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If you are the owner of a dental practice, or if you are a hiring manager in a dental office, you will be in charge of hiring great dental employees to join your dental staff. 

You might have to hire a wide variety of different positions as well, including dental hygienists, dental assistants, dental front office staff, billing coordinators, and maybe even additional dentists. 

With the extreme amount of candidates on the market that might try to land a job within your dental office, it is important that you know how to filter through all of the resumes, so that you can interview and hire the best candidates possible.

Most Important Qualities of Dental Employees

When you are reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates, it is important to hire people who will fit in with your company culture. It is also crucial that the people you hire obtain qualities that will make them successful dental employees. 

The most important qualities of dental employees are: 

• Organization: Every member of the dental staff will have many responsibilities each day, and will be working with various equipment, instruments, and tools. Having organization skills is important, so that they always know where everything they need is within the dental office.
• Interpersonal skills: Everyone in the dental office will be working directly with patients during some part of their appointments and procedures, so they need to be able to interact with people properly. They also need to be well aware of their feelings and emotions if they are going through a difficult treatment.
• Detail Oriented: If an employee is working in a dental office, they need to be detail oriented. They will need to have a sharp attention to detail regardless of their role, whether they are maintaining patient records and billing, or if they are handling patient teeth cleanings and procedures. 
• Communication Skills: Good communication skills are a crucial part of a successful dental office. The employees must be able to communicate well with each other so they know what to do and how to provide the best quality treatment to their patients. They must also communicate well with their patients, so that they can understand their wants and needs.

How to Hire the Best Dental Employees

Now that you know what qualities are important to look for in possible candidates that you are reading resumes of and interviewing for your dental office, it is time to learn how to hire the best dental employees.

The four most important tips for hiring the best dental employees are:

1. Start with a detailed job description
2. Post the job on dental job boards
3. Include an open-ended question in the application
4. Conduct reference checks

Let’s take a look at all four of these tips in more detail.

Start With a Detailed Job Description

When you are writing the job description for the position you are hiring for, make sure that you give a detailed overview of what that position entails, and what the employee will be doing on a daily basis.

Give specific skills that will be needed during that job, and that will allow the candidate to be successful doing that job. This can help weed out candidates that are not qualified for the job.

Make sure to also include job classifications in the job description as well. This includes if this person will be an employee of the dental office or an independent contractor, if they will be working full-time or part-time, and if they will be paid salary or hourly.

Post the Job on Dental Job Boards

Utilizing dental job boards is a great way to get your job in the attention of qualified candidates across the country, without using much of your effort at all.

There are dental employees looking for jobs all over the country, and many are wanting to move or are willing to move for a job like yours. Don’t spend all of your time advertising around your area, and make use of dental job boards that will give your open job a lot of visibility.

Include an Open-Ended Question in the Application

If the application for your open position simply asks for a resume and possibly a cover letter, you will not get a personal feel for all of the candidates just from the application.

Include an area in the application where you include an open-ended question, such as why do they want to work for your company, or why they think they are the best candidate for the job. 

If some candidates don’t answer the question at all, or if they do not answer it well, then you can knock out those candidates from your consideration already. Following simple instructions is a huge element of any job, and it is important that they can do that.

Conduct Reference Checks

Even though most applications include an area for the candidates to list their references, a lot of hiring managers never reach out to their references when they are considering them for a position.

By conducting reference checks for your top-pick candidates, you can get first-hand information about their daily job responsibilities in their past jobs, and how their work ethic was in those jobs. You can also verify their certifications and licenses this way as well.

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