Dental Assistant resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 17 skills, tools and credentials that come up in dental assistant job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 12
- Chairside assisting (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Dental radiography (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Infection control (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Sterilization (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Four-handed dentistry (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Panoramic imaging (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Intraoral photos (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Charting (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Pediatric dentistry (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Operatory turnover (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- OSHA compliance (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- HIPAA (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Tools & software · 1
- Dentrix (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 3
- CDA (DANB) (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- Registered Dental Assistant (RDA) (used in Marisol's sample resume)
- BLS (used in Marisol's sample resume)
Soft skills · 1
- Patient education (used in Marisol's sample resume)
17 of 17 appear in Marisol's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Chairside assisting
Weak: Skills: Chairside assisting
Strong: Provide chairside assisting for 2 dentists across 14–18 patients a day, including fillings, crowns, root canals and extractions
Intraoral photos, Dentrix
Weak: Skills: Intraoral photos, Dentrix
Strong: Take bitewing, periapical and panoramic radiographs and intraoral photos, and import images into Dentrix for the dentist's review
Sterilization, Operatory turnover
Weak: Skills: Sterilization, Operatory turnover
Strong: Run instrument sterilization and operatory turnover; weekly spore testing on both autoclaves has passed every week since I took it over
Strong bullets come from Marisol's sample resume and our dental assistant bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a dental assistant post asks for Chairside assisting and you've used it, say Chairside assisting, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a dental assistant post says "Dental radiography", write "Dental radiography", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Chairside assisting — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Chairside assisting. A bullet like the one under Dental Assistant in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
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/ Questions
Dental Assistant keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a dental assistant resume have?
There's no magic number. Marisol's sample resume uses all 17 terms on this page, because each one fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a dental assistant post says "Chairside assisting", write "Chairside assisting" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Marisol's sample, Infection control and Pediatric dentistry are in the summary and Chairside assisting shows up in a bullet under Dental Assistant. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a dental assistant resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in dental assistant posts include Dentrix. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list CDA (DANB) and Registered Dental Assistant (RDA) on my resume?
Spell them the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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