RDH Archives - RDH Resumes and Career Guidance

Problematic Dental Hygienist Resume Information

August 6, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

Last week I talked about the two most important things dental employers want in an RDH candidate. I promised this week I would cover things they wish you would put on your dental hygienist resume that you might NOT want included.

I’m not aware of anything illegal about these things they want, but recognize that employers are seeking the easiest path to the best possible candidate. Like you, they have their own interests to look after so don’t take it the wrong way but realize this information could hurt you.

1. Multiple Phone Numbers

Why? So if they can’t reach you at one, they can try another. I am all about simplicity – one phone + one e-mail = less confusion less resume space and less chance you miss their call.

There’s a cool thing called voicemail (or even texting). If they can’t reach you at your only number, they should leave a message. Take it a step further, get a free Google Voice account and give out that number to protect your privacy.

2. Salary Requirements

Dental employers will say, “I need this so I know you are a good fit.” That’s true, but some will use it to low-ball their offer. I say, YOU should have just as much say in knowing if it’s a good fit.

Tell them you are “flexible” then immediately turn the table and ask them what the range is. If they are insistent on a figure, go one of two directions.

(1) Tell them you have researched the industry average and that it’s ____; or

(2) Give a wide range and tell them you are willing to negotiate.

In knowing a range, make sure you understand the average in your area. Local dental staffing offices will know, and you can also check payscale.com.

Note: One possible win-win, if they offer something meager, is to agree to that rate, if they agree to a six-month review and adjustment to your rate, provided the review is favorable.

3. Home Address

There’s three reasons they may want this information: (1) If you are close and have transportation issues you still have a shot at getting to work (via a neighbor or mass transit); (2) similarly, if they need you at work sooner than expected or to fill in for someone it can be done more easily; and (3) if you are close, you may already know existing or potential patients thus strengthening new patient marketing and retention efforts.

Unless you live ultra close (a few miles or less), I say leave it off. If it comes down to you and another applicant, the tie-breaker could be who lives closer.

4. All Previous Employers

They want to know everyone you worked for as it may be someone they know – perhaps a trusted colleague they can talk with about you.

If you left a job on a bad note, got fired, or are searching but don’t want the current boss to know, you really need to think about including that information. The dental community is competitive but also tight-knight. If it’s the only job you have to put on your resume then you may just have to roll the dice on including it.

One option is to disclose in your cover letter (in bold) that you would appreciate the confidentiality of your application. To avoid any red flags, include why you are asking for this.

Give Your RDH Resume a Design that Grabs Eyeballs

July 9, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

There are lots of things you learn in dental hygiene school – techniques, instrumentation, treatments, oral anatomy, to name just a few categories.

By and large, I think schools do a good job of teaching the trade of dental hygiene. But in my experience and informal research, they don’t teach much a lot about putting that education to work (once you are licensed).

Which is both ironic and unfortunate, when you think about it.

One of the specific things they don’t teach in dental hygiene school is the anatomy of resume design (nor would you expect it). So here’s 10 things that make up a great resume design:

One Page
Most employers don’t read through entire resumes. They would tell you the real value is in meeting with a candidate, hearing what others say about them, or seeing them in action.

Furthermore, everyone knows the length of one’s resume does not equate to the quality of a candidate – not even how long they’ve been a hygienist. I’ve seen two-pagers from hygienists with no experience and one-pagers from those with 30+ years.

Keep it simple and less intimidating – give employers at least a chance to get through it all. There are exceptions, but usually for those that have decades of experience in non-clinical settings.

Overall Chemistry
Create elements (graphics, columns, color, bullets, font treatments, sections, white space) that compliment one another, grab attention, are consistent and allow an employer to easily navigate the resume and find the key things they are searching for.

Bullets
Bullets play an important role in resumes, allowing you to present large blocks of information in short succinct lines. A person can quickly read a line, skip another, or pick up where they left off. Plus, the bullet itself is a graphic of sorts, almost like an arrow that indicates a starting point.

Columns of Text
Instead of creating long single columns of text for bullet points, you can often create a more read-able feel by putting sections of text into columns. I find that this can sometimes save you space and create a more balanced, interesting look.

Graphics
Think of graphics as a visual tour guide to your resume, accentuating key sections and places of emphasis. But also as a way to show creativity and flare, while at the same time drawing in attention. People are attracted to visuals and can absorb them hundreds of times faster than actual text.

I advise my clients to add a professional picture of themselves (sorry, selfies don’t work as well) to help strengthen the visual affect and help create a visual connection with your employer before you even meet them.

