You have a sharp eye for signs of oral irritation and opportunities for better oral hygiene, and a great bedside manner to go with it while you educate patients! You also assist the dentist with X-rays and bigger oral procedures to keep everything running smoothly.
But what resume template should you use to demonstrate a similar level of efficiency and polish in your resume while you lay out your ability to sterilize and organize?
Don’t worry: We’ve helped plenty of professionals in dentistry settle into their dream jobs, and we’ve created three entry-level dental hygienist resume examples and cover letter writing tips to help you, too!
Copy this text for your entry-level dental hygienist resume!
Cesar Cabal, RDH
Entry-Level Dental Hygienist
ccabal43@email.com
(123) 456-7890
Denver, CO
CAREER OBJECTIVE
Dynamic and results-driven dental hygienist graduate with a strong foundation in dental office best practices and providing superior customer service. Consistently exceed practice goals and patient satisfaction, always providing creative solutions to improve the patient experience. Ambitious and excited to embrace new challenges at Light Dental Studios, contributing to the practice’s overall success of building patient relationships that foster preventative care and lifelong dental health.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Dental Office Receptionist
Slimdental
2020 – current
Denver, CO
-Manage the front office of practice, greeting 50+ patients per day and responding to information requests.
-Implement a new filing system to streamline front office operations that is saving 6 hours per week of manual work and is improving productivity by 17%.
-Verify insurance information, collect co-pays, and inform patients of financial obligations.
-Review provider charges including dates of service, procedures, and accurately enter information in the billing software program.
-Investigate issues with past due invoices, and use proven service strategies to reduce unpaid accounts by 23%.
-Enhance professional growth by participating in 30+ hours of educational programs, in-service, and workshops a year.
Hostess
Grimaldi’s
2019 – 2020
Denver, CO
-Welcomed and led diners to tables in a friendly manner
-Managed reservations, calling guests for confirmation 24-48 hours prior to scheduled arrival.
-Maintained a clean and tidy lobby and hostess stand.
-Monitored restaurant flow to decrease wait times for customers by more than 5 minutes during peak hours.
-Assisted servers in busy hours by carrying drinks, clearing tables, and communicating new tables.
-Cleaned menus, wrapped silverware, answered phones, paid out to-go orders, and restocked coloring sheets, crayons, napkins, toothpicks, and mints at hostess stand.
SKILLS
– Organized
– Critical Thinking
– Teeth Cleaning
– Teamwork
– Soft Tissue Management
– Multi-tasking
EDUCATION
Associate of Arts, Dental Hygiene
Community College of Denver
2019 – 2021
Denver, CO
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Skills & Experience Sections
At an entry level, your skills are critically important for showing recruiters that you have what it takes to send each patient home with their best smile! You’ll need to quickly demonstrate your familiarity with job-related stuff like dental tool sterilization and soft tissue management.
Make sure each ability you list is as closely related to dentistry as possible! If you’re tempted to say “communication,” think “patient education” instead.
The same goes for how specific you get while you list your skills! Avoid generic skills that could apply to just any profession when you can, like “teamwork,” and go for specifics like “oral surgery assistance” or “crown molds” instead.
9 best entry-level dental hygienist skills
- Patient Records
- Appointment Schedules
- Tool Sterilization
- Tooth Cleaning
- Crown Molds
- X-rays
- Compassion
- Attention to Detail
- Patient Education
Sample entry-level dental hygienist work experience bullet points
It’s time to build your work experience section, which tends to freak out some entry-level applicants—even though there’s really no need for concern! You’ll find a surprising number of crossover opportunities where experiences from unrelated jobs can bolster your credibility as an entry-level dental hygienist.
Fill each bullet point with a concisely explained experience or accomplishment that supports your qualifications within the dental field. If you worked in retail, working on a staff calendar isn’t that different from booking new dental patients!
And always provide metrics for your success, especially when you’re pulling in experiences from unrelated job roles or internships. Quantifiable data like customer satisfaction percentages and personal ratings measuring your hygienic finesse are great things to look for.
Here are a few examples:
- Investigated issues with past due invoices, using proven service strategies to reduce unpaid accounts by 23%
- Implemented new filing system to streamline front office operations, saving 6 weekly hours of manual work and improving productivity by 17%
- Monitored customer flow to decrease wait times by more than 5 hours during peak business hours
- Managed appointments, calling to confirm appointments 24-48 hours prior to scheduled arrival, reducing the frequency of missed appointments by 12%
Top 5 Tips for Your Entry-Level Dental Hygienist Resume
- Keep a tidy template
- Our three entry-level dental hygienist resume templates are all ready to make your information look awesome . . . But when you proofread your resume, make sure your greatest achievements are what grab the reader’s attention first.
- Highlight your adaptability
- One highly transferable qualification point for your experience examples is adaptability, especially under a deadline. Your ability to reduce wait times in a restaurant can easily be adapted into methods for reducing downtime between dental appointments!
- Cover it in a letter
- Sometimes entry-level applicants struggle to articulate how a “patchwork” professional background qualifies them for a role in dental hygiene, but you can use a cover letter to handle this! Just make sure you aren’t repeating any resume points.
- Education helps!
- Don’t forget to mention your degree in Dental Hygiene, and include any other certifications that will enhance your impressiveness. Think of stuff like a Dental Assistant (RDA).
- Think about your objective
- If you feel like you’re better off introducing yourself, you might benefit from including a resume objective statement. Just as with your cover letter, avoid repeating resume points: Keep it fresh!
Avoid metrics that don’t reinforce a final, impressive indicator of your success, such as free-floating headcounts that don’t end with a punchy bit of data telling how you’ve made a difference for dental patients.
Avoid the temptation to use over-the-top colors or funky fonts to make your resume stand out! Stick with clean, modern fonts and minimal color usage so that recruiters can skim over your resume with ease.
Professional references are a great choice for any entry-level applicant. If you know anyone who can vouch for your determination and skill from college, previous jobs, or dentistry-related internships, include two or three!
