A survey conducted by RDH, The Dentistry iQ Network, examines the various hiring trends in the dental industry. A little more than 1,000 people responded to the survey. The respondents include dentists, office managers, dental consultants and others.


The first question posed by the survey wanted to know who really is doing the hiring in dental offices. Close to half of all respondents, some 45 percent said that office managers are responsible for hiring new employees at dental practices. Dentists take hiring into their own hands only 38 percent of the time while dental consultants hire five percent of the time and dental hygienists do the hiring two percent of the time. The remaining percentage (10) fell into the ‘other’ category.


The second question in the survey covers where job seekers are looking for available positions in the dental industry. Of the respondents, 72 percent of people said that they use the internet to find open positions in the dental industry. Even though the internet has become a popular spot for job seekers, respondents also said that they use their current relationships (53 percent) and industry events (9 percent) to find a new job in dentistry.


The third survey question wanted to find out how many dental employees work at more than one dental practice. Not surprisingly, because of industry trends, this number was very high. Of the respondents, some 41 percent of people said that they work at two or more dental practices. The reason for this is that 25 percent of employees said they want to work an additional one to two shifts per week.


This is a growing trend within dentistry. Dental employees could be looking for additional shifts due to a lack of full-time jobs available, fewer hours, or the fact that some dentists are handling the hygiene aspect of the appointments instead of dental hygienists.