Color
Similar to graphics (and often as part of the graphics) add some color highlights to your resume. I’m not talking lots of colors – in fact, no more than one (maybe two). And choose a color that has a look of professionalism and strength, and that maybe compliments your personal brand (ie your personality).

Increased Font Sizes
The most important text on your resume is your name. It needs to stand out in a large and/or bold font that is clear and readable – something strong. How big? I would say in the 24-36 point size range – depending on spacing you have available.

The only other place I would suggest using a larger font is your section headers. For those I would keep them in the 14-18 point range (or roughly half the size of your name).

Bold
Use bold sparingly, but do use it. I typically bold text that is either sub-header in nature or that needs specific emphasis. Often that means bold for the names of the offices you worked for or maybe the schools you graduated from.

White Space
Add some white space to your resume. Don’t settle for the sometimes-stuffy single spacing between lines of text. Open things up where possible to (from 1.15 to 1.5). This gives you a more clean look and feel, that looks sharp and is less intimidating to read.

Thicker Paper
Finally, invest in a nice stock of paper that has a weight somewhere between standard copy paper and card stock. This, too, adds a touch of professionalism conveys an air of strength. Avoid stocks with lots of texture as they tend to no re-produce photos and other graphics very well.

And one final note, never send your resume in Microsoft Word format. Create a PDF file of your resume and send that. The problem with sending a Word document is that it can look all messed up if the receiver doesn’t have the same fonts installed on their computer as you do.

A PDF file, on the other hand, is simply a snap-shot of your resume and fonts don’t matter – what you see is what you get when you create a PDF file.

Punctuating Your RDH Resume with Clarity

July 2, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

The other day, while assembling a ping pong table, I was reminded of one of life’s great lessons – don’t overlook the small stuff.

As I was following the instructions, there was a section where I read the first sentence, looked at the diagram, and charged ahead with the next two or three assembly steps (skipping several sentences of instruction).

Turns out, those few sentences I skipped were pretty important and I ended up having to un-do things and go back to fix the problem before moving ahead. Can you relate? I wish I could say that was the first time I had ever done that – ha!

In writing and designing resumes it’s easy to get caught up in what you are going to include and how it should look, while forgetting a few important rules of grammar and punctuation.

Punctuation problems can distort your meaning, or worse: cause an employer to pause in confusion. That pause is bad news as they may begin to make assumptions about you based on that, such as your attention to detail, communication skills, or even work ethic, thus viewing you as a poor candidate.

Here’s eight of the most common problem areas I see when reviewing dental hygiene client resumes and cover letters:

Periods

When you are offering up a complete sentence, such as in your opening statement (sometimes called “Objective” but I call it “About Me”), always include periods where appropriate.

But when it comes to listing skills and competencies in your resume, experts agree it’s optional. I usually leave them off. I’m all about keeping resumes as clean looking as possible and if a period isn’t necessary then why waste the ink?

Hyphens

Use hyphens for compound adjectives that precede a noun, such as “patient-focused approach” or “part-time opening.” And if you have two adjectives that modify the same base word, use a hyphen after the first, as in “double- and single-patient rotations.” Do not use a hyphen in a compound adjective if the first word ends in –ly, as in “highly qualified candidate.”

Semicolons

Semicolons can either separate two independent clauses when the second clause is not directly related to the first or they can be useful when you want to list items that already include a comma.

For example, “Proficient at oral assessments, screenings, and treatment planning; educating patients on proper oral care; and scheduling patients for recall.”

Colons

Colons are used to join two independent clauses when the second clause is directly related to the first. The most common way to use a colon is for introducing a list, as in “Proficient at: oral assessments, screenings, and treatment planning.”

Commas

Commas are important visuals to help a reader understand the context of what you are writing, particularly when making lists. One of the most common questions is, “Should I put a comma between the last two listed items?” If you are a journalist, no. But in business writing (including resumes) you should add that extra comma. For example, “Proficient at oral assessments, screenings, and treatment planning.”

But also remember that commas are important visuals that help readers understand what you mean. Check out how the meaning of these two sentences changes by adding two commas.

“I love scaling my patients and my office.”
“I love scaling, my patients, and my office.”

Apostrophes

Apostrophes trip up a lot of my clients – sometimes I even throw one in by mistake (which why I edit and re-edit), so it’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are many rules and sub-rules on them, so I will just touch on the basics.

Use them to show possession (singular and plural): “patient’s x-rays” or “hygienists’ tools”
Use them in contractions (to replace letters): “doesn’t” instead of “does not” or “it’s” instead of “it is”
Optional to use them with initials: RDH’s or RDHs and DDSs’ or DDSs

Exclamation Points

This is interesting! Not!

