Dental Hygienist resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in dental hygienist 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 · 13
- Prophylaxis (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Scaling and root planing (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Periodontal maintenance (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Periodontal charting (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Dental radiographs (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Local anesthesia (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Fluoride (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Sealants (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Oral cancer screening (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Patient education (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Infection control (used in Emily's sample resume)
- OSHA (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Recare (used in Emily's sample resume)
Tools & software · 2
- Dentrix (used in Emily's sample resume)
- Eaglesoft (used in Emily's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 3
- Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH) (used in Emily's sample resume)
- RDH license (used in Emily's sample resume)
- BLS (used in Emily's sample resume)
18 of 18 appear in Emily'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.
Prophylaxis, Scaling and root planing, Periodontal maintenance, Fluoride, Sealants
Weak: Skills: Prophylaxis, Scaling and root planing, Periodontal maintenance, Fluoride, Sealants
Strong: See 8–9 adult and child patients a day for prophylaxis, scaling and root planing, periodontal maintenance, fluoride and sealants
Periodontal charting, Dental radiographs, Oral cancer screening, Dentrix
Weak: Skills: Periodontal charting, Dental radiographs, Oral cancer screening, Dentrix
Strong: Take and review dental radiographs and record periodontal charting and oral cancer screening findings in Dentrix
Recare
Weak: Skills: Recare
Strong: Raised the practice's hygiene recare rate from 61% to 78% by booking the next visit before patients left the chair
Scaling and root planing, Local anesthesia
Weak: Skills: Scaling and root planing, Local anesthesia
Strong: Give local anesthesia for scaling and root planing patients under my Colorado permit
Strong bullets come from Emily's sample resume and our dental hygienist 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 hygienist post asks for Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH) and you've used it, say Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH), in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a dental hygienist post says "RDH license", write "RDH license", 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 Prophylaxis — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Prophylaxis. A bullet like the one under Registered Dental Hygienist 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 Hygienist keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a dental hygienist resume have?
There's no magic number. Emily's sample resume uses all 18 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 hygienist post says "Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH)", write "Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH)" 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 Emily's sample, Periodontal maintenance is in the summary and Prophylaxis shows up in a bullet under Registered Dental Hygienist. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a dental hygienist resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in dental hygienist posts include Dentrix and Eaglesoft. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH) and RDH license 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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