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Wording Your Dental Hygiene Resume

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You have approximately 8.5 by 11 inches of real estate to craft the most important document of your career – your dental hygiene resume! That’s not much so every word has to count, right?

Well, yes and no. Yes, your resume wording should be as well-crafted as possible to maximize your opportunity, but you also have to remember that when an employer is looking at a stack of 50+ resumes they won’t be reading them all.

So this week, let’s discuss five things that you can do with your dental hygiene resume wording to make it really stand out and thus increase your odds of getting an interview.

Tight Writing5-Tips-for-Wording-a-Dental-Hygiene-Resume

Bullet points are your friend on resumes – they do such a great job of keeping your writing clean, short and succinct. They are also the friend of employers who welcome a good bullet list here and there. If you can, keep them from wrapping onto a second or third line. Depending on the size of words you use, less than 15 words is adequate, but less than 10 is ideal.

Too Wordy: “Started a new patient program that included an office tour and sit-down meeting with myself and the doctor. We improved patient retention by more than 25 percent.”

Perfect: “Implemented new patient-orientation program, elevating retention by 25%.”

Writing that Jumps

In resume writing you begin lines of information with a verb to jump-start a sentence and give the reader a shortcut to what you did. In the examples above, both “started” and “implemented” are good verbs to do this. And we have a list of 500+ positive words you can use to do this.

Active Writing

You also want to make sure your writing is in an “active” voice as opposed to a “passive.” Active is best (especially in resume writing) because it’s easier to understand text more quickly.

Active Example: “I love working with all kinds of patients.”

Passive Example: “There are all kinds of patients I love working with.”

Thoughtful Writing

I’ve written often about the importance of knowing what an employer is looking for and then delivering it. Your cover letter is the primary place to do this, but it can also be done on your resume, too.

Carefully review the job description and find the keywords of things they are seeking in a candidate. Then make sure your resume hits on them – you may need to modify a word or two or perhaps move some lines up in order of importance.

Error-Free Writing

It goes without saying your resume should be error-free. No mistakes in grammar, punctuation or spelling. There are for sure some employers who will over-look mistakes, but you just don’t know who will or won’t so proof-read your resume many times.

I would even recommend you have a one or two friends that you trust read it over. Or you can even hire someone to do it.

Another tip: When proofing it yourself, read it backwards. This forces you to look at each word without getting caught up in the flow of how the sentence reads.

 

How Many Pages for a Dental Hygiene Resume?

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I get asked a lot about the length of a dental hygiene resume – should they be one page? Two? Or are three acceptable?

My answer is: It depends, but in most cases one page is absolutely best.

Today I will share the reasons and exceptions for a one-page dental hygiene resume, and tips on how to keep it to one page.

[Resume Service]

3 Reasons for Keeping it to One Page

Most of the time, if you are simply seeking a clinical dental hygiene position, and even for lots of other dental industry jobs or when your experience is limited, it makes sense to keep it to one page. But here are the three main reasons:

  1. More likely to get read: There are lots of demands on employers time and, with few exceptions, reading through a stack of 50-100 resumes doesn’t offer much excitement. So one of the best ways to ensure yours gets read or at least scanned is if it’s all on one page.
  2. Not necessary – I’ve written hundreds of dental hygiene resumes and very very few of them needed that second page – in fact, I would say its maybe about one percent. Sometimes we get into the mentality of thinking more is better, but what you would put on page two is not going to seal the deal for you.
  3. The type of resume – The most effective style of resume for clinical dental hygiene positions is called a functional resume, where you highlight your skills and experience ahead of your work and education history. The functional style of resume lends itself much better to efficiency with space, by avoiding the repetition of putting the same list of tasks or duties down for each dental hygiene job you’ve had. Having said that, there are instances where the style, called chronological or even a hybrid between those two, make more sense and you tell a better story with them. But for the most part functional is best.

Exceptions to the One-Page Rule

The career path for the average dental hygienist is to work in a clinical setting, keep up with some CE here and there and that’s about it. Some, however, enjoy really diving in deep with their local association or component, serving in leadership capacities, educating other hygienists, and even getting into some political advocacy on behalf of the dental industry. To each there own.

But there are a select number of dental hygiene jobs that require more than just clinical work and as such, a resume applying for those jobs should be more inclusive and rich with things such as association involvement, articles published, research performed, etc. Some sales positions may seek more documentation of your ability to influence patients toward greater compliance or more of a background in areas tied with what takes place in the front office.

There are lots of different potential scenarios and each job seeker needs to consider their background and what they want from their career carefully to help decide if that second page is helpful.