Exclamation points are popular in informal writing and can add some meaning in literature, but there’s really no place for them in resumes and cover letters – anywhere! So leave them off!

Testimonial sheets, on the other hand, often include quotes from people that know you and it’s perfectly fine to leave them in as they help convey a certain level of enthusiasm for you.

Parenthesis

These are useful in a couple ways on resumes. First, they are helpful in further defining or giving specifics to what you mean in bullet-ed statements. For example, “Proficient at taking x-rays (both traditional and digital)”.

Similarly, both parenthesis, dashes (and bold or italics, too) can be helpful in setting information apart or providing additional information. For example, “All Smiles Dental – Dr. Pat Smiles (Albany, NY) – Dental Hygienist 2001 – 2008”

Other Marks

There are lots of other marks available to you, ellipses, ampersands, n-dashes and m-dashes, quotes, slashes, brackets, asterisks and, of course, question marks. But these are seldom, if ever, used on your resume and cover letter.

If you decide to use them, just be sure you are doing so consistently. For example, if you use an “and” in one sentence don’t turn around and use an “&” in the next one.

What’s Your Unfair Advantage?

June 25, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

The other day I was at the store picking out some fruit (apples). There were several varieties on display and dozens to choose from of each variety.

My family likes the Gala variety and they are inexpensive, so I often go for those when I’m the one shopping (Tracie and I trade off). At first glance they all appeared the same, but looking closer I could see that while none were perfect, some were a better match of what I was looking for.

Those that I chose had an unfair advantage over the rest.

As a dental hygiene job seeker, you have your own list of unfair advantages over others. Everyone has them!

But are you aware of them and do you highlight or promote them? Most job seekers, not just hygienists, simply do what everyone else does and give potential employers a list of places they have worked, where they went to school, and tasks they know how to do – hoping that will somehow be enough.

But if everyone or most present themselves the same way, how is an employer to know what makes anyone unique or different?

Why not make a statement right from the start that you are going to be different to get different – do the uncommon things to get the uncommon results.

It all begins with your unfair advantages – things that make you who you are. Again, Everyone has them, but very few will take that next step and promote them.

Your Unfair Advantages

Everyone has at least five areas of unfair advantages:

Skills
Training
Experiences
Personality
Who you know

You could also make a strong case that proximity (or how far away you live from an office) that gives you an unfair advantage. And there are probably a few others too, but I think it’s important that you focus most of your attention on the five main areas mentioned above.

Also keep in mind, your unfair advantages could be individual things or the combination of several that inter-related. They may be enormous or only slight. But they are all important for you to identify.

Breaking Them Down With Examples

First, let’s identify them.

Skills: What routine dental hygiene tasks, skills or duties are you especially good at – better than the average hygienist? Some hygienists feel they are particularly good at educating and teaching patients, while others get great results treating perio patients.
Training: Do you have any additional training that not every hygienist has? Could be the use of lasers, or maybe you have a bachelors degree in dental hygiene.
Experiences: What unique experiences have you had? Special emphasis should be on ones that infer something about you (the type of employee you are). A couple months ago, my wife had a patient that had a seizure in the chair. Tracie has had previous experience helping people with seizures so she was able to spot the issue immediately and stabilize it. I had one client a few months ago that spotted a cancer growth and ended up saving the life of a patient.
Personality: What is your personality like? Are you extremely well organized or the life of the party? Are you patient with children or really good at building relations with adults? There is no right or wrong, it’s just who you are. One office may want the life of the party, while another prefers someone more serious.
Who You Know: How big is your professional network? Do you only know the staff in your office or have you have contacts at several offices? Have you restricted your contact to just professionals in your local association or do you have wide network the spans the globe?

Now Let’s Highlight and Promote Your Unfair Advantages
There are three places to do this:

In your job hunting materials,
At job interviews, and
As you participate in professional meetings and functions

When creating your job hunting materials, clearly word your unfair advantages through out. Sprinkle them into your resume, cover letter, postcards, business cards, and website. Then go the extra mile, create more unfair advantages by having a resume that looks and reads like you have got it all together. Add some color and graphics, coordinate the look of your materials, and don’t forget to create a Testimonial Sheet, where your fans are given the chance to back you up or confirm the unfair advantages you talk about it your materials.

Next, share actual stories and experiences of these unfair advantages. Job materials are all about telling a potential employer about your advantages and job interviews are all about giving examples of them. Be ready with a story or experience for each of them. Stories and examples help employers make stronger connections with what you are telling them and are a huge way to win them over.

Finally, networking with other professionals gives you and them a chance to create and build strong relationships. They can see and experience you for who you really are – that you are normal, that you work hard, that you are nice, or whatever your unfair advantages you have to offer. There’s very little that substitutes for actual experiences with people and only way to do that is to put yourself out there – network.

