Dental Assistant Resume

Many dental assistant resume articles are filled with examples that don’t make sense, written by marketers that haven’t spent a day in their life working in a dental office or recruiting for dental practices. That’s why they’re filled with buzzwords, achievements, and metrics that make you question, “Is this really what dentists want to read on a resume?”

The answer is no. Your gut is probably right.

I’ve been recruiting since 2015 and I’ve had the pleasure of recruiting for some great dental practices as well. Today, I’m going to share what a dental assistant resume should look like based on that experience.

If you’re looking for real, practical resume advice, you’re in the right place. Here’s the only guide you’ll need to write a dental assistant resume.

Dental Assistant Resume Duties

To begin writing an effective resume for a dental assistant job, we need to understand the common responsibilities employers are looking for. I’ve reviewed just over 100 dental assistant job descriptions. Sadly, most dental assistant job listings are dismal with little to no information, making it difficult to figure out what you should write about in your resume.

Fortunately, I’ve recruited for a few dental offices in the past and had the ability to ask questions first-hand. Putting all of that together, here are the things you should be writing about on your resume. I’ve put them into 8 categories to make it easier for you.

Accurately Document Patient Care Activities in Charts

This includes a variety of items that go into maintaining and updating dental records. It includes verifying and recording medical and dental history, inputting vital signs of patients, and updating records based on examinations.

While not exactly charting, in smaller offices you may assist with scheduling and other front-office patient tasks.

Oversee X-Rays

This includes not only taking X-rays of patients, but also cleaning film processors, replacing developers, cleaning and sanitizing dark rooms and X-ray rooms, and reporting problems to a manager.

Explain Treatment Plants to Patients

This may include explaining upcoming treatment plans or instructing patients on postoperative and general oral health care. It may also involve preparing patients for a procedure about to happen and answering questions. It may be beneficial to also talk about how you put patients at ease with upcoming procedures.

Preparing Operatories

A large part of a dental assistant’s job is to prepare operatories for procedures. This includes preparing trays and ensuring operatories are stocked and cleaned.

Managing Labs

Most RDAs prepare lab cases and ensure they get out in a timely manner. This also includes reviewing patient schedules and verifying that lab cases are ready before a patient arrives and following up and maintaining logs for things such as partials and remakes.

Dental Prep and Procedures

Dental Assistants interact with patients quite a bit. Yes, you may assist dentists by handing them instruments and anticipating their needs, but you’ll also adjust and cement crowns and bridges, place composite fillings after the dentist preps, take final impressions, place or remove Invisalign attachments, and prepare topical anesthetics and medications as directed.

And don’t forget about comforting patients, making them feel at ease, and creating a seamless experience by coordinating with reception and escorting patients to the appropriate exam room.

Compliance

Dentistry is a heavily regulated industry and the best dental assistants help ensure compliance with state and federal law. You may be responsible for checking patient signatures on consent forms, reviewing hazard communication books, ensuring training logs are signed, ensuring hazardous products are properly labeled, and making sure waste disposal procedures for Sharps and contaminated materials are adhered to.

Maintain Supplies & Dental Equipment

Last, but not least, you may be in charge of cleaning, sterilizing, and packaging dental instruments with all-wrap. You’ll also ensure handpieces are properly cleaned and oiled. Some dental assistants order supplies and instruments and help keep dental inventories between the target of 5-6% of collections.

Dental Assistant Resume Skills

I’ve already listed out the knowledge-based skills in the previous section. Here are some of the dental assistant skills you’ll want to either include on your resume or show how you possess them through examples of your work.

Note that I don’t separate things into hard skills and soft skills because experts know that there is no such thing. Instead, you’ll find categories for the type of skills or knowledge that is required of dental assistants.

Dental Assistant Traits

• Self-motivated

• Attention to Detail

• Cooperative and collaborative

• Energetic

• Strong work ethic

• Multi-tasker, organization

• Cleanliness of work area

• Quick thinking

Transferable Skills

• Oral and written communication

• Data entry

• Customer service - High Quality Patient Care

Software Skills

• Dentrix

• Eaglesoft

Certifications

• RDA (Registered Dental Assistant)

• X-Ray Certification

• CPR Certification

• Coronal Polish Certification

• Radiograph Certificate

• Sealant Certificate

Resume Format for Dental Assistant

Because it is the gold standard and every hiring manager and recruiter I’ve ever met has preferred it, I’m going to recommend you write a reverse chronological resume. Here’s how to do so section by section.

