5 Marketing Tips for Attracting More Dental Candidates

“How can I get more dental candidates to look at my job post and apply?”

This pressing question is one we are often asked by employers looking to recruit new dental staff for their practices. Recruiting competition among dental offices is stiff these days, even more so with ongoing labor shortages within the dental industry. It’s easy for job ads to sit on job boards, gaining little to no traction. 

While recruitment agencies can help, their services can be costly. Your practice staff likely has their hands full, helping administer and provide optimal patient care. There is limited free time to focus on activities like creating, monitoring, and promoting job ads, let alone reviewing applicants’ resumes to fill open positions. 

So, what’s the solution?

Sitting back and waiting for the ideal candidate to fall into your lap isn’t an option, but there are some tricks of the trade that can make your hiring process more seamless. Let’s take a look.

1. Understand Your Practice Differentiators

What sets you apart from other dental practices? What about your company culture, values, and employment offerings will convince job seekers that working at your dental practice is the best decision they’ll make?

When advertising a new work opportunity at your practice, remember to:

Be Clear on Employment Perks

Don’t be afraid of tooting your own horn about the job’s perks. Production bonuses, flex-time, job sharing, and regular professional training and growth opportunities are examples of the job ‘extras’ that you shouldn’t gloss over, as these may be the things that make your office stand out from the rest.

Clarify your Core Practice Values

Being explicit about your core values will help you attract dental candidates who resonate with what your dental practice stands for. For example, would you consider your office a safe environment to work in? Here we don’t just mean following all health and safety protocols; do you value open, truthful, and respectful communication with team members, and if so, how often and in what way do you encourage it? 

Words that may describe your core values could include “growth, originality, unity, fairness, discovery, competence, independence, reputation, or resilience.” Our Core Values Assessment Worksheet can help you narrow your top five values. Use them to articulate what you stand for to increase your chances of attracting candidates with the right culture fit for your practice.

2. Know Your Market

In our last Dental Job Satisfaction poll, dental professionals revealed that though most enjoy their jobs, three lacking essentials contributed to job dissatisfaction. These were a competitive salary, a healthy work environment, and trust and appreciation.

Are You Offering A Fair Wage?

Dental professionals in the job market seek competitive salaries that match their knowledge, skills, experience, and training. A salary offer that’s less than the going rate for your state and region isn’t going to draw the best dental candidates or encourage applications.

Can You Say Your Practice Culture Encourages Mutual Respect?

A healthy mental and emotional state is fundamental to thriving in a work setting. That said, too many dental practices still allow unsupportive and toxic behavior to run rampant. Offices where gossip, bullying, chronic disrespect, and even sexual harassment are left unchecked, force existing employees to seek alternative employment. When advertising your practice, leverage these insights by letting potential hires know what makes your office a healthy and happy workspace for all. 

Do You Cultivate Gratitude?

Trust and appreciation from patients are commonplace in the dental industry. However, what appears to be lacking is gratitude from employers, supervisors, and colleagues. Simple things, like recognition or praise for a job well done or an employer showing genuine interest in their practice team’s professional development and growth, can go a long way in helping a dental team feel valued in the workplace. 

3. Ask Your Practice Team to Help

Yes, they are busy, but no one knows your business – or what and who is needed on the ground – better than your current dental practice team. Invite your practice team to be part of the recruiting process in the following ways:

• Ask them to write testimonials you can add to job ads. Nothing is more potent to a job-seeker than reading current employees’ positive experiences of their workplaces. Leverage testimonials from your dental team to help paint that compelling picture your ideal candidate needs to apply to your job ad. 
  
• Encourage them to reach out to their networks to help find any interested candidates looking for a job. You can motivate participation by offering a referral bonus for every candidate lead that ends in a hire. 

• Recruit them to sort through resumes using criteria to shortlist possible candidates. Although this seems mundane, your staff would likely welcome the idea of being part of the process. 
  
• Host a group meet-and-greet to get their feel for potential hires. You can set this up after short-listed candidates have completed the interview process. 

4. Leverage Free Marketing Tools and Platforms

Any marketing in today’s world is challenging: as attention spans decrease, it’s the quick, flashy, and catchy ads and platforms to which people are most drawn. Job ads on job boards aren’t much of that. 

So, what can you do to make them stand out? 

• Video is a powerful way to grab a candidate’s attention to leverage job offerings. You can also use video to tell a more compelling story about your practice’s values and work culture. As a dental practice competing for your ideal candidate’s attention, learning how to create a short video won’t hurt. 

Before dismissing the idea, check out the Passes Dental Care job ad to see amateur but compelling video marketing at work. 

What do you learn from this two-minute video that leaves a lasting impression because of how they told their story?

• Canva is a great tool many full-time marketers use to design and create marketing content. Take your pick of thousands of ready-made templates for videos, customizable social media posts, flyers, logos, and more. Canva’s getting started videos walk you through how easy it is to create designs and videos, even with little to no graphic design experience. Should you need more assistance, you can go through their tutorials jam-packed with how-to tips and guides. 

5. Optimize Your Practice Profile on DentalPost.net

Other than your general practice information, your DentalPost employer profile allows you to add a profile photo, as well as images of your practice and team. You can also add a customized introduction to give job seekers more insights into who you are as a practice and team, including your core values, culture, and more.

Use this section to tell a compelling story about your dental practice. Add what you’ve learned about your company culture and unique selling points. Include staff testimonials and links to video content to optimize your practice profile and increase the chance of qualified dental candidates clicking through to apply for a position to work with you.

How DentalPost Can Help Find the Right Dental Candidates

DentalPost’s dedicated job board for dental professionals does much of the heavy lifting for you. 

Our industry-leading, metrics-based career matching algorithms help you find the best dental candidates for your practice. We share your job ads with a database of over 900,000 dental job seekers in the U.S. You can also access job seeker resumes to help you proactively search and find suitable candidates. 

Sign up for your free DentalPost Employer account today!