How to Keep it to One Page

  1. Use a Functional style of resume – The functional style of resume really is efficient with space and I think actually lets you highlight things that are truly most important more prominently. With any style you begin with your name and contact information at the top, followed by a brief (1-3 sentences) About Me statement, then go right into a list of your Skills and Experience before ending with your Work and Education history. But that Skills and Experience section is your opportunity to share results you have achieved for your employer and any unique abilities or skills you have.
  2. Only need to include the basics – You really only need to include these four key sections: About Me; Skills & Accomplishments; Work Experience; and Education. Sure, if space permits and you have more to share then do it. But focus on including things that are unique. I think dental-related awards and volunteer work are ideal things to include. Memberships or “References Available Upon Request” just aren’t as meaningful. And believe me, I love associations (I’ve spent my entire career in marketing and communications working for them), but being a member isn’t nearly as meaningful as being an active participant on your resume.
  3. Bullets and not paragraphs – Your About Me statement at the top of the page is the only place I would recommend including a paragraph or narrative. Simply put, employers are far less likely to read a lengthy paragraph as they are a list of bullets. We as humans love lists – they are easier to digest, generally more succinct, and simpler for a person reading your resume to scan. So use lots of short bullets.

Introducing the Dental Hygiene Resume Postcard

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Anna SimkinsAt GetHiredRDH, we work hard to give you the best tools for marketing yourself in the ever-tough dental hygiene job market.

We are pleased to introduce you to yet another product that will help you land a great dental hygiene job. We are calling them Dental Hygiene Resume Postcards.

This new product merges the best of both worlds for hygienists who want to get their resume out into as many offices as possible, but also who would like offices to remember them.

Our experience has shown that dental offices will keep postcards far longer and closer at hand than resumes that tend to get filed or thrown away the moment the office receives it.

Moreover, postcards are more interesting and novel and help you score points, so to speak, as you will be labeled as “creative” and a “go get-er.”

So the marriage of resume and postcard as a tool to find dental hygiene jobs makes a lot of sense.

Anna Simkins2If you are going to do them on your own, here are some quick tips:

  • Use some color to make it stand out
  • Add your picture (this is akin to a logo so it does help)
  • Postcards have limited space so keep the wording to a bare minimum
  • Don’t forget your email address and phone number
  • Give them other ways to learn more about you (ie personal website or LinkedIn profile page)
  • On the backside include a call to action “Contact me now at…”
  • Consider dropping them off instead of mailing them if you have the time as that gives you one more opportunity to sell yourself

If not, we at GetHiredRDH will do them for you. Click here to go to our store where you can purchase this service with our special introductory price – we can do them in any color (more design schemes are coming soon as well). Along with our cost, please also consider the cost of printing (which depending on size can run $10-17 for batches of 50 at Vistaprint.com) and the cost of mailing them, unless you would rather drop them off in person.

Note: Standard sizes come in 6 x 4, 7 x 5, and 8.5 x 4.5 – Our price is the same no matter what size, however printing and postage prices will increase the larger the size.

Getting Dental Hygiene Employers to Know Like and Trust YOU

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Getting a potential employer to decide to hire you may seem daunting. But it’s really just a matter of helping them begin to know, like and trust you.

Credibility is one of the key forces behind the know-like-trust factor so it’s worth doing a few extra things in your job search to strengthen your credibility.

Here’s five suggestions, above and beyond your resume and job interviews, to create and build credibility with potential employers (as well as peers).

[Website Service]

Credible1. Testimonials

If you only do one of these five things, let it be this. Over the course of your career gather letters of reference and testimonials from employers, co-workers and patients. You don’t have to ask everyone, but as you receive pats on the back, be they verbal or in writing, save them!

Keep a file of them and add them to a testimonial sheet that can accompany your resume whenever you apply for a job. Also, very seriously consider launching a website for yourself (a real .com address you can keep updated and ready for a new job hunt). We provide this service pretty inexpensively and can even show you how to keep it updated, including adding testimonials as the occur.

2. CAR Information

I’ve written previously about also keeping a CAR (Challenge Action Result) Sheet. This is documentation that you have experienced real-life, challenging situations, knew what action to take, and ended up with a positive result. Stories are powerful persuasion tools and the cool thing is you can use them in writing (on a CAR Sheet or website) or during a job interview – both are great platforms for establishing credibility.

3. Social Media (your own site and others)
There are several social media platforms you can use to build professional credibility.

Two great ones are Facebook and LinkedIn, but there are also ways to do it on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and others. I’ll suggest the former two as they are the ones I am most familiar and comfortable with.

Both platforms allow you to create a professional profile for yourself (basically your resume information). Even if you prefer not to expose the world to your personal Facebook page you can a professional page that is separate and only shows your dental hygiene self. LinkedIn is well established as the career social media site.

