microsoft Word, called Calibri. It will no doubt go the way of Times New Roman at some point but right now it looks great on a resume and is easy to read.

Getting Fired from Previous Dental Hygiene Job

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The other day a dental hygienist asked what to do if during an interview a potential employer asks why she left her previous job, when in fact she was terminated from it.

Her particular situation was that she had been with the office for about six years when she was promptly let go for refusing to work additional hours.

First of all, my heart goes out to those that get let go for these kinds of reasons. That office threw away six years of history with them and probably damaged some office moral in the process. Without knowing all the details, it also sounds borderline unethical – but that’s a topic for a different day.

The question is how to explain getting fired from a job in a job interview. So here’s three points:

Avoid Label “Fired”
The word itself is quite pointed and conjures up an immediate emotion of there being a huge problem and you were to blame.

Everyone these days thinks of Donald Trump’s show The Apprentice and all the drama associated with those scenes of him arguing back and forth with someone, culminating in that famous buck-stops-here statement, “You’re fired!”

Whether that’s the case or not, when talking about it, choose a different word such as “dismissed” or “let go” as they help diminish the visual of it.

Consider Keeping it Private
There’s no rule or crime for not including a job on your resume. If you’ve been working for lots of years and even continued working at a different office part-time then I would just not even include it.

Be Honest
Identify the cause and be honest about it.

The hygienist above, in my mind, was not really fired in the negative sense and so it’s rather easy to explain. Circumstances around the job itself changed – she was doing her job, in fact, she was doing it well as they invited her to work more hours. She simply couldn’t take them up on it.

However, when it’s a performance or personality issue it can be much harder to explain. If it’s an issue where you were wrong and you know you were wrong then choose one of those issues, own up to it, talk about how you learned from it and even given an example or two of how things would be handled differently now. You could even share a quote from someone famous who made lots of mistakes and learned from them.

If it’s an issue where you feel your situation was not handled properly, distance yourself from it a little bit by taking the emotion out of it. And I would even mention something you liked about your former and include that in your summary. For example, “I really enjoyed the way he handled older patients and he was generally kind to me – we just had a difference of opinion about how strong we needed to up-sell our patients on products.”

The point is to take the high road and never bad-mouth. It may make you feel better or vindicated but it seldom helps your chances in getting a new job – even if you were 100 correct in your assessment.

Finally, if you have references from that employer that are on paper or from patients and co-workers, I would use those to demonstrate you were otherwise a great employee. Sometimes employers you are fired from will actually provide you a letter of reference. Take it – you may not use it but it may come in handy.

Anonymous Dental Hygiene Job Openings

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A dental hygienist posted on LinkedIn the other day about employers posting anonymous dental hygiene job openings.

I have to admit, it’s a big pet peeve of mine not knowing who I am applying for a job with – am I alone there? It almost seems like there should be a law against that.

What if I don’t like that office or if they are vague in the location of it and I don’t want to work there – it’s a waste of my time and theirs.

So what can you do about it?

Unfortunately, not a lot, but there is one thing I have done that works about 50 percent of the time.

It’s called Google and depending on how much information they put in the advertisement, you can sometimes figure out who it is.

So, look for a fax number or e-mail address, or even physical mailing address. Highlight and copy it, open Google and search it. I’ve done this hundreds of times for dental jobs for clients and have come up with the name of the practice or doctor about half the time.

Give it a try next time you are surfing through job openings and then use that information (about the office) to better discover what their problem is and how you can be a solution to it. See my articles earlier this week for more information on how to do that.

A Dental Hygiene Solution to a Dental Office Problem

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Yesterday I wrote about learning why dental offices are seeking a hygienist. I mentioned there are four different places you can get this – read here to find out.

Today I want to touch on what to do with this information – it’s way too valuable to do nothing with it and can even be the main reason an office hires you.

Dental offices want hygienists who can quickly blend well with staff and patients. So if you understand their problem, showing that you are the solution, it will be very difficult for them to not hire you.

Here’s five ways to show you understand the problem and how you are the solution:

Resume
If your resume never gets modified for a specific job you are probably like 95% of all hygienists so don’t despair. But for each job you should review it to ensure it reflects what the office is needs.

Pay specific attention to the “About Me” section (sometimes called “Summary” or “Objective”). Use this space to address the top two or three things the office wants in an applicant beyond the technical qualifiers such as license and years.

You could also address some of this in your skills and experience section, if you are using a Functional style resume (which is what I recommend for hygienists). Add a line that addresses how you are “experienced in working with small children,” if that’s one of the things they are seeking.

Cover Letter
Your cover letter is probably the main document where you want to touch on some of the problem information you have gathered about a job.

I recommend a sentence that acknowledges what they are looking for, using the same words they use and then using the sentences/paragraphs beneath it to talk about how you are the solution to that and more. I wrote about cover letters here.

For example, “From your advertisement, I see you are seeking someone who is detail-oriented, flexible, and can handle stressful situations.” And then further down in something like “Co-workers have applauded me for my organizational skills and how I am able to adjust and handle all different kinds of personalities and situations.”

Testimonial Sheet
I’ve written a lot about my recommendation that you keep short (1-5 sentences) testimonials from patients, co-workers, and employers. These are very impressive to potential employers on a Testimonial Sheet.

Make it a routine habit to gather these throughout your career – you can’t have too many. Then, when you are seeking new employment, you can choose the ones that best fit each job opening.

CAR Sheet
I’ve also written about CAR Sheets – CAR stands for Challenge – Action – Resolution. Think of it is a micro case study, where in just 3-5 sentences you write about a problem, the action you took, and how it was resolved. You can read more about CAR Sheets here.

Similar to Testimonial Sheets you can pick and choose the best examples of your work and assemble a CAR Sheet that addresses the solutions a potential employer needs.

Interview
Finally, if you get an interview, this is your opportunity to really hammer home the key problems that office needs to address in a hygienist. First, empathize with them about it and then reinforce you as the solution.

For example, “It’s tough to lose a great hygienist as they become almost like family. It’s been hard for me to leave jobs over the years as I really miss working with my co-workers and the synergy we created, but the upside is you get the opportunity to still hire a great new hygienist and have new experiences together.”

Creating a Transitional Resume for a Dental Hygienist

Several dental hygienists wanting to leave clinical practice have been asking me about a transitional resume and how it differs from a regular resume. Much of the categories of content remain the same, such as work history, education history, and summary section to name only a few. The difference is in the language you use […]

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