Registered Dental Hygienist Sample

As you complete your Dental Hygienist education and work to get valuable experience, you demonstrate a strong sense of professionalism and a commitment to excellence. When it’s time to begin applying for jobs or taking the next steps along your career journey, a well-crafted resume should be brimming with context surrounding the professionalism and commitment that you’ve established. Unfortunately, many people think that their resume is just a piece of paper that lists old jobs they use to get a new job. It is so much more than that. 

Your Dental Hygienist resume is tangible proof of your qualifications, skills, achievements, and dedication to your profession that sends the message that you take your role seriously. Consistency in professionalism, whether in education, experience, or how you care for patients, can leave a resounding impression on future employers. 

Don’t let the idea of creating a compelling resume worry you, though, because we’ve compiled the information you need to know right here in this guide. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just graduated and have little to no experience or if you have a metric ton of experience; the Dental Hygienist resume example, tips, and tricks you’ll find in this article will ensure that you end up with an interview-winning resume. 

How to write a resume

Your resume is an opportunity to brag about your achievements. Think of every single television commercial, online ad, or billboard you’ve seen. They all tout the product or service being sold as the best in the world (even though we all know that some of them aren’t). Your resume should grow legs, stand up on the hiring manager’s desk, and shout, “Hey, look at me; I’m the best.”  

Don’t be afraid to sing your own praises because achievements will be what help you stand out from the rest of the folks applying for Dental Hygienist roles. You’ll start by choosing the right format. 

Reverse chronological

While the reverse-chronological resume format isn’t the only one out there, it’s the best option for Dental Hygienists because it shows career progression, demonstrates that you have gained valuable experience, and is easy for employers to navigate. The mere fact that there are evolving technologies and fast-changing regulations within the healthcare field dictates that you have to present prospective employers with the most recent experiences first to show that your knowledge and experience are up to date. 

Layout

The way your information is laid out on a reverse-chronological resume is also easy to digest. Hiring managers can quickly skim through your resume to ascertain whether you have the skills and qualifications they’re looking for. It is imperative that you know they’re not reading your resume. They are spending a grand total of about 10 seconds scanning through it to see if what they’re looking for in a new hire jumps out at them. 

To ensure that your information is presented in the most logical way – the way the hiring manager is used to seeing it – use the following sections when putting your resume together:

1. Contact information: This will be the first bit of information on your resume and should contain your name, location (city, state, and zip), phone number, email address, and optimized LinkedIn profile. 

2. Title: The first line after your contact information should be the title of the position you want, and it should mirror the job description. You can spruce it up a bit by adding some context that provides some insight into your experience or skills. For example, instead of writing “Dental Hygienist” as your title, you could write “Patient-Centric Dental Hygienist” to begin standing out from the crowd. 

3. Profile paragraph: After you concoct a title that will impress the hiring manager, write a three to five-sentence paragraph to let them know what you’ll bring to the table for their office and patients. Use a good mix of hard and soft skills (we’ll talk about this later in the article) and tell them why you will be the best choice out of the hundreds of other applicants they’ve received. 

4. Work history: Now you’re getting into the meat and potatoes part of your resume, and it’s your time to shine. Start with your most recent job and list every relevant position you’ve had in the last 10 years, including the company/office name you worked at, the dates you were there, the title you held, and up to five bullet points that call out things you accomplished in each role. 

5. Education: All Dental Hygienist positions require certain qualifications that include education and licensure. Make your mark to impress your future employer by adding your degrees, registrations, and licenses in the “Education” section of your resume. 

Now your resume is done. No, not quite. You have to customize it every time you apply for a job. 

Tailor your resume

Gone are the days of sending a generic resume out to every job you want to apply to and sitting by the phone waiting for a call for an interview. As you apply for Dental Hygienist jobs, you have to customize the resume with keywords from each job description to ensure that your Dental Hygienist resume speaks to the things you’ll need to do for that particular office. 

For example, you may apply for a job at a paperless office, while another place uses a paper filing system for patient charts. You have to be able to show that you can do both, and the best way to do that is to customize your resume for each place separately. 

Dental Hygienist Resume example

It’s time to see all of those instructions in action with a Dental Hygienist resume example. This sample resume incorporates all of the principles of an effective resume in a way that seamlessly marries skills, experiences, and achievements in a way that will get you past an applicant tracking system (ATS) and impress a hiring manager. 

Use this example resume as inspiration in crafting your own. Follow the layout and customize the language so that it speaks to what you will bring to the table in a new Dental Hygienist role. 

Key hard & soft skills for Dental Hygienist

There is one bit of information that should appear on your resume that merits having its own discussion – that’s your skills list or “Areas of Emphasis.” The “Areas of Emphasis” section should appear on your resume in between the profile paragraph and work history sections and should contain 9-12 (15 max) ATS-friendly keywords and phrases that you cull from job descriptions. This is your beat-the-bots section, a small but powerful part of your resume that could make or break your candidacy for Dental Hygienist positions. 

Hard and soft skills

It’s critical that you have a strong mix of hard and soft skills throughout your resume, but especially in the “Areas of Emphasis” section.

• Hard skills are things you know how to do because of education and experience

• Soft skills are personality traits or characteristics you possess that make you good at what you do. 

Here are some examples of hard skills for Dental Hygienists:

• Oral hygiene procedures

• Radiography

• Oral health

• Periodontal assessment

• Dental charting

• Local anesthesia administration

• Dental equipment operation and troubleshooting

• Infection control

• Patient assessment

• Emergency response

• Dental software

• Intraoral camera use

• Dental prophylaxis

Here are some examples of soft skills for Dental Hygienists:

• Patient communication

• Empathy

• Active listening

• Stress management

• Attention to detail

• Problem-solving

• Time management

• Professionalism

• Commitment

• Flexibility

• Conflict resolution

• Ethical judgment

Since most dental practices are sustained by positive and well-rounded patient experiences, prospective employers value the combination of technical expertise and interpersonal skills. Hiring someone with a mix of both ensures a holistic approach to patient care and overall clinic/office operations. In other words, being able to take X-rays is just as important as calming a nervous patient. 

Summary & Last Words

Now that you see how hard your resume works for you, it’s time to put one together and give it all the attention you can to ensure that it does its job of landing you your dream job. Your resume is effectively your advocate, speaking for you before you have the opportunity to utter a word. By giving it the attention it needs and infusing it with powerful experiences from your career, the opportunities are endless. 

Introduction to ZipJob: Professional Resume Writers

Considering the importance of your Dental Hygienist resume, you may want to lean on some professional resume writers to make sure it’s put together correctly. ZipJob has put together a team of experts in the field of writing Dental Hygienist resumes – a group of people who understand what hiring managers want to see and can wordsmith your accomplishments in a stand-out way. 

Why You Should Make Use of Our Resume Writing Services to Land Your Next Job as Dental Hygienist

When you hire ZipJob to write your resume, you’ll get a partner for your career journey. You and your writer will work one-on-one to dissect your career and highlight the most relevant skills and qualifications on your resume. In the end, you’ll have a document that lands more interviews than you could imagine – we actually guarantee it. 

Resume Writing Service for Dental Hygienist: Let us write your resume

There’s no reason to leave your career progression to chance when you have access to a team of professionals who know their way around the Dental Hygienist arena. Contact us today to learn more about how our team of resume writers can propel your career forward.