You put patients at ease while simultaneously preparing tools and processes for technical procedures. Any dental practice would benefit from having you as an assistant.
But do your resume and complementary dental assistant cover letter make your skills shine just like the pearly white teeth you help every patient achieve?
Putting together a resume can feel challenging, but it doesn’t have to be more painful than a root canal. Use our certified dental assistant resume examples and AI cover letter generator to put together a top-notch application that will impress employers in the dental field.
What Matters Most: Your Certified Dental Assistant Skills & Work Experience
You know better than anyone that getting started in the dental field feels pretty rigorous. After all, dental practices will want to know you have the appropriate skills before you get to scaling plaque off of teeth or checking for cavities.
Reviewing the job description will help you stand out. You may notice some dental practices need assistants who can do X-rays efficiently, while others require an expert in temporary fillings. If you notice a dental practice emphasizing something, include it in the 6 to 10 skills you list on your resume.
Here are some top skills dental practices are looking for on resumes.
9 top certified dental assistant skills
- Dental radiographs
- Teeth cleaning
- Instrument sterilization
- Operatory preparation
- Sealant applications
- Oral health exams
- Customer service
- Dexis
- Dentrix
Sample certified dental assistant work experience bullet points
Your skills can affect the outcome for every patient who walks through the door, so you’ll want to show your results in past work.
Pretend the hiring manager is sitting in a dental chair right in front of you while preparing these examples. Be clear and concise while doing your best to back everything up with numbers.
Every day you explain technical information to patients in a way that’s easy to understand. You have what it takes to come up with some great examples.
Here are a few ideas:
- Successfully performed 87 sealant applications over 1 year, leading to a 40% reduction in patients with cavities.
- Used Dentrix to upload patient information regarding X-rays, procedure results, and ongoing tooth watches with 99% accuracy over 3 years.
- Identified 35 patients with early cavity symptoms during oral health exams to prevent the need for more intensive procedures later on.
- Conducted radiographic procedures while ensuring patient comfort and safety to identify ongoing dental issues with 98% accuracy.
Top 5 Tips for Your Certified Dental Assistant Resume
- Always proofread
- In dentistry, every detail matters. Just like you wouldn’t want to hand the dentist a sickle probe when they ask for a scaler, you don’t want any grammatical errors to detract from your professional resume template.
- Use reverse-chronological formatting
- It’s common for dental assistants to start as unregistered assistants and then work up to radiologic technologists before becoming fully certified. Reverse-chronological order will show your most relevant experiences first and help illustrate the progress you’ve made in your career.
- Limit your certified dental assistant resume to one page
- Your listed experience should be concise and easy to understand. For instance, you don’t need to describe every step to prepare for a root canal. Simply stating that you’ve successfully assisted in 55 root canals in your career proves you have the necessary skills.
- Merge interpersonal skills with technical skills
- The patient will be your top priority while navigating technical procedures with high-level accuracy. You can explain this by combining the two sides in your listed experience, such as educating patients on improving their brushing technique to reduce future plaque build-up by 55 percent.
- Organize the information
- Hiring managers only need six to eight seconds to get a first impression on your resume. It should be organized with clear headings, bullet points, and defined sections that help your most important skills, like operatory preparations and oral health exams, stand out.
A resume summary can be a good idea if you’ve been in the field for over ten years. It should be a short description of your experience listing accomplishments like successfully assisting in 452 high-level procedures over your career.
Your education and certifications will matter a lot in the dental field. You should include an associate degree from an accredited dental assistant program if you have one, your dental assistant certification, CPR certification, or a radiology certification.
Include any experiences related to what you studied in school, internships, or work outside the dental field. For example, spending 80 hours practicing and preparing to conduct radiology exams during your studies can go a long way to show you’re ready to take on the role.
