Competition For Jobs Locally
While employment for dental hygienists is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected, there could be some competition for jobs in your area. This could be because there aren’t much dental offices hiring hygienists where you live or you’re living in a location where there are just too many dental hygienists.
You can relocate to an area where there’s a higher need for your profession and try to earn your dental hygienist salary there. There will always be places where dental hygienists are much more needed, based on the projection of the labor department. However, moving to another area may not be a possibility for you because of certain reasons, like it wouldn’t be possible because you already have a family that is well settled in where you’re living now. Your concern now becomes how you will be able to separate yourself from the pack and get noticed by your prospective employer first.
There was a time that the answer to this is to create a really good resume. While a good resume is indeed needed, these days, you need more than that. You need to create your own portfolio as proof of your performance.
Portfolios used to be synonymous with artists only, who compile their work so they can show them to galleries and prospective clients who may commission them to do some work based on that portfolio. Today, many occupations are utilizing portfolios to show to employers the skills the applicant have, in addition to the standard resume.
A good portfolio should include evidences that the applicant has the needed skills that are needed for the job opening. Compile letters of recommendations from previous employers, work evaluation copies, including letters from patients that have been served well by the dental hygienists. You can even include before-and-after photos of patients you’ve worked with. Fresh graduates of dental hygiene programs can also create their own portfolios that include the things they’ve learned in the dental program and how they’ve grown personally and professionally while undergoing the training program.
You may be surprised at the result of this when you sent your portfolio along with your resume to employers. Not only will you may be hired for the position, you may also be offered higher dental hygienist salary depending on how much you impressed your employer with the quality of you work that you were able to prove because of your portfolio. All of these may seem additional work but it may make a difference between earning your own dental hygienist salary and continually looking for any dental hygiene job.
Tags: dental hygiene, dental hygienist salary, dentistry career, healthcare jobs, salary