Dental Assistant Resume Sample

Whether you’re a dental assistant who’s writing a resume as a recent graduate or already have years of experience, our guide to creating an effective dental assistant resume and guided tips will help you impress employers at dental offices and increase your chances at getting interviews.

1. Highlight your dental assistant resume skills

The dental profession requires using various dental tools and specialized training so your resume skills section should reflect these abilities, especially if you didn’t add these details to your professional experience section.

First, include your relevant hard skills. Dental assistants learn many hard skills (also known as technical skills) from dental school, online courses, or on-the-job training, so listing them in your additional skills section is essential for winning over employers.

For instance, dental assistants operate equipment such as X-rays and prepare tables and trays for dentists.

In addition, using general dental tools such as air water syringes, cotton forceps, and mouth mirrors is required for dental assistants, so mention your knowledge and experience with these tools.

Here are more dental assistant hard skills for your resume:

Your soft skills are just as important, so incorporate them into your dental assistant resume. Your soft skills relate to how you work with others in a workplace environment.

Including the right skills on your resume shows hiring managers details about your work ethic and ability to work with patients and colleagues in a dental clinic.

For example, hiring managers seek dental assistants with a professional bedside manner. As a dental assistant, being pleasant and approachable could be the difference between a patient hating the experience and never coming back, or recommending your services to friends and family.

These are other useful soft skills for your resume:

2.  Mention your relevant education, certifications, and licenses

A hiring manager at a dental clinic wants to see your appropriate license or certification to make sure you’re qualified for a dental assistant job, so include your relevant certifications on your dental assistant resume.

In some states, a certification isn’t necessary to get hired, and you may even be trained after you get hired as a dental assistant.

However, if you do possess a dental assistant certification, including it ensures the hiring manager knows that you have the proven work history to perform dental assistant duties.

Here’s what you need to write in your certifications section:

1. Name of the certification (add “In Progress” if you’re still completing it)
2. Name of the organization that awarded it
3. Date earned (or the date you plan to earn it)
4. If completed in-person, write the city and state
5. If completed online, add “Online Course”

This is what our applicant’s certification looks like on their dental assistant resume example:

Dental Assistant Certification (CDA)
Dental Assisting National Board (DANB)
2017
West Haven, CT

3. Write a convincing resume objective

In most cases, a hiring manager will read your resume from top to bottom, so start your resume with an impactful introductory statement called a resume objective.

A resume objective is placed underneath your resume header and consists of 2–4 sentences that highlight your top skills and work experiences.

Let’s break down the different components of this resume objective from a dental assistant resume sample. We’ve emphasized the essential details using colored underlines:

Dental Assistant with 4+ years of experience providing efficient and competent service in busy dental clinics. Able to handle all necessary assistant duties without supervision. Possess a 2017 DANB certification and a Dental Assistant Associate Degree. Provide superb customer service, ensuring patient retention and loyalty for your clinic.

This resume objective is effective because it:

1. lists how many years of experience they have

2. describes the quality of their work

3. expresses their competence by saying they don’t require supervision

4. includes their DANB Certification and related degrees

5. sells themselves as a worker who is skilled and can attract more patients

4. Emphasize your professional experience using hard numbers

One of the most impactful ways to describe your dental assistant accomplishments is through hard numbers.

Hard numbers provide context to an employer by explaining the scope of your accomplishments and mentioning details such as:

1. the number of patients you helped per day
2. percentages
3. other data that show efficiency or improvements that you contributed to

Let’s explore how our applicant uses hard numbers to describe their resume achievements:

• Prepare 15+ patients daily to undergo dental procedures, and assist the dentist with sterilizing or disinfecting instruments, setting up instrument trays, and assembling materials

Working with 15+ patients a day immediately reveals to the hiring manager that this candidate can handle the routine of preparing patients for examination or surgery, cleaning tools, preparing materials, and all other aspects of running a dental clinic.

• Document patient medical and dental histories and vital signs, and record treatment information in patient records with 100% accuracy

Everyone values accuracy and competence, no matter what job you’re applying for. Hiring managers may worry that the candidate they’re hiring is careless and needs constant supervision.

So relieve those fears by talking up your competence. In this case, getting patient records and histories right 100% of the time saves everyone time and increases efficiency in a busy dental clinic.

• Monitor dental supplies and equipment inventory and make orders, achieving 15% reduction in expenses by discovering new suppliers

If you helped your clinic save money in some regard, include it on your dental assistant resume. This kind of achievement makes your competence, intelligence, and value immediately apparent.