Dental Office Manager Resume

Dental office managers work closely with dentists and staff to ensure patients receive high-quality care. If you’re hired, your tasks might include scheduling appointments, ordering supplies, managing finances, and supervising dental staff.

As an Office Manager, your resume should serve as a testament to your capability to improve office efficiency, manage teams, and deliver excellent patient service. Leverage this document to show potential employers your ability to take corrective actions that drive significant improvements, demonstrating the unique value you can bring to their practice.

Letticia Pierrez

So if you’re seeking a role as a dental office manager, you should write a resume that showcases your previous experience, skills, and educational background.

Below are three tips on how to write a dental office manager resume so you can develop a rewarding career in healthcare administration:

1. Introduce yourself with a descriptive professional summary

Demonstrating your ability to successfully manage a dental office on your resume is essential for getting hiring managers to consider you for an interview. An effective way to quickly capture employers’ attention is to include a professional summary highlighting your experience and skills as a dental office manager.

A 2–4 sentence professional summary showcases your top qualifications and lets employers know they should continue reading your application. Here’s what you can include in your dental office manager summary to get the hiring manager’s attention:

• years of relevant experience working in a dental office (if you have any)
• education level and relevant certifications
• job-specific skills
• reasons for applying to be a dental office manager

For example, this applicant’s professional summary highlights their previous experience as a dental office manager and mentions their educational background and dental administration certifications:

2. Highlight your dental office manager hard and soft skills

Dental office managers need a combination of hard and soft skills to succeed in their role.

Hard skills (also called technical skills) are specific knowledge and ability-based talents you’ll need as a dental office manager, such as medical billing and coding expertise.

Also, you should be comfortable using technology, from basic office software (think computers and printers) to dental practice management systems such as ACE Dental or Denticon.

Here are some hard skills for your dental office manager resume:

• Administrative skills
• Computer skills
• Financial management
• Handling insurance claims
• Language skills
• Tracking appointments, medical records, and billing information
• Ordering supplies
• Supervising and training staff
• Working with electronic health records (EHR) systems

By contrast, soft skills refer to interpersonal abilities like how well you relate to your colleagues and patients.

For instance, because dental office managers must communicate effectively with patients, staff, and vendors to keep the practice running efficiently, you should list your interpersonal skills on your dental office manager resume.

Additionally, dental office managers need to have strong problem-solving skills, so note your ability to delegate tasks and stay calm under pressure when the office gets busy.

Have a look at more dental office manager–related soft skills for your resume:

• Customer service skills
• Empathy
• Management skills
• Organizational skills
• People skills
• Positive attitude
• Time management skills

And if you list several soft skills in the skills section of your resume, don’t forget to explain why you’ve included them by describing these abilities using more detail in your work experience bullet points.

For example, here are two resume bullet points describing an applicant’s organizational skills:

• Maintained accurate medical records for 2000+ patients from 2019–2022 and kept each file up-to-date, resulting in praise from the Head Dentist
• Managed a 12-chair dental office, increasing new patient appointments by 20% within 6 months

3. Include hard numbers in your work experience section

Quantify your dental office manager resume with hard numbers and specific details so employers clearly see your value as a candidate. Hard numbers quickly show employers details about the accomplishments on your resume and what kind of results you’ve been able to achieve.

For a dental office manager, these results can include the:

• number of patients you saw per day
• average number of procedures performed per week
• number of staff members you managed
• amount of revenue you increased
• number of appointments you scheduled

By sharing specific details about your experience through hard numbers, you give employers a better sense of your abilities and what it’s like to work with you.

Here’s an example of a dental office manager candidate’s resume bullet points (with hard numbers bolded):

Example of hard numbers on a resume for a dental office manager

• Reduced patient wait times by 30% by researching and purchasing updated dental software and teaching 6 staff members the standard operating procedures for it
• Implemented 2 new marketing campaigns that offered a 40% discount for new patients, resulting in a $15,000+ increase in company revenue