And both platforms allow you to join professional groups where you can co-mingle with other hygienists, dentists, assistants, front office personnel, and others in the dental field. But don’t just create a profile and abandon it, participate – share articles, share opinions, share your expertise. This is how you build your reputation, by simply showing up and participating.

When people see who you are behind the comments (your profile), that’s when the credibility-building (and networking) becomes magical. If you approach your networking with genuine-ness and helpfulness, and avoid complaining or gossiping, your credibility will soar.

I had a client tell me today she used LinkedIn to reach out and contact dentists in her area and actually landed an interview that way.

4. Association or Component Participation
A great way to get to know people is by serving them, and serving with them. Your local chapter of ADHA or CDHA, or even ADA are an incredible way to do this. Don’t just join the organization, get involved. If you only have an hour a week to put into it, that’s okay – offer it up to chapter leadership and see where that takes you.

Most associations would love to have someone come forward offering a little bit of their time. And in that process you will meet peers and other professionals that will see you as more than the average hygienist.

5. Written Contributions
There are numerous dental hygiene trade publications and blogs you may already be a subscriber to. Not only should you consume their information/articles you should participate in their comment section (assuming their publication is offered online). This too can offer you some big-time professional exposure.

And if you have an interest in research and writing, request an opportunity to submit an article of your work. Not only will you gain some exposure with your peers, you will also have some great content to share on your resume, profile page, or professional website that will make you shine like the tip of a new 11/12 scaler (okay, lame metaphor, but you get the point :-).

How to Secretly Kick Start Your Dental Hygiene Job Search

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Dental hygiene job searching is a little like dating, right? You have to put yourself out there so employers know you are available. But before you do that – you need to do some things behind the scenes.

Finding a good match begins with honing in on your pool of potentials. Doing so will save you time and money, and will help you find a job faster.

One of the keys to success (and probably most over-looked) my wife Tracie had with finding a dental hygiene job so quickly was that we narrowed the focus.

In her case, she didn’t want to work more than 10 miles from our house – and the closer to home the better, for many reasons. There were also one or two offices she knew would not be worth marketing to for various reasons.

So here are the four things we did – and at the end I want to give you a FREE copy of the spreadsheet we used.

[Postcard Service]

target your poolStep 1: Define Your Pool

The first and most obvious thing to do is figure out geographically how far you are willing to travel for a great dental hygiene job. Put a number on it – is it 5 miles? 10? 20?

Now, think about anything that might possibly eliminate an office. Maybe it’s the type of office or things you know about that office that make you shutter. Make a list of those offices – a no-way-in-heck list!

Step 2: Gather the Data

This can be the painful part because it took me and Tracie hours and hours to type all this in. And we had even narrowed the list down to about 110 offices! Some clients I have worked with had a pool of nearly 500 offices!

But here’s a tip: If you don’t have the time and are willing to shell out say $20-40, you can actually hire someone online to do this for you. I usually recommend Elance.com or Fiverr.com, but I noticed a new site called PeopleBytheHour.com that just opened recently. The point is, it’s not hard to find someone willing to do all the research for you. Just tell them what you want, and you can get it back within just a couple days.

Of course you can do as we did and Google your way to this information. It’s out there, and lots of online directories like yellowpages.com or yelp.com. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to look at multiple directories as one might be more current than another.

Gather as much as you can. We gathered (and you will see in the download) not just addresses, but also e-mail addresses, website addresses and social media (specifically Facebook) addresses. Those latter three are useful when it comes time to market yourself.

Step 3: Launch Your Marketing Effort

Next week, I am going to talk more in-depth about how to create an organized plan or campaign. So you’ll have to hold on a bit longer for more detail on this, but it will include both reactive and proactive strategies you can do once you know who are targeting… so stay tuned!

Step 4: Observe and Keep it Alive

This is the most important and useful part of creating this spreadsheet. You need to keep adding to it as you gather more information. I included a section for notes so we could add observations.

Just a few observations we would add are details about whether the office seemed to employ a hygienist or not; or if the office always seemed to be hiring people (could be a bit of a red flag).

We also used it to keep track of offices she would temp at and whether the experience was good or bad. This can also prove useful in tracking your earnings at various offices for tax purposes.

There’s lots of small pieces of information that can come in very handy and be to your advantage to keep a record or note of and doing so in a spreadsheet will save you lots of time and money in the end as you are seeking a new dental hygiene job.

Free Download

This spreadsheet is what we used and we hope it helps get you started in tracking your potential pool of employers. Next week, we’ll show you how you can put this information to work for you.

Dental Hygiene Job Seeker Database (Excel File Version)

Dental Hygiene Job Seeker Database (CSV File Version)

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