A template for hygienists who deliver clinical prevention and the patient education that makes it stick.
Dental hygienists are licensed clinicians, and prevention is the whole job. You perform scaling and root planing, take radiographs, chart periodontal pocket depths, screen for oral disease, and teach people how to keep their own mouths healthy between visits. Most work in general or periodontal practices, seeing a full day of patients on a tight recall schedule. A normal Tuesday might mix eight prophys, a handful of perio assessments, a full mouth series of x-rays, and a lot of gentle coaching, all to strict infection-control standards. The role rewards a steady hand, sharp assessment, and the people skills to turn a nervous first-timer into a six-month regular. Your CV needs to prove the license is active and the clinical scope is real.
Licensed Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH) with 8 years across general and periodontal practice in Texas. Held a 92% recall return rate on a full daily schedule through gentle clinical care and home-care coaching that patients actually follow. Strong in scaling and root planing, digital radiography, periodontal charting, and local anesthesia administration. Confident running Dentrix and Open Dental end to end.
The first thing an office manager checks is whether your license is active and which state issued it, so put that up top. After that it's clinical scope and retention. A line like "held a 92% recall return rate across a full daily schedule" tells them far more than "cleaned teeth." Show the perio side too, because a hygienist who can run scaling and root planing and patient maintenance carries real production value. Name the software you run, whether that's Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental.
Cover scaling and root planing, oral and periodontal assessment, digital radiography, periodontal charting, patient education, and infection control as your core six. Add the differentiators that win interviews: local anesthesia administration where your state allows it, laser-assisted therapy, and fluoride or sealant placement. List your practice management software and any experience with intraoral cameras or caries-detection tools. Keep each skill specific to a procedure you have actually done, not a vague label.
The biggest one is burying or omitting the active license, which gets a CV screened out before anyone reads the experience. The second is no perio or retention detail, so the reader can't tell a strong clinician from a new graduate. Don't pad with invented percentages either; a recruiter will ask you to explain a "40% improvement" in the interview and a made-up number falls apart fast. And don't list every soft skill under the sun when one concrete recall figure does more work.
One page is plenty for under ten years; two only if you genuinely have the history. Lead with the hygiene license, state, and radiography permit right under your name and title. Group clinical procedures so they're easy to scan, and keep dates in plain month-and-year format like "Mar 2021" so the reader isn't doing math. Save the file as a PDF named with your full name so it doesn't land as "resume final v3" in someone's inbox.
Figures in USD. Ranges reflect mid-level experience (3–7 years). Senior roles and major metro areas typically sit at the top of these bands.
General and periodontal practices want an active hygiene license (RDH or your local equivalent), a current radiography permit, and proof you keep patients on recall. Lead with the license number state, then scaling and perio scope, then any local anesthesia, laser, or cosmetic training. Name your practice management software too, because a hygienist who already knows Dentrix or Open Dental starts producing on day one.
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