Also keep in mind that networking doesn’t have to be all in-person. While it’s better to meet people that way, you can do it virtually and also just as importantly, you can nurture existing relationships though digital communications (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even Pinterest).

One final related note…

Do you feel like you only have one or two unfair advantages and want more? Whether you have one or dozens, keep building on existing ones and create new ones throughout your career.

Always look for opportunities to improve a core skill, get trained on a new technique, learn from a new experience, develop your interpersonal relations, and meet new people.

This is your career – your passion – make the most of it. Carp diem! Do that and you will always have plenty of professional unfair advantages to help get you land a great job.

7 Things to Dump From Your Dental Hygiene Resume

June 18, 2014 By Doug Perry, Dental Hygiene Resume Coach

I confess, I hate house cleaning! My wife, Tracie, actually kinda likes it – guess that’s partly why she likes practicing dental hygiene so much.

If I had to pick a favorite “I’ll-do-that” house cleaning task it would be emptying the trash. When I gather it up and take it outside it feels like a burden has been lifted – purging junk just purifies the soul, I suppose.

So this week, I want you to do the same with your resume and have listed here seven things to dump from your resume.

1. Dump the Wordiness Write your resume as tight (few words) as you can. Last week we talked about the value of lots of white space in your formatting. The more experience you have, the harder it is to find white space – tight writing can help with that. But you also want to use words sparingly so that your resume doesn’t look as intimidating to read.

Bad: “I 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.”

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

2. Discard the “I”s This ties into the last example. Did you notice we started the first sentence with “I” and the second one with “Implemented?” By eliminating the pronoun and going straight to the verb the sentence gets a jump start. Studies show it drive’s the reader’s attention directly to what you did – resume readers are conditioned to look for these active words. Start all your bullet-point descriptions with them. If you’re stumped, here’s a pretty good list of them

3. Trash the Typos! This should go without saying, but it’s shocking how many resumes contain obvious typos – and some employers will hold it against you. We all make them (yes, me too). So proof-read it as much as you can but, your best defense is have one or two others read it also. Consider hiring a professional, if your friends don’t feel confident either.

4. Throw Out the Objective Statement As I mentioned last week, most resumes begin with an objective that is some sort of ho-hum vague statement about your career objective. Get rid of it – everyone has the same objective! Instead, share your personal brand – who you are, what they will get when they hire you, what makes you unique or different. Keep it short (1-2 sentences) and succinct. Think of this as sort of like an “elevator pitch” – that brief statement you make when someone asks, “What do you do (for work)?”

5. Delete the Tasks Many hygienists focus too much of their resume on things that all hygienists do. For example, “Took x-rays,” “Provided scaling and root planning,” or Educated patients.” If that’s all you have right now you can survive with it, but there is much a better way.

Begin thinking about and collecting (over the course of your career) results, accomplishments, achievements, experiences, specialized training, and unique personality traits or mannerisms you have. These are all differentiators – things that are unique to you – and they are powerful to your job hunt, including the interview phase.

I steer my clients toward a functional style of resume (see our article from two weeks ago). In a functional style you have an opportunity to showcase what’s different about you right near the top in it’s own section. Keep track of your differentiators so you can really shine in this section by highlighting results, instead of just listing tasks.

6. Eliminate the Mailing Address Simply put, you don’t need to include a mailing address on your resume – that’s old school! There are two great alternative methods of communication (phone and e-mail) that are faster and more convenient for both you and potential employers.

The second reason is dental offices may use where you live against you – believing that if two equal candidates live 10 and five miles from the office, the latter will have the advantage. There’s a pretty decent chance your physical address won’t even come up during the interview stage, so just leave it off.

7. Remove the “Extras” Aside from your name, contact information, about me, skills/results, work history, and education, most hygienists really don’t need any other resume wording when applying for a general clinical dental hygiene job.

Some hygienists tend to want to add extra things like: references information; licensure/certifications, continuing education classes, awards/recognition, memberships, and component participation, published articles and volunteer service (related and unrelated).

Unless you really need to fill up some space on your resume, I would suggest leaving those things off. If you have lots of extras or have done other dental industry jobs in a non-clinical setting, then you should consider setting up a website and detailing it all out there. Especially if you are seeking something different than just an average clinical position.

Problematic Dental Hygienist Resume Information

Give Your RDH Resume a Design that Grabs Eyeballs

Punctuating Your RDH Resume with Clarity

What’s Your Unfair Advantage?

7 Things to Dump From Your Dental Hygiene Resume

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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