Contact Information

This may seem obvious, but in the header of your resume, include your name, phone number, email address, and any other relevant items. If you’re unsure about what to include, reference Chapter 2 of the Definitive Resume Writing Guide.

Job and Summary

I have an entire section devoted to this, but for now, know that this section should come after your contact information. Don’t title it summary though. Instead, title it the same as the job you are applying for. In this case, that would be Registered Dental Assistant or simply Dental Assistant.

Work Experience

Following your summary, you’ll begin to list your experiences, starting with the most current or most recent one. And remember, internships are fair game. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to label it work experience because it may be a combination of work experience, internships, and school projects. If that’s the case read my article on resume subtitles. There are several alternatives that may work for you.

Education and Certifications

Following your work experience should be your education and any certifications you have. You can separate these into two sections if it makes it easier to read, but many people combine them under one heading which is perfectly fine.

Software Proficiencies

I don’t like to include the standard skills section in my resume because after over a decade of recruiting, I’ve learned that most managers and recruiters prefer to see your skills in context throughout your work experience rather than list a bunch of resume buzzwords and cliches in a skills section.

But what they all value is a list of the software skills you’ve used and are familiar with. While not a huge mover in the grand scheme of things, if you have similar skills and experiences as your peers, sometimes knowing the right software system can be what it takes to push you through to the next hiring step.

Dental Assistant Resume Objective and Summary

Most dental assistant resume summaries miss the mark. They sound nice but lack substance. They’re filled with ambiguous phrases that leave the reader wondering what exactly this person can do for me. Don’t make that mistake.

You don’t want to be the next person with a proven track record, who is a go-getter and has strong leadership skills. I can promise you that the person reading your resume doesn’t need more resumes that say those things. I mean, what does all of that even mean? It’s very subjective, isn’t it?

You want to paint a clear picture of exactly who you are and what problems you can help them solve. This opening sets the tone for the entire resume.

Here are the elements you need to include in your summary with an example.

The problem you want to be known for solving: Improving dental office productivity and patient satisfaction.

The main ways you solve that problem: Performing more supportive dental procedures than most dental assistants, ensuring that operatories are prepared for all procedures, and coordinating with front-office teams and labs to make sure lab cases are ready before patients arrive.

Who you solve that problem for: Pediatric Dentistry

Proof that you can solve that problem: Dentist was able to complete 10+ more procedures per day, 10% increase in new patients year over year due to great service, over 350 procedures completed per year.

If we put all of that together into a concise resume summary, it might look like this. You can choose to lead with years of experience or skip it entirely if you don’t have much.

Dental Assistant Resume Work Experience

The number one piece of advice I can give you when writing the work experience of your resume is to make sure it is relevant to the person reading it. It also needs to be believable.

The problem with some of the top-ranking dental assistant resume examples is that they’re written by people who haven’t spent a day in dental recruiting. For example, one top-ranking site suggests writing things like reducing procedure time by 25%, increasing patient satisfaction scores by 15%, and improving compliance by 40%.

Those kinds of stats may work great in some industries that heavily track those kinds of metrics. But let’s be real, I don’t know many dentists who track those kinds of statistics. So they’ll know you’re making it up - and that’s not impressive.

Here’s how I would start writing my work experience for a dental assistant job.

Job Summary

Start each job with a brief summary, two to three lines of text that provides an overview of the job, your purpose, and what you did. Here’s the formula.

How You Got the Job + Mandate + Audience + Key Skills + Context

Let’s look at an example together.

How I Got the Job: I was promoted after someone retired from the role.

Mandate: My mandate was to maximize dentist productivity.

Audience: I was working for a cosmetic dentistry practice that was rapidly growing and had expanded its office.

Skills: Assisting with dental procedures, charting, x-rays, and lab management.

Here’s how we could put all of that together in a concise job summary for this job.

Promoted to maximize dentist productivity for a rapidly expanding cosmetic dental practice seeing over 30 patients per day. Responsible for assisting with dental procedures, charting, x-rays, and lab management.

When someone reads that, they have a crystal clear picture of the job you were hired to do and the scope of your role.

Dental Assistant Resume Bullet Points

Now the fun part begins. The next step is to provide evidence that builds the case that you were really good at this job. This is what I use my bullet points for. I will take the skills that I listed earlier and ask myself, “How can I show that I was good at these things (or similar/related things) in each of my past jobs?”

The answers to that question will then become your resume bullet points for each job experience. When answering the question, it’s usually best to include a result and context around how you obtained that result.

Here’s an example.

If I wanted to provide evidence that I was good at explaining and advocating for treatment plans, I might say something like this.

Educated patients on the importance of treatment plans and made them feel at ease with upcoming procedures, resulting in a 90% acceptance of treatment recommendations.

This bullet point would show that I am good at the required skills of explaining treatment plans. It also shows I have strong transferable skills such as communication, patient bedside manner, and customer service. It includes results and, most importantly, it shows that I understand the impact of the job.

You could write about office-wide accomplishments that you were a part of such as new patients. You could also write about the volume of procedures that you’ve done and how many more the dentist can do because of your expertise. These are just some examples to get you thinking. All of these would make great resume bullet point statements.

Keep in mind as you write these, that different types of dentistry may be more interested in different skills and experiences. Also, don’t forget to add context when you need it. For example, a pediatric dentist may not see as many patients as a general dentist. A dentist who’s never worked with pediatrics may not remember that from dental school.

If you’re having trouble thinking of relevant resume bullet points or if this is the first dental assistant job you’re applying for, I encourage you to try out Huntr. It’s a resume AI program that does really well at suggesting bullet point ideas and helping you translate non-relevant jobs into more relevant statements.

Action Verbs for Dental Assistant Resumes

While these aren’t the most important piece of content for your resume, I do recommend starting most bullet points with an action verb. Here is a list to help you.

• Administered

• Assisted

• Analyzed

• Charted

• Conducted

• Coordinated

• Collaborated

• Created

• Delivered

• Developed

• Diagnosed

• Documented

• Educated

• Evaluated

• Identified

• Improved

• Led

• Monitored

• Organized

• Provided

• Resolved

• Supported

• Sterilized

Dental Assistant Resume Examples

It seems that every dental assistant resume example you see these days is from a resume builder tech company. And I’ve got to say, they’re pretty bad. I have yet to find one that has good examples. It’s like they’re all written as if you’re applying for a tech job and not a dental one.

So, I’ve written two dental assistant resume samples to cover you whether you have prior experience or not. Use these to inspire your own ideas.

Registered Dental Assistant Resume (Experienced)

This resume is based on someone who has several years of dental assisting experience and has a license and extension. It includes key talking points that show proven experience with all of the key responsibilities I listed earlier in addition to traits and transferable skills.

I wrote this resume for someone in pediatric dentistry, but it can easily be adapted to any other type of orthodontic, cosmetic, general, or endodontic practice.

Dental Assistant Resume (Inexperienced)

This resume is based on someone who has experience in a dental office as a receptionist and wants to take the next step in their career to become an assistant. You’ll notice that it communicates the depth of dental understanding this person has, despite their experience being at the front desk. It also communicates how they have taken the initiative to go above and beyond to learn and assist with some dental assistant duties.

And finally, notice how it incorporates through examples transferable skills and traits such as being collaborative, problem solving, customer service, and communication. All of these are traits dentists look for in their assistants.

Dental Assistant Resume Template

While you’re free to copy any of the examples to help you write your own, personal, dental assistant resume, you can also access editable versions of all two templates via Google Docs.

If you want some extra convenience in your life (because let’s face it, job searching and resume writing are not convenient at all), you can access all 2 dental assistant resume templates here.

Simply access the template you want to use and tailor your resume based on your experiences.

Dental Assistant Resumes and the Applicant Tracking System

There’s a lot of talk about applicant tracking systems out there, most of it written by people who want you to buy their applicant tracking system (ATS) proof resume services or tools.

Put simply, an ATS is a database with a Google search bar in it. It works the same way Google works when you search for websites and most people aren’t searching for all those keywords. In fact, most people aren’t searching at all. That’s not a feature they typically use.

Furthermore, considering that most dental offices are smaller and don’t have a talent acquisition team, they typically use whatever ATS features are provided by the job boards they use.

In other words, I wouldn’t worry too much about the ATS when it comes to dental assistant jobs. As long as you aren’t building it in Canva, you’ll be fine.

Dental Assistant Resume Recommended Reading

Dental Receptionist Resume Guide

How to Become a Dental Assistant (Coming Soon)

Dental Assistant vs Dental Hygienist (Coming Soon)

Dental Assistant Cover Letter (Coming Soon)

---

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